The Royal Inn in Suceava

A historical monument and the oldest preserved medieval civil building in the city of Suceava, the inn was built at the end of the XVI-th century, as a hosting house for foreign guests and great merchants. It was erected over an older building, within an area for merchant shops, especially pottery shops, during the 15-16th centuries. Along the centuries, it used to be the meeting point where rulers stopped on their way back from hunting in Suceava forests, reason for it was named "Hanul Domnesc" (The Royal Inn). After the occupation of northern Moldova by the Habsburg Empire in 1775, the Royal Inn changes its destination, becoming a hunting house for the imperial family members. The building became a gendarmerie headquarters, then a private property until 1962.


In 1962 it was completely restored, from the cellar to the roof. In the former kitchen of the inn, the oven was reconstructed in the style of traditional Moldovan ovens. On the first floor have been preserved the oak beams of the ceilings of the two corridors. The architectural elements of the period regained with the restoration of walls, the construction of Royal Inn into the cultural tradition of the old medieval inns of Suceava.


The inn houses Bucovina's Ethnographic Museum or the Ethnography and Popular Art Museum. The permanent exhibition at the ground floor reconstruct the atmosphere of an old inn and includes pub room, private salon, recreation room, cuisine, and basement. In the museum are shown over 6 ethnographic micro zones of the county (Suceava, Humor, Câmpulung-Moldovenesc, Vatra Dornei, Rădăuţi and Fălticeni), exceptional pieces of popular high artistic refinement. The museum has heritage and folk art objects (13,000 items); it highlights a series of very old folk costumes, collections of masks, painted eggs or pieces carved in wood, ceramics, textiles, ornaments for holiday, musical instruments, traditional furniture, some exposed even in the reconstruction of interior peasant houses.