Voronet

The Voronet monastery, located in the beautiful village with the same name, is one of the many monasteries from Bucovina, famous for their frescoes. The Monastery was build in 1488 by the greatest ruling prince of Moldavia, Stefan the Great, in a record time-three months and three weeks- and painted on the outside walls during the time of his son, the prince Petru Rares.
Voronet represents a new facet of the Byzantine art. The local artists adapted it to the Moldavian style, lending its softness and warmth, replacing the stern with the warm humanism, the grace and the humour peculiar to those places.
The church is consecrated to 'St. George' and is 29, 50 m long and 7,70 m wide.
The frescoes on the exterior walls are recognised as the most remarkable ensemble of medieval Moldova's painting, blending soft and natural colours on a dark and unique blue background. This color, unique in the world, is known as 'blue of Voronet' and entered the international lexicon of art next to ' Veronese green' or 'Titian red'.
The most important of the frescoes is 'The Judgement Day', painted on the whole western facade, that determined the monument to be called 'The Sistine Chapel of the East'. The scene, the simplest and the most dramatic composition, is processed in a characteristic Moldova way: the souls carried to heaven are wrapped in Moldova's towels, while the souls doomed to the fire of Ghenna wear the turbans of the Turks, the Moldova's enemies. In the painting appear many other Moldova elements. The dramatic scene of 'The Resurrection of the Dead' is performed to the sound of the 'bucium', a native folk instrument. Among the animals that take part in the judgement and have to give back the parts of the human bodies they thorn apart, the deer has nothing to return because in the Romanian folklore it stands for innocence.
In the tower there are two bells from the time of Stefan the Great. The legend says that when the bells are pulled one can hear the prince's name.