Mihai Vodă Church

Notice how odd this scene is: a late 16th-century church squeezed between apartment blocks, as if someone had left it here by mistake. In a way, that is exactly what happened. This church is not where it was built.

1The church of Michael the Brave

It was founded by Mihai Viteazul, Michael the Brave, in the 1590s. He is the prince who in 1600 briefly brought Wallachia, Transylvania and Moldavia under his rule, which is why Romanians see him as a forerunner of national unity. The monastery stood on top of a hill above the Dâmbovița river; from 1864 it housed the State Archives.

2The journey of 1985

When Ceaușescu decided to build his Civic Centre, the whole hill had to go. The monastery's outbuildings and walls were torn down. To save the church, the engineer Eugeniu Iordăchescu proposed an astonishing solution: cut it off from its foundations, set it on a platform and slide it along rails using hydraulic jacks. In 1985 it travelled 289 metres in this way and was lowered 6.2 metres onto this plot.

It was not the only one. Between 1977 and 1989 about twenty Bucharest churches were demolished and another eight were moved, almost always to spots hidden behind tall blocks so they could no longer be seen from the new boulevards. Churches that, quite literally, walked.

What could not be demolished without a scandal was hidden instead.

3What to look for

• The surrounding blocks, built to screen it from view.
• The bands of brick and stone on the walls, typical of Wallachian churches.
• The bell tower, one of the few surviving parts of the old monastery.