Cetatea de Scaun a Sucevei

History

Moldavian prince Petru I Mușat built this fortress in the late 14th century to serve as his princely seat, and his successors — most significantly Stephen the Great — kept reinforcing it as part of a chain of strongholds meant to stop Ottoman advances north. Suceava served as Moldavia's capital from 1388 until 1565, and despite repeated sieges the fortress itself was never taken by an invading army; it was ultimately its own side that wrecked it, when a later ruler had it partly demolished to keep it from falling into rival hands. Left abandoned for roughly three centuries afterward, it was first restored under Austrian rule by architect Karl Adolf Romstorfer in the early 20th century, then again under communism in the 1960s, and most recently through an EU-funded project begun in 2015. Its ramparts overlook the town from the same hill Moldavia's princes once ruled from.