​In a historic district that is significant for Bucharest’s past, in Chirigii, the old customs house where caravans carrying valuable goods entered the city accompanied by chirigs (guards) on horseback, the house of the merchant Dumitru Vangele has been brought back to life.

The facade of the merchant Vangele’s house Photo: Antoinette Dohotariou

The building is an architectural monument and is located in a row of merchant houses (as part of the “architectural reserve”), as well as the buildings of the former customs house from the 19th century, now in ruins.

The residence of the merchant Dumitru Vangele is located in a special suburb, the old customs house, where carts with goods accompanied by guards/protectors on horses, “carriages”, entered the city from Kalea Kraiova.

The territory of “Gura Văii”, where the customs office was located, bordered the estates of monasteries and boyars in the town with vineyards. Two main arteries lead from the city center to today’s Chirigii intersection, Calea Rahovei – the old Cale a Craiova (since 1550) and Boulevard George Kosbuk, a new thoroughfare laid in 1898 under the name Boulevard Regina Maria.

Read on B365.ro the story of an unusual building built in 1915 and restored with the help of a bank loan.