RO22 Discovering Suceava

French and Finnish students visited the Suceava history Museum. It underwent an extensive renovation a few years ago and it now presents the local history with a fresh approach and a lot of interesting exhibits from prehistoric times to  the present. Although the basis of the permanent exhibition is the local history, this cannot be understood outside the national history and general European background: for over a century and a half Suceava has been the residence of Moldavia’s rulers. When the city of Iaşi became ”the new capital”, it  led to the fall of Suceava’s importance and to the damage of the existing monuments. The Austrian occupation  meant the separation of the northern part of Moldavia . The union of Bukovina with Great Romania brought  other necessary changes for the consolidation of the new state. The two world wars, the communist regime meant hardships for the local population in this period. The presentation of history in the permanent exhibition ends in the year 1989 with the anticommunist demonstrations in Suceava in December 1989. The visit was guided in Romanian and translated into English by some Romanian senior students.