The Fortress of Bologa, Cluj County, Romania

Bologa village, a wonderful place at the foothills of Vladeasa mountains, where I spent

the most beautiful part of my childhood.

Bologa is a village in the county of Cluj, Transylvania, Romania (Latin Resculum; in

Hungarian: Sebesvár). Here are the ruins of a Roman camp and a medieval fortress.

The Fortress of Bologa (Sebesvar) near Huedin is less than an hour away from Cluj, a

fortress practically like in the Verne's novels.

Smothered by wild vegetation and ignored by the majority of Romanians, Bologa's

fortress sits perched on a ridge today hardly accessible, from where you can see the

surrounding valleys. Hard to believe the ivy cover the walls, but Bologa is one of those

fortresses that really felt the meaning of war. Where you put that at some point it belonged to

Mircea cel Batran, located hundreds of kilometers further south ?!

The fortress of Bologa first appears in the official documents in 1319. It was built, most

likely in the late thirteenth century, across the river from the old ruins of a Roman fortress. With

its massive stone walls and four towers, The fortress of Bologa had the role of supervising the

road leading along the valley Crişului Repede (Repede = Quickly).

King Sigismund donated the Fortress of Bologa to Mircea the Old (Mircea cel Batran)

in Brasov after the signing of the treaty of alliance against the Ottoman Empire in 1399.

Strategic point on road that leads to Oradea, the fortress served as a refuge for local

people in times of need. It gained prominence in the seventeenth century, when the Ottomans

conquered Oradea and prevent the action for tax collection. Sultan ordered its demolition, but

the order was not carried out. It was destroyed later, by the Lobonts, by explosion. The tower

and much of the remaining walls still standing. In the middle of the twentieth century the tower

lost its roof, probably the last wooden element of the ruins. All that's left is stone.

With its great walls and two towers remained standing The fortress of Bologa reminds

us today its former importance.

Some personalities of the past associated with the place: Charles Robert Anjou,

Sigismund of Luxembourg, Mircea the Old, Istvan and Ladislau Banffy of Losonc and Károly

Kos (architect).Less