Cioabă-Chintescu Kula

Şiacu Village, the commune of Slivileşti, Gorj County

The Şiacu Village is located on a secondary road between the Communes of Slivileşti (from Ploştina – Motru) and Bolboşi (from Turceni). From the Commune road starts a freshly paved road towards the kula found on the astern slope of the Şiacu Hill (approx. 300-400 metres). As a landmark, the building is located opposite the household no. 75.

This is not a public building.

The first founder of the kula was Răducan Cioabă from Slivileşti, who started building the kula between 1818-1819. After the owner’s death, Marin Chintescu from Craiova (married with Răducan Cioabă’s widow) completed the work in 1823. The daughter of the Chintescu family married a member of the Grecescu family from Turnu Severin, the kula was also named Grecescu. As in Cerneţi, the building was inherited on the feminine line in the families Bălteanu and Cartianu. After 1951 the kula was used as warehouse until 1964. Thanks to the project prepared by architect Iancu Atanasescu and implemented through the intervention works in the years 1964-1967, the additions were removed, and the kula was almost restored to its initial form. In 1967, an ethnographic museum of the Commune of Slivileşti was fitted out there, but after 1989 it was abandoned. It continues to be abandoned even nowadays

The kula has thick 80-85 cm walls. The ceilings are straight, the roof truss was made of wood, and the roof of shingle. The building has three floors. The basement has narrow windows. There is one accommodation room on both of the two upper floors, and there is a porch on the highest floor with four round brick-stone columns, with three bays with trilobate arches, and with a bay on each side. The exterior decoration consists of large rectangular panels, one of each side of the level of the first floor, and small square panels decorating the parapet of the porch, two on each arch.