Moldova: Manuc Bey Mansion in Hincesti

Manuc Bey was a colorful figure in regional history – an Ottoman merchant of Armenian descent, he became a big politician and deal maker in the early 19th century. As a grain merchant he amassed considerable wealth and was even supposed to be nominated as the ruler of Romania by Ottomans before the plans collapsed. He then settle in the modern day Moldova and acted as the chief mediator between the Russian and Ottoman armies in the Russo-Turkish Wars, with the 1812 Peace Treaty signed in the inn he owned on Bucharest. He spent most of his life at his estate in the tiny Moldovan town of Hincesti, where a lux mansion remains to this day.