At first glance, this building - erected by Austrians for the Orthodox Christians (mainly Romanians, but also Ukrainians and Ruthenians), after the designs of a Czech architect (Josef Hlávka), who combined the Byzantine and Moorish styles, but added several Stars of David on the clock tower - seems to be an oddity. For who knows the history of the city it is not so. Located on the upper course of the River Prut, Chernivtsi (Cernăuţi in Romanian) was part of Principality of Moldavia even since its establishment as a sovereign state in 1359 until 1774, when Habsburgs annexed the northern part of Moldavia and named it Buchenland (Bukovina).
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