Cișmigiu Garden is located in the center of Bucharest, and is “flanked” by 2 important avenues of the Capital: Queen Elisabeta Boulevard and Schitu Măgureanu Boulevard. It has 5 entrances and is one of the historic monuments of Bucharest, being the oldest public garden of the city.
Cișmigiu’s origins come from 1779, when the ruler of Wallachia at that time, Alexandru Ipsilanti, ordered the construction of 2 drinking fountains in the city. The first was built on the place that is occupied by Cișmigiu Garden today (the entrance from Șerban Vodă Street). It became quickly a hotbed for infections, right in the heart of the city. Dumitru Siulgi-basa, the chief of the works over the water fountains in the city was nicknamed “marele cișmegiu”, and built his residence near the drinking fountain. The pond was called “the lake of Dura the Trader”, but this name was forgotten with time, ”Cișmegiu” being preferred. The lake’s level kept raising almost every year, because of floods, and it increased to the place where the Military Circle stands today.
The pond was drained in 1830, at the order of the general Kiseleff, and the land was transformed in a public garden. However, the works started 17 years later, in the time of the ruler Gheorghe Bibescu, when the former director of the Imperial Gardens of Wien was called, in order to finish them.
After the ruling of Bibescu, the next ruler, Barbu Știrbei has decided to dig a pond and to create a canal that would make the link with the river Dâmbovița. What follows is the most important year in the Gardens’ history, 1852, when, for the first time, the Garden is surrounded with grooves and 100 benches, made out of oak trees, are set up here.
