Consideraţii noi privind cetatea de piatră de la Orheiul Vechi
New considerations referring to the stone fortress of Orheiul Vechi

Summary/Abstract: The stone fortress of Orheiul Vechi (Old Orhei), known as “the citadel”, was located on its north-western outskirt of the River Reut right bank, on a cape surrounded from three sides by water and high steep cliffs, between the modern villages of Trebujeni and Butuceni. In the 60s of XIV th century that place was a large eastern-type settlement, identified as the New City (Shehr al-Jedid / Yangi-Shehr) or the westernmost urban settlement of the Golden Horde Empire. And after 1370 the Moldavian city has originated there, known today as the Orheiul Vechi. Recent archaeological investigations have shown that the citadel was built in the times of the Golden Horde. It’s the only fortress of the Moldavian principality, adapted to the early structure like the brick building of the elongated plan and included the ancient Turkic mausoleum in the XIX th century. Some scholars believe that this is the palace of Emir Demetrius, who converted to the Christianity, while others see in this structure the khanqah the abode of dervishes, the “Muslim monastery” (khanqahis in Persian - and khaneqa and khanegah arises from it; tekke is in Ottoman-Turkish, and tekije and takia arises from it; zauiyah is in Arabian, from which comes zawia and zaouia). We believe that the hypothesis of the construction of the palace of the Tatar prince Demetrius is an improbable one, the version of the khanqahis is much more convincing. At some point, the khanqah from OrheiulVechi could turn into a fortified khanqah, with some features like both the abode of the Sufis and the eastern ribat. As an analogue, we can offer a fortified khanqah of Pir-Guseynon the Pirsagat River (Azerbaijan) and a fortified khanqah of Hoca Ahmed Yesevi from Turkestan (Kazakhstan). It is possible, that the Golden Horde authorities were planning to build other objects here and, perhaps, they would like to create a memorial and representative complex, playing the role of an important outpost of Islam in the western possessions of the Golden Horde.

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