I have chosen this monument because everyone in the modern world knows about the famous Count Dracula and, in folklore, the Bran Castle is considered to have been his castle.

The castle is located in the eastern side of Europe, in Romania. It is placed in the middle of the Carpathians Mountains, on the border between Transylvania and Wallachia, two of the historical regions composing Romania.

Its exact position is in the village of Bran, at 30 km from Brasov, one of the biggest cities in Romania after Bucharest.

Bran Castle was originally a fortress built by the Knights of the Teutonic Order in the year 1212. It was known by the name of Dietrichstein at the time.

Later on, towards the end of the 13th century, it was taken over by the Saxons in that region in order to protect the City of Brasov, an important trade center.

Vlad the Impaler used Bran Castle as headquarters for his incursions into Transylvania. This castle should not be mistaken for the actual Castle Dracula (now in ruins), which is located on the Arges River, at a more secluded site.

Later, in the first half of the 20th century, it was used as a royal residence.

This is why the castle's architecture and functionality changed in several points during the rehabilitation/improvement works.

The castle is built on a rock in the narrowest point of the Turcu River valley. It was connected to the side slope of the mountain by a bridge/viaduct, so obtaining a defense gallery. From this position the visibility was very good and even increased when the forest was cut down.

The castle has four towers and the oldest is the Powder House tower, the only one built from the beginning.

In 1622 the Gate's tower was attached; in the meantime, the south wall was strengthened to a thickness of 3.5m, so it can resist to a cannons attack.

A radical change in the functionality and the decoration took place in 1921 when queen Maria of Romania established her summer residence in Dracula's castle. The royal court architect Mr. Carel Liman changed the destination of a lot of spaces, for example: the gunner's room became the royal chapel, the defense gallery of the tower was transformed into apartments for the ladies of the queen's suite. It was also then that he created the fourth floor which was destined to the queen's secretary.

But the most spectacular modification was the installation of an elevator in the fountain from the interior court; with the elevator and through a tunnel Queen Maria could reach the beautiful park down in the valley.

Who was Count Dracula?

Dracula was Prince Vlad the 3rd Dracul, known also as Vlad the Impaler. The Ottomans called him Kaziglu Bey. He was the Prince of Wallachia but, the legends say that he was born in Transylvania, which was under Hungarian possession.

Wallachia was formed in 1290 by Radu Negru (the Black). It was dominated by Hungary until 1330, when it became independent. The first ruler of this new country was Prince Basarab the Great (1310-1352).

Dracula was born in November or December 1431. His baptism name was Vlad. He had an older brother, Mircea, and a younger brother, Radu the Hansom. Their mother was probably a princess from Moldavia or a noble woman from Transylvania. It is said that she educated Dracula in his first years. Later on, he was trained for the dignity of the knight by an old Turkish boyar who fought for the Ottomans.

His father, named also Vlad, was born around 1390 and educated in Hungary and Germany. He served as a page for King Sigismund of Hungary, who became Emperor Roman the Holy in 1410.

Sigismund founded a secret brotherhood of the knights order named Order of the Dragon, to support Christianity and to defend the kingdom against the Ottoman Empire. Because of his victories over the Ottomans, Vlad was admitted in the Order, probably in 1431. The boyars started to call him Dracul, in the meaning of Dragon. His son will be known as Dracula, or " the son of the dragon ". And so the enemies of Dracula, especially the Saxon Germans, names him " Son of Dracul ".

Note: The members of the Order of the Dragon had a special suit which they wore on Sundays. It was a red clothing with a black cape over him… and this is the reason we see Dracula in movies wearing a cape.

At the end of the year 1436 and the beginning of the year 1437 Vlad Dracul killed a rival prince named Alexander and he became Prince Vlad the 2nd .

In 1447, Vlad Dracul and his brother Mircea were killed. The Hungarians put a rival of the Danesti Clan, Vladislav the 2nd , on the throne of Wallachia. Mircea was killed by the boyars and merchants of the city of Targoviste. There are many legends about his death: he was tortured or burned, or buried alive. It looks like his father died the same time. Some say that the assassinations were organized by Hunyadi, a Hungarian general who could have been the illegitimate son of the Emperor Sigismund.

In 1448, the Ottomans released Dracula from slavery and gave him an army. He was 17 years old. It looks like his younger brother wished to stay in Turkey.

With the help of the Ottoman army, Dracula conquered the throne of Wallachia. After two months, Hunyadi forced him to go in exile in Moldavia. Again Vladislav the 2nd became Prince of Wallachia.

In 1456 Dracula invades Wallachia and regains his throne. He establishes the capital at Targoviste - the ruins can still be seen -. Vlad the Impaler is considered an important figure in Romania's history, because he unified Wallachia and he resisted foreign influences.

His subjects respected him because he fought against the Ottomans and he imposed tough rules. He remained in the their memory as a patriot who defied the Ottoman Empire and Hungary. He was the last prince of Wallachia that remained independent in front of the Ottomans.

Dracula created a very severe moral code for the inhabitants of Wallachia. The thieves and even the liars were impaled. Because of that there weren't many crimes in Wallachia during his rule.

In 1462 Dracula attacked the Ottomans to drive them out the Danube Valley. The Sultan Mehmed the 2nd took revenge by invading Wallachia with an army three times bigger than the one of Dracula. Dracula was forced to retreat in his capital in Targoviste. He burned his own villages and poisoned the wells so that the Turkish army wouldn't have any food or water.

When the sultan arrived at Targoviste, he saw a terrifying scene, remained in history as " The Forest of the Hanged ". Outside the city there were 20.000 Turks all of them impaled. The sultan's officers were too scared to go on - Dracula won again.

The Turks and the boyars helped his younger brother to fight against Dracula. Dracula's wife was so frightened that she jumped off the loopholes. The Ottomans conquered the castle but Dracula managed to escape through a secret tunnel and to run out of Wallachia.

The new king of Hungary, Matei Corvin imprisoned him in a tower. Dracula remained in Hungary for 12 years. But he remained the same Dracula. He impaled rats and birds just for fun. Once a thief broke into his house and a Hungarian followed and arrested him. Dracula didn't kill the thief, he killed the officer. Why? Because the officer pretended to be a gentleman and he shouldn't have entered his house uninvited.

According to some records, the brother of Dracula - Radu - died in 1474. The sultan put on the throne of Wallachia a member of the Danesti Clan, Basarab the Old. In 1476 Dracula invaded Wallachia with the help of Moldavia and Transylvania. They drove out of the country Basarab and Dracula became once again Prince of Wallachia. Most members of his army went back home in Transylvania.

The ottomans attacked several months later. Dracula was killed during the battle near Bucharest. Some say he was assassinated on the battle field by his own boyars or that he was accidentally killed by one of his men. The sultan exposed Dracula's head on a spear in Constantinople to prove that he is dead. His body was buried at the monastery in Snagov, which he patronized. But the excavations in 1931 were a total failure because no trace of his coffin had been found.

The Myth

Most of the persons that aren't Romanians remember more of Dracula's cruelty. After he became prince, there is a version according to which Dracula invited many beggars and old people, poor and sick people at a banquet in his castle. When the guests finished eating and toasted, Dracula asked them:" Would you like to be carefree and not to need anything in this world? "

They all answered with enthusiasm " Yes!"

Then Dracula covered the castle with wood and burned it. No one managed to escape alive - and that was the end of their problems, as he promised. " I've done this so that nobody will be poor in my kingdom ", he said.

According to another story, he invited 500 boyars At the banquet and asked the how many princes they had served in their life. They said that they served many princes. Dracula realized that because of them many princes were changed and he arrested them immediately. The older ones were impaled and the others were forced to walk 80 km, to the capital, Poienari, where they were made to build a fortress on a mountain peak. They worked a long time; when their clothes were torn they worked naked. Most of them died. Dracula confiscated the boyars' properties and donated them to his partisans. This way he created a new nobility faithful to him.

Dracula liked to organize banquets and to dine while he was watching people die. His favorite form of execution was impaling. This form was slow enough to leave the victims the possibility of killing themselves. He liked to impale many people at once arranging the spears in many odd ways. Nothing was to brutal for Dracula - he liked to see people skinned, boiled alive, etc. He boasted about his punishments which were fitting the crime.

Until 1462, when he was dethroned, he killed between 40.000 and 100.000 people, possibly even more. He always looked for the appropriate excuse for these executions. He killed merchants who cheated their clients, women who cheated on their husbands. The children weren't impaled. After the punishment he showed the bodies in public so that it would be a lesson for all others. It is said that there were more than 20.000 hanged bodies outside his capital. Of course, the stories about Dracula's cruelty were exaggerated by his enemies.

Dracula despised so much other countries that when two Ottoman ambassadors refused to take off their hats in front of him, he nailed them to their heads. He opposed the Orthodox and Catholic churches because he considered that these helped the foreigners to obtain too much power in Wallachia. He tried to prevent the attempts of the foreign merchants to put out of business the ones of Wallachia. If the merchants wouldn't obey his laws, they were of course impaled.

To prove how much the laws of Dracula were obeyed, he had put a golden cup in the public square. Everyone could drink from it but no one was permitted to take it out of the square. No one dared to break this law.

Once, a merchant visiting his capital let his money bag in site all night thinking it is safe because of the strict laws of Dracula. To his surprise some of his coins were stolen. He complained to Dracula who formulated a proclamation in which he said that the money had to be returned otherwise he would destroy the city. That night Dracula put back, in secret, the missing coins and added one more. In the morning the merchant counted all his money and he saw that they were all returned. He told Dracula about the coin. Dracula said that the thief had been caught and he was going to be impaled. If the merchant hadn't told him about the coin he would have been impaled too.

Nicolae Andrei

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