Ion Luca Caragiale House

ION LUCA CARAGIALE HOUSE In order to ensure a secure income for his family, Ion Luca Caragiale decided in 1893 to invest in public catering establishments, so when he was 41 years old, he leased in Buzău, between November 1894 – November 1895, the restaurant of the town’s train station, in association with Teodor Duţescu-Duţu, his brother-in-law. I. L. Caragiale lived in this house, together with his wife, children, mother-in-law and a niece from his wife’s side, in three rooms and a kitchen. The young Ştefan St. Stănescu, father of Suzana Gâdea, leader of socialist culture in the last years of the communist era, was the manager of the restaurant contracted in Buzău train station. The restaurant’s cashier was handled by a niece of the playwright, and as a cook he had hired a master of the profession, Iani Balcaz Ibrişimgiopol, former cook of the sultan at the great harem in Constantinople. Although he could not complain about the supply or the turnover – the city’s train station was, at the time and for a long time after, a quite frequented point – Caragiale gave up, after a year, the business with the restaurant in Buzău train station. A business with which he was at loss, since, on 20th October 1895, he had to auction a piano, a library and a wardrobe in the city’s public garden, in order to pay his debt of 500 lei to creditor I. Goldfeld. The testimony of Paul Heinrich, a fifteen-year-old teenager, son of the owner where he lived, was clarifying for the failure of the writer’s business: „he went less often to the restaurant in the train station, mostly for meeting friends or acquaintances. He was kind-hearted, cheerful and very close to the children in the train station neighborhood, being often seen surrounded by them, telling them stories or making toys for them”. The house has withstood the times also due to the fact that the area of the Train Station was not touched by demolition and systematization, although the danger was menacingly getting close towards the end of the 80s, when Lenin Boulevard was systematized (today, 1 Decembrie 1918). In the last years of the communist era and the first years of the post-December period, a neighborhood tavern operated here, frequented mainly by railway men and travelers in a hurry, who tried to satisfy their hunger and thirst with a few lei. The building is registered and marked as a historical monument, and a marble plaque is placed on the wall with the text Ion Luca Caragiale (1852 – 1912), the greatest Romanian playwright, lived with his family in this house, between November 1894 and November 1895, when he had under concession the restaurant in Buzău Train Station. He left deep traces in the history of our city, where he was highly appreciated and respected by the residents who considered him to be from Buzău.