Valeni Hermitage has an impressive age, being mentioned for the first time in a document from 1536. Over the centuries, three churches have been built at Valeni Hermitage.
The first church was built at the establishment of the hermitage by the noble family Grădineştenii in the period 1691-1692, more precisely by Zaharia Grădişteanu.
At nearly 100 years after its founding, during the Russo-Turkish War of 1788-1793, Valeni Hermitage was almost destroyed, so the Bishop of Arges – Iosif I – moved the last remaining monks to Robaia Monastery and brought nuns from various abolished hermitages to Valeni Hermitage.
The second church was erected in 1883-1884 and collapsed during the earthquake of 1940.
The third and current church was completely rebuilt after the earthquake of 1940.
The cells at Valeni Hermitage represent an authentic model of traditional peasant architecture.
At the hermitage, there was a building destined for the weaving workshops of the nuns who, in the past, lived thanks to the cotton and carpet weavings.
There were two types of looms, one larger for the Oltenian carpets and another for cotton weavings.
Currently, the nuns at Valeni Hermitage work on priestly vestments.
Here, at Valeni Hermitage, is the house where G. Topîrceanu’s parents lived, and where he spent the first part of his life.
George Topîrceanu was born on March 20, 1886, in the “Elena Doamna” Asylum in Bucharest, where his mother, Paraschiva, worked as a carpet weaver. This occupation brought her to Valeni Monastery, where the nuns had weaving workshops. George Topîrceanu attended three primary classes in Şuici.
His mother worked at Valeni Monastery as a carpet weaver. In the third grade, he composed his first verses and then called a classmate behind the school where he read him a few stanzas from a poem. It ended with the verses: “Come on, Romanian brothers / Let’s rush into the pagans.” The classmate to whom George Topârceanu recited these verses said to him, “What will you give me not to tell the teacher?” The poet’s reaction was prompt: “Two slaps on the face.”
George Topirceanu is known as a poet for his joyful and sad ballads, among which the most famous is probably “The Ballad of a Tiny Cricket.”
Continuing northward, on the Topolog Valley, along a forest road of 33 km, one can reach the foot of Negoiu Peak, which was considered for a long time the highest mountain in Romania.
