Hîrjauca Monastery · Mănăstirea Hîrjauca

A monks monastery dedicated to the Ascension of the Lord, in Hirjauca commune, Calarasi district, 58 km from central Chisinau in a straight line, a distance calculated from the coordinates. The monastery site gives 1740 as the founding year of the hermitage, following the researcher P. Crusevan, but a review that retells the history lists at least three versions of the founding, so the date is not settled. Also per the site, the stone summer church was built between 1820 and 1836, while the winter church of St Spiridon burned in 1991 and was still in ruins when the site was last updated, in 2016. Reviews from 2022 and 2023 describe a complex under works: one says the monastery was still being renovated, another that some buildings around the church were in really bad condition, with plastic windows · the newer reviews, from 2024 and 2025, no longer mention this. People come for the quiet, for the forest next door with old trees, some of them state protected, and for the spring that locals call "the source of youth" · to reach it, a review says to enter the grounds, go left all the way to the end, through a gate and on along a path. The Codru sanatorium is next door, mentioned in reviews, and the church is said to be the one on the 10 lei banknote, also per a review. One reviewer wrote in 2022 that the priest did not let them linger inside · a single account, so ask first if you want to stay longer.