The western area of the city of Focșani was in the past colonized by the Armenian community. A testimony of this presence is represented by the Armenian Church of Moldova, mentioned for the first time on the map of the Austrian General Staff from 1789, according to Dimitrie F. Caian, the most important researcher of the history of Focșani. In this prosperous community of Armenians, the Ferhat family stood out, with rich origins. Details of this family can be found in a family portrait sketch available online.
The Ferhat brothers, Ștefan and Iacob, divided the fortune inherited from their father around 1870. The future Bălcescu Park became the property of Ștefan Ferhat. Thus, the property was passed on to Ferhat Șt. Ferhat, then at Stefan F. Ferhat. Basically, the boys of this family were named similarly, with slight variations, throughout the generations.
The last mentioned in this context is Anton Ferhat, who took control of the family's numerous properties and the future Bălcescu Park, before the establishment of the communist regime.
However, one day in the summer of 1946, Anton Ferhat, described as extremely wealthy, was assassinated, according to Varujan Vosganian's accounts. The reasons for the murder vary, whether he was killed by thieves while stealing cherries from his orchard, in revenge for past thefts, or shot by Soviet soldiers in the communist chaos of the regime's early days. The exact details of the event remain the subject of possible future research.
In 1952, the Focșani People's Council, the municipal authority at that time, issued decision no. 424 by which Anton Ferhat's property, including an area of 16,000 square meters, was adjudicated, due to non-payment of local taxes. on Nicolae Bălcescu street no. 9 from Focșani. This is the address corresponding to the land that currently forms Bălcescu Park.
A few years later, in the middle of the park's garden, the bust of the great Nicolae Bălcescu was erected, a work by the sculptor Octav Iliescu, inaugurated in 1961, on the site where the house where the Romanian revolutionary lived temporarily in 1848 was located. The current Bălcescu Park, the larger relaxation space in Focșani, claims that the property was transferred to the municipality by the Ferhat family or their successors, possibly after 1990.
It is worth mentioning that an heir of the Ferhat family married General Henri Cihoski. This name should be immortalized in the current landscape of Bălcescu Park in Focșani, taking into account Cihoski's notable achievements: hero of the War of Reunification, knight of the Order of Michael the Brave, former Minister of National Defense and, above all, victim of repression communists, being exterminated in Sighet prison in 1950.
Nicolae Bălcescu (1819-1852), politician, historian, economist and democratic thinker, was among the leaders of the 1848 revolution in Wallachia and was part of the provisional government. He fought for the consolidation of national unity and for collaboration with Italian and French revolutionaries. He ended his life in Italy, in Palermo.
Sursa: www.ziaruldevrancea.ro
