Cajvana is a small town in Suceava County, northern Romania, and its tree is watched around the clock. The town hall runs a live webcam on its oak, reported as the largest in south-eastern Europe: 11 metres round and about 23 metres tall. Radiocarbon dating puts it at roughly 810 years old, and the Romanian Academy declared it a natural monument in 1942. Two local legends, a 13th-century mass grave and a 15th-century prince's visit, are both told as lore rather than fact.
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The Oak from Cajvana
Pedunculate Oak (Quercus robur) · roughly 810 years · Cajvana
The town of Cajvana keeps a camera on its oak around the clock, and anyone can watch it live on the town hall's website. That is how seriously a small place in northern Romania takes a tree reported as the largest oak in south-eastern Europe: 11 metres round and about 23 metres tall.
Its age has been tested rather than guessed. Radiocarbon dating put it at roughly 810 years, give or take 75, so it began growing somewhere between the mid 12th and the late 13th century. The Romanian Academy declared it a natural monument in 1942, in the middle of a war.
Two stories come with it, and both are told as legends rather than history. The first says it was planted around 1241, after the Tatar invasion, to mark a mass grave. The second says that in 1476 Stefan cel Mare, prince of Moldavia, rested his troops in its shade and was served cas, the local fresh cheese, which is supposedly where Cajvana got its name. Neither can be checked. The radiocarbon date at least allows both.
What can be checked is that it is alive and looked after. A plaque and a bas-relief stand beside it, the town calls it living heritage, and the webcam shows it standing on any day you care to look. It is free and open in the town itself; Suceava, the nearest city with a railway station, is about 25 kilometres away.
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