Stephen, the Great Monument, is located outside the main entrance to Stefan cel Mare Park, downtown Chisinau. The bronze monument commemorates Stefan cel Mare (“the Great”), Moldova’s Greatest ruler who successfully defended the country from the Turkish invasion in the 15th century. The statue was cast in Bucharest in the early 20th century at the cost of 4,000,000 lei. It was intended to replace the Russian Emperor Alexander II’s monument, which was demolished in 1918 by the Romanian authorities. Sculptor Alexandru Plamadeala traveled far and wide to find a portrait of Stefan cel Mare prior to starting the work on the monument. It is said that the sculptor had made three different copies of the memorial, one of which stands today. Over the years, the memorial has been moved from place to place several times. A few days before the 1940 Soviet occupation of Bessarabia, it had traveled to Vaslui in the eastern part of Romania and then back to Chisinau in 1942. After that, in 1944, the monument was again sent to Romania. Eventually, after a long while, in 1989, it was restored in Chisinau’s original location. The inscriptions on the monument also have been restored. Nowadays situated in the center of the city, the Stefan cel Mare monument is one of the top attractions for tourists visiting the Moldovan capital.