Colentina, Bucharest

Colentina is a neighborhood in Bucharest's 2nd district located on the north-east of the city, named after the nearby Colentina River.

A local folk etymology says that the name is derived from "colea-n-tină" (there, in the mud), this being the answer given by a spătar to Matei Basarab, who asked the former where he had defeated the Ottoman army. This etymology is false and its real origin is Slavic, like in the case of other rivers in Bucharest and Ilfov County.

Until the second half of the 18th century, the area of today's Colentina was forested, as it was on the map of Stolnic Constantin Cantacuzino. Nevertheless, archeologists found traces of small settlements in Colentina, dated from the 6th-7th century; in one of such settlements, archeologists found a Justinian-era Byzantine bronze coin dated 539.

The village of Colentina located near the Plumbuita Monastery was first mentioned on the map of H. C. Schütz of 1780 and on I. F. Schmidt's 1788 map. An Austrian map of 1791 shows the village as being located at the crossroad of the routes leading to Fundeni, Afumați, Ștefănești, Pipera with the high road bound for Bucharest. The earliest houses were built at the crossroad and around the Cârstienești Bridge across the Colentina river, close to the gate of the monastery.

Soon after, the Plumbuita Monastery, which owned the land in Colentina built and rented (embatic) grocer's shops, pubs, inns, as well as agricultural land. In early 19th century, among the renters was the Paharnic Andronache Teohari, whose name was given to the Andronache estate in Northern Colentina, the name being still in use today.

The houses were built especially along the road towards Bucharest, while the houses on the island of the monastery were still spread out. Due to this, in 1837, the ocârmuitor of the Ilfov County asked the hegumen of the monastery to plots for the peasants on the domains to build their houses according to a plan. The people who settled in Colentina were a heterogenous mix: some were Romanians from across Wallachia, others were Greeks, Bulgarians or Serbs.

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