Under the sheet of water you see from the crest lie the home sites of 16 drowned villages, of the 23 that were moved: lanes, churches, cemeteries and the raftmen's road. Over 18,000 people were forced to move their households out of the water's way. Scroll back through time: the lake drains, the valley returns, and at the end you ride the lost Bistrița on a raft and search for your village.
Scroll: you are going back, toward 1 July 1960.
Marius Comper · 3 October 2026
The gates close
On 1 July 1960, with Dimitrie Leonida present — the author of the 1908 diploma project for a plant at Stejaru, far surpassed by the finished works — the last gate closed, and the lake was officially “born”. At the normal 509-metre level the lake would have 35 kilometres, 3,260 hectares and a maximum volume of 1,250 million cubic metres. The forced relocation of the 22 villages had run through the whole 1950–1960 decade — some left only when they saw the water near their house; the dead of two cemeteries had been moved to Chirițeni Hill, along the road later called the Road of the Dead. But graves nobody knew of anymore stayed under the lake, as the Hangu schoolteacher would later say.
That October the first turbine, 27.5 MW of the plant's six and 210 MW, started up. The works ended in 1961 with a 127-metre dam — the tallest gravity dam on the country's inland rivers.
The emptying
The villages empty
Before the water came, the valley emptied of people. 22 villages were moved in part or whole; 14 villages and localities were abolished by the decree of 27 August 1960 (effective 15 September) — 9 of the valley sites: Poiana Teiului, Lețești, Răpciuni, Fârțigi, Hangu, Gura Hangului, Poenari, Cârnu and Poiana Cârnului.
The wooden Holy Archangels church of Răpciuni, from 1773, was saved in 1958 and taken to the Village Museum in Bucharest. The Izvoru Alb church, begun in 1897, was carried to the new village and rebuilt in 1962. The concrete church at Gura Hangului, begun in 1922 and built with railway rails set in reinforced concrete — reportedly one reason it could not be taken apart like the others — was dynamited on 22 May 1959. People fled to the hills and made other houses and households.
The worksite
A wall grows between mountains
The works began in November 1950, with the country's electrification plan. Between Gicovanu and Obcina Horștei rose a wall 435 metres long and 127 metres high, of 1,652,000 cubic metres of concrete in 30 blocks. The 4,655-metre tunnel pierced Mount Botoșanu to carry the water to the Stejaru turbines.
Thousands of prisoners laboured here — in the early years mostly political ones — alongside soldiers and youth brigades. The county portal speaks of “hundreds of human lives” lost; a tunnel explosion killed around 30 people. The cost: about 1.7 billion lei of that time.
The valley
The Bistrița before the dam
Before the dam, the Bistrița ran here in its own bed: 33.9 kilometres of river from Bicaz to today's lake tail, traced by us on the pre-dam sheets. Along it, the 23 sites: Cârnu and Poenari in the narrows, Secu and Izvoru Alb on the banks, Buhalnița on the Bistricioara, Hangu and Fârțigi in the meanders, Răpciuni, Lețești and Schit under Ceahlău, Poiana Teiului and Poiana Largului at the tail, among others.
The houses on the map are a hamlet impression, not a survey: the village sites come from the sheets, every house is drawn by us. The course and the sites come from the sheets; today's depths over them are modelled from the reconstructed valley floor (±3 metres on the drowned course).
the pre-dam river, after the sheets
the light above the drowned sites
The raft
The raftmen's road
The Bistrița was a major rafting way toward the Danube ports, and its course runs on through the Siret to the Danube. Ride the raft down through the villages that would drown: Poiana Teiului, Călugăreni, Lețești, Răpciuni, Gura Hangului — as far as Hangu.
The ride is illustrative, not at the rafts' old speed: we found no measured speed to put it to, so the raft moves at the pace of your scrolling.
Today
The light above the sites
Today, at the normal 509-metre level, the water is 78 metres over Cârnu, 65 over Poenari, 50 over Buhalnița, 27 over Hangu and 14 over Răpciuni. 16 of the 23 sites are under water; 6 stayed on the hills — among them the former Audia, called Hangu since 1968 after the drowned village whose people it took in — and Poiana Teiului is at the waterline (0.8 metres — within the lake-tail error margin).
The new villages sit on the slopes above the old ones: search for your village below and see how many metres of water cover its site.
Look for yourself
Pick a year, then turn the valley with the mouse or a finger. The wheel, a two-finger pinch or the + and − buttons zoom in and out.
The valley in figures
Every number comes from our measurements on the sheets or from the sources below; method and errors are in the next section.
The valley's long profile, from the dam toward the lake tail: the modelled bed, the 509 (retention), 434 (technical drawdown) and 420 (the pre-dam Bistrița's level at the dam) levels, with the sites above. Drawn from the page's data.
How we rebuilt the valley
The river on the sheets
We started from the 1:20,000 firing plans, pre-dam editions available georeferenced via eHarta geo-spatial.org: on them the Bistrița is still a river, with villages, roads and bridges. We traced the course by hand, in 61 points, from Bicaz to the lake tail: 33.9 kilometres — the trace smooths the small meanders, hence the gap to the lake's 35 kilometres. Sheet joins drift by about 250 metres in places; the trace smooths them, and our validation rule asks every point to lie on today's lake within 200 metres.
The valley floor
Above the water the terrain is the Copernicus GLO-30 model. Under the surface the radar sees only water (here caught at 499 metres), so the pre-dam floor is modelled: the channel follows the traced course, with a long profile whose markers are read off the sheets — 450 at Ruginești, 477 at Hangu, 508 at Poiana Teiului — anchored at 420 metres at the dam, above the modelled 412-metre bed — and the banks rise to today's shores. It is a reconstruction, labelled as such wherever it appears.
The sites and the depths
The 23 sites sit after the sheet names, within ±150 metres of tracing and georeferencing error, each pulled to the low home ground by the river (up to 360 m from the sheet label); 5 are approximate (±300 m) and marked. Depth is the normal 509-metre level minus the modelled floor by the site (±3 metres on the drowned course). At the lake tail, where the river ran near the level, depths are a metre or two — a hand of water over the site.
Hangu on the pre-dam sheet: the river, the houses, the church. The trace's source, via eHarta.
What we do not know
Rețeș, one of the 22 names on Ciubotaru's list, appears neither in the 1960 decree nor on our sheets: we keep it in the list, with no dot on the map. The 23 dots are the list's other 21 names, plus Gura Hangului (from the decree) and Gura Largului (from the sheets). The rafts' old speed we found measured nowhere, so the story's raft rides illustratively. The sheets' exact print years are unverified — we only know they are pre-dam editions, because they show the river, not the lake.
Trace correction (3 October 2026): the first trace took the river at the dam up the Izvorul Muntelui stream valley; checking against the terrain model's lake caught the mistake, and the course now runs through the Cârnu narrows.
Sources
The 1:20,000 firing plans, pre-dam editions — the Bistrița's course, the sites, the river levels, via eHarta geo-spatial.org.
The Copernicus GLO-30 terrain model, the Copernicus programme, ESA — the relief above the water.
Decree no. 299 of 27 August 1960 (effective 15 September 1960) — the abolished and founded villages, via Lege5 and the Wayback Machine.
The Neamț county portal, Lake and dam Bicaz (presentation + history) — the engineering data, 18,000 people, 2,300 households, via the Wayback Machine.
The “Dimitrie Gusti” National Village Museum, Răpciuni Church — the 22 villages, the 1773 church saved in 1958.
Sister pages: Bicaz Gorge (the narrows downstream).
Questions
How many villages were moved for Lake Bicaz?
22 villages were moved in part or whole, after the Village Museum; the decree of 27 August 1960 (effective 15 September) abolished 14 villages and localities — 9 of the valley sites: Poiana Teiului, Lețești, Răpciuni, Fârțigi, Hangu, Gura Hangului, Poenari, Cârnu and Poiana Cârnului.
How many people left their homes?
Over 18,000 residents from nearly 2,300 households, after the Neamț county portal.
How deep is the water over the villages?
At the normal 509-metre level the water is 78 metres over Cârnu, 65 over Poenari, 50 over Buhalnița, 27 over Hangu and 14 over Răpciuni; at Poiana Teiului, at the waterline (modelled floor near 508 metres, by the 509-metre level).
Does anything show at low water?
At a technical drawdown to 434 metres every site comes out of the water except the Cârnu pit, which stays under about 3 metres.
Where is the Răpciuni wooden church?
At the Village Museum in Bucharest, moved there in 1958: the Holy Archangels church, dated 1773 by the notch on its door.
Why is today's village called Hangu?
Because that is the name given in 1968 to the former Audia, where the people of old Hangu had been relocated; the old site lies under 27 metres of water.
