Mikó Castle

Olteni is situated along the national road connecting Three Chairs with Csík Chair. On the northern side of the settlement and on the right hand side of the Olt River stands one of the significant, unified and complex late Classicistic style buildings of Szeklerland. From the direction of the national road there is a walkway with trees on its sides that leads to the yard of the castle. The main building of the castle is empty at the moment and it is enclosed by the outbuildings that are home to the educational center of mentally disabled children.

As a result of archaeological investigations, we learnt that the buildings were built on the walls of the once existing Roman Castrum. According to the traditions, the castle was built in 1827, on behalf of Count Miklós Mikó, from the stones of the nearby Herecz Castle, gained when its walls were torn down. This fact is emphasized by the inscription on the stone plate built into the wall of the hall with columns. The rectangular shape building has a cellar, ground floor and mansard. Regarding its ground plan and façade, the castle follows the symmetrical composition of Classicistic style. By examining the ground plan composed of the big hall in the central axis and the rooms on its two sides, architect Károly Bugár-Mészáros sees this castle as the ground floor Transylvanian version of the Parisian Élysée Palace.

A unique Transylvanian feature of the castle is provided by the series of relatively well preserved wall paintings, created on the basis of a unified iconographic program. These wall paintings can be classified into two thematically separate groups: the wall paintings of the hall represent certain scenes of the social life, while the paintings depicting the Napoleon Wars decorate the walls of the man suite and on the walls of the woman suite the memories of a European travel are presented. A valuable part of the interior decoration of the castle is the wall covering of the hunting room, its built-in cupboards and door frames, which were made during the modifications at the turn of the 19^th-20^th century.   

In the southern wing of the building, the inlaid parquet floor is in its original state, and here you can see also the two original colorful tile stoves.  After the death of Miklós Mikó, the castle was owned by the Count Mikes family of Zăbala as a result of Miklós Mikó daughter, Eszter’s marriage, and after the First World War it became the property of a well-to-do Saxon of Brașov, Schnutzler Emil. His descendants claimed the building and the property belonging to it.