“As there were mutinies in the days of Prince Constantine Cantemir, Cossack, Polish and Moldavian mercenaries came to plunder the wealth of the monastery. But since the tower was strong, they did not succeed. So they told the monks to give up the tower promising not to take anything from the monastery treasures. But the monks didn’t believe them and refused to surrender. So the Cossack, the Polish and the Moldavians set the monastery on fire and the monks, fearing the arson of the monastery, surrendered the tower. Then, as they had water guns, those Cossacks, Poles and Moldavians extinguished the fire. And they took from the tower the boyars’ and merchants’ possessions, everything that they could sell or boast with. They didn’t take anything from the belongings of the monastery, except for Prince Stephen’s bow.” (Ion Neculce, The Chronicle of the Country of Moldavia).

The tower that Ion Neculce mentions is the only construction belonging to Putna Monastery which has preserved its original shape since the time of its founder. It has also kept its initial name: Treasury Tower or the Tower of the Treasures, which clearly speaks of its function: keeping the monastery treasures in times of hardship.

Eighteen meters tall up to its eaves, the Tower was built in Gothic‑style, with four solid buttresses and it consisted of a squarely shaped ground floor and three octagonal upper floors. Measured on the outside, the side of the ground floor square is 9 meters long and the wall is more than 2 meters thick.

On the inside, vertical access is ensured by a narrow spiral stairway built in stone, whose top is embedded in the eastern wall of the tower. The stairway gets natural light through three narrow windows and the massive foundation also functions as a buttress.

The squarely shaped room on the ground floor is not connected to the outside. It is almost 6 meters high and it has a brick dome‑like ceiling.

At the first floor, passing through a door resembling the one at the entrance, one can reach an octagonal room whose interior sides are 2.25 meters long each. Unlike the ground floor room, this room has a vaulted ceiling on eight Gothic ribs and two extremely narrow windows on the western and southern walls.