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Wikipedia 30 December 2007
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26 December 2007 On this Christmas Day we invite you on a trip down memory lane, to some places in Romania where traditions are more alive than ever. Guesthouses keep their doors wide open, awaiting visitors. We start our journey in Bucovina, northern Romania, one of the regions in Romania where old customs and traditions are best preserved. Lucy Glacer, owner of a guesthouse in Bucovina: “A custom that we observe every year is going to church at 11 pm on Christmas Eve. Everybody attends the mass of the Birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ. After mass, grownups who feel up to it go carolling all night long. Tradition has it that on that night people most open the door to anyone who comes knocking and to to accept their carolling. You cannot refuse.” Next day, on Christmas Day, the whole family sit around the Christmas table. We asked our host from Bucovina whether the dishes they serve are traditional: “Of course they are. We have a lot of dishes specific to our region. You probably know that Bucovina was under Austro-Hungarian domination for almost 150 years. The Austro-Hungarians influenced a great deal the cuisine in this area, influences which have been preserved to this day.” Alongside main dishes made of pork or goose meat, also remarkable are the poppy seeds pound cake and the traditional cake from Bucovina, made with wheat and honey. As for drinks… Well, if you’re thinking of having a glass of wine, maybe it’s not the best choice. Not if you want to stick to local traditions. Lucy Glacer: “In Bucovina people don’t drink a lot of wine. Some of our local strong drinks are tuica, a kind of plumb brandy, afinata, a spirit made of blueberries or another kind of spirit made of strawberries and raspberries, called zmeurata. Women prepare these berries’ spirits all throughout summer, to have them when winter comes. They are all our traditional alcoholic beverages.” Another Christmas tradition Romanians observe is Ignat, the killing of the pigs on December 20th. After they slaughter the pig, poeple prepare all kinds of traditional dishes: sausages, smoked ham, thick sausage, which are all going to go on the family Christmas table. The ritual of sacrificing the pig is followed by a kind of celebration, a pork meal served to all those who attended or helped in the killing of the pig. Our next stop is in the village of Oarda, in Alba County in central Romania. We visited Sorin Marginean, who modestly recommends himself as a mere peasant. When we got there, he had just killed the pig and was now preparing sausages, thick sausage and what Romanians call jumari, small pieces of fried ham. We asked Sorin Marginean to tell us how thick sausage is made: “First you boil everything: meat from the pig's head, some beef, kidneys, and heart. They are all nicely chopped into small bits, with spices added, and then you make some jelly out of pig skin, to make them stick together. Then you stuff everything into a casing made of a large intestine, you boil it for about 10 minutes, and let it cool and smoke at least for one day.” Next, our journey took us to the nearby village of Romos, in Hunedoara County, where we foudn a Morris dance ensemble. On Christmas Eve the dancers go caroling from door to door. Ioan Igna, a local of the Romos village and a former Morris dancers, will tell you more about the ensemble: “Our Morris dance ensemble carries on old Christmas traditions from our region. In our village, Morris dancers go caroling on Christmas Eve. Then, on Christmas Day, December 25th, they dance for their host, while on the second day of Christmas they dance for anyone who invites them into their homes, like friends and relatives.” While dancing, the Morris dancers also sing traditional carols. To end our journey, we invite you to listen to a carol the Morris dancers from Romos village usually play for their host. |
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Wikipedia 22 December 2007
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20 December 2007 The Bucharest daily newspaper GARDIANUL bluntly writes: “Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin’s paranoia towards everything reminding him of Romania has reached its climax”. On Wednesday, Radio Romania’s correspondent to the Republic of Moldova (a former Soviet republic with a majority Romanian speaking population) fell victim to the communist head-of-state’s fits. Together with the correspondents of the Romanian National Press Agency Rompres and the television station Prima TV, Radio Romania correspondent was denied access to Voronin’s press conference. Still, the Romanian journalists received from the pro-Western Moldovan newspaper TIMPUL a recording of the President’s statements, which bring nothing new to the picture. Voronin launched a maniac attack against neighbouring Romania. The Moldovan President has secreted Romanian-phobia his entire life. A former activist of the single party and a general in the repressive Soviet apparatus, Voronin had to be worthy of his positions by promoting Stalinist ideas. In 1940, when the Russians occupied Romanian eastern territories which currently make the Republic of Moldova, Moscow tried to justify its actions by crediting the existence of a so-called Moldovan people, speaking a language other than Romanian. Specialists from Romania and Moldova or the Western world ( and after the fall of the Kremlin communist regime even those from Russia), reject such an appalling distinction and point out the historical and cultural union between the two states. The linguistic argument is actually a weak pretext. This month, Chisinau expelled, with no arguments, two Romanian diplomats, evoking Cold War practices. Making up foreign enemies and unleashing, once again, his anger against Bucharest, President Voronin tries to cover up, in a pre-electoral year, the total failure of his two successive presidential terms. He is further than ever from keeping his promise of re-establishing Chisinau’s authority on the breakaway region of Transdniester, in the east of the Republic of Moldova. The illusion of the revival of the economy was shattered, while in all specialized classifications Moldova still ranks as the poorest European state. Any ambitions for a European integration seem ridiculous as long as the despotic and abusive communist power does not even fulfil Brussels’s political requirements. Speaking for Romania, Romanian President Traian Basescu said that Bucharest would not take similar measures and it would not respond to Chisinau’s challenges. He recalled that communism did not succeed anywhere and said he was convinced that it would also fail in the Republic of Moldova. |
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20 December 2007 CHISINAU (Reuters) - The mayor of Moldova's capital Chisinau, who backs closer ties with neighboring Romania, has scored a symbolic victory over the ex-Soviet state's communist president in a duel focusing on rival Christmas trees. Municipal staff on Thursday decorated the city's tree by the town hall, but the operation was not as easy as it seemed. It had initially been erected near the government offices only to be removed overnight to make way for the government's own tree. "We have been putting up a Christmas tree for 12 years, but this is the first time I have seen such a mess. And such a fight over where to put it," said Eugenia Bondarenco, who works for the city firm that supplied its tree. Moldova and Romania broadly share a common history and language but are locked in a row over borders and national identity, with President Vladimir Voronin furious at Bucharest's suggestions that his people are merely ethnic Romanians. And though both countries are predominantly Orthodox Christian, Romania's independent church marks Christmas on December 25, while Moldova's, part of Russia's Orthodox Church, follows the old Julian calendar and celebrates on January 7. Admiring one or the other of the firs, and at which point in the festive season, clearly betrays one's political convictions. "We want to take a step forward to Europe," said Chisinau's Romanian-educated mayor Dorin Chirtoaca, 29. Chirtoaca had the tree erected by government headquarters on December 9, but municipal workers sealed off the area with metal barricades and took the tree to a park. It was later allowed to stand by the town hall, 300 meters (yard) from the government building. The government tree has yet to be erected in keeping with the Russian tradition of waiting for the run-up to the New Year. The mayor uses every occasion to expand ties with Bucharest. Two days after his election he met Romanian President Traian Basescu, who this week called Moldova a "sea of Romanians" and offers its people fast-track citizenship. Voronin, the only communist leader of an ex-Soviet state, accuses Romania of "permanent aggression" against his much smaller state, which also has longstanding links to Russia. Moldova last week expelled two Romanian diplomats. Romania, now a European Union member, refuses to sign two treaties with Moldova, saying they would legitimize borders set after the Soviet Union seized large areas of Romanian territory. (Writing by Ron Popeski) |
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18 December 2007 Dozens of people died and hundreds were injured in Timisoara, the city that initiated a mass protest against the communist rule which engulfed the entire country and led to Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu’s ousting. The first signs of tension emerged in Timisoara on December 15, 1989 when a small group of people gathered in front of the house of reformed Bishop Laszlo Tokes, unhappy with the communist authorities’ decision to move the pastor to another city by force. The people initially demonstrated in peace but later in the evening began singing “Wake up, Romanian” and chanting slogans against Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. The following day, the demonstration spreads across the city and the riots develop a more pronounced anti-communist character. The demonstration moves to the city’s centre, where the first violent clashes with security forces take place. Dozens of people are arrested, while news of the protests reached Bucharest. On the evening of December 16, Ceausescu talks to Timisoara local leaders and orders fire at will against demonstrators without previous warning. Early in the morning on December 17, the city’s streets were packed with army tanks and soldiers. In order to justify their force intervention, security forces say there were packs of hooligans raiding the city and robbing stores. Demonstrators however, determined to continue protests, boo the marching troops and start throwing rocks at them. More and more people flood the streets, yelling “Down with Ceausescu, don’t be afraid, down with communism.” Security forces open fire on protesters later in the afternoon, after the latter make their way into the communist party’s headquarters in the city and start throwing out and destroying all the documents and archives, along with the portraits of the Ceausescus. Meanwhile, 11 high-ranking officers from the leadership of the militia, the Securitate and the army, arrive in Timisoara, determined to keep the situation under control. Later in the evening, the city becomes real hell, with security forces continuously firing at protestors. Dozens of people, the figure varying between 60 and a hundred, are killed. Demonstrations fade in intensity on December 18 and 19 following the brutal crackdown. On the evening of December 18, the bodies of all the people shot by security forces are taken from the city’s morgue and transported to Bucharest, where they are cremated. The ashes are thrown in the sewer, in order to cover up the traces of the repression. However, it was already too late to stop the anti-communist movement. On December 20, Timisoara is flooded by thousands of workers. About 100,000 people gather in the city’s centre, yelling slogans against the communist leadership, such as “We are the people,” “the Army is with us,” and “don’t be afraid, Ceausescu is falling down.” On the morning of December 21, Ceausescu is calling a mass assembly of workers in front of the headquarters of the Communist Party’s Central Committee in Bucharest, with the intention of publicly denouncing the “Timisoara riot.” During his speech however, participants start booing and dispersing. Small groups gather in front of the Intercontinental Hotel and start protests. Army and security forces gradually join protesters, which already start riots in several important cities, most prominently in Bucharest. Losing the Army’s support, Ceausescu and his wife try to flee on board a helicopter, but they are caught and arrested. They are executed after a mock trial three days later. Up to this moment, violent clashes continue in several cities, but it still remains unclear who is fighting who. Reports varied, speculating that it was members of the Securitate loyalists to the communist rule that fought against demonstrators, while others suggested the existence of foreign terrorists. No report was ever confirmed. According to official figures, a total of 1,142 people were killed in the 1989 Revolution, while 3,138 were injured and a further 760 were arrested. |
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Wikipedia 18 December 2007
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17 December 2007
worldwide - but Chisinau must wait (AFP) CHISINAU—With Christmas just days away, most Western cities are resplendent with twinkling lights, wreaths, and lavishly adorned Christmas trees. Chisinau, by contrast, conspicuously lacks a tree. In its place: a bitter political feud that is spoiling many a Moldovan's holiday spirit. The dispute began earlier this month when Moldova's Communist president, Vladimir Voronin, declared that the traditional holiday tree would appear on Chisinau's main square only on December 30—days after Western Christmas. Chisinau's new, pro-reform mayor, Dorin Chirtoaca, had different plans. "We thought that the Christmas tree shouldn't come after Christmas," says Lucia Culev, the deputy mayor of the Moldovan capital. "The mayor then ordered that a tree be erected and decorated by December 23, so that December 24 or 25 could be a proper holiday." Treeless On December 9, accordingly, a Christmas tree went up on Chisinau's main square. But the mayor's initiative was short-lived. That night, police removed the tree and blocked off the site. In televised remarks, the city's police chief declared he had no intention of obeying the mayor's directive, even if it meant breaking the law. Like Russia, Moldova officially celebrates Christmas on January 7, according to the old Julian calendar. But growing numbers of Moldovans now prefer to observe Christmas on December 25, particularly in the capital, where the tree's removal has upset many. "All European countries put up Christmas trees as soon as December 1," said one woman in the city center. "Even in Moscow, in Russia, they have Christmas trees, beautiful ones. Why not here?" "I would like the Christmas tree to come earlier, because it's a national holiday and it should be celebrated in a bigger way," a man added. "December 30 is too late; people travel to the city center and have nowhere to go. Some go to expensive restaurants where they can have a good time. But the Christmas tree is available to everyone; that's where most people converge." East Vs. West, Old Vs. New Nearly all Moldovans are Orthodox Christians. Some are loyal to the Russian Orthodox Church, which follows the Julian calendar. Others, however, are members of the Romanian Orthodox Church, which celebrates Christmas according to the new Gregorian calendar, on December 25. Voronin's decision to postpone the tree's debut until the final days of the year belies not only his pro-Russian stance but his communist loyalties as well. In the Soviet era, New Year's was the main winter holiday, and fir trees traditionally went up on or around New Year's Eve. Advocates of the December 25 Christmas say there is no sense celebrating the birth of Christ according to one calendar and the new year according to another. The row has a certain comical dimension. But Igor Botzan, a Moldovan political analyst, says alarming tendencies lurk behind the squabble. "It would be very funny if it weren't so sad," says Botzan. "In this country, no initiative, not even holidays, can be carried out without the president's approval. This dispute has to be viewed within the context of the ongoing conflict between the central authorities and the opposition." Political Feud This is, in fact, the first time Chisinau residents have been denied a Christmas tree before December 25. Voronin's government has not publicly taken responsibility for the tree's removal. But many view the move as retribution for the election this year of 29-year-old Chirtoaca, a dynamic opposition figure, who took the post after years of communist mayoral rule. "The ruling party's popularity is dropping. It's lost almost 20 percent over the past two years," Botzan says. "That's why during the [June] local elections, the president declared the end of the political partnership with the opposition, and launched a fierce campaign against the opposition." Many see the Christmas tree ban as a direct result of that campaign. They say it can also be interpreted as a hostile gesture toward neighboring Romania. Relations between the two governments soured after Romania vowed to ease legislation allowing Moldovans to obtain Romanian citizenship, prompting Voronin to accuse Bucharest of undermining his country's national security. In the meantime, Chisinau residents may have to brace for more spoiled celebrations. Christmas is the second holiday to be marred by political feuding. On October 14, border guards attempted to bar Romanian mayors from reaching Chisinau, where Chirtoaca had invited them to attend City Day festivities. City Day happened to coincide with Wine Day, a celebration overseen by Voronin—and no Romanians, seemingly, were welcome. |
1989 - Antigovernment demonstrations erupted in Timişoara, Romania, beginning the revolution that toppled the communist leader Nicolae Ceauşescu from power a few days afterward. |
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Wikipedia 15 December 2007
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10 December 2007
Ion Fiscuteanu, a Romanian stage and film actor known to international audiences for his role in “The Death of Mr. Lazarescu,” died early Saturday in Bucharest. He was 70. Romanian news reports said the cause was colon cancer. “The Death of Mr. Lazarescu,” directed by Cristi Puiu, won the Prix un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005, a watershed moment in the current renaissance of Romanian cinema. Mr. Fiscuteanu, who went on to win acting awards for his performance at the Copenhagen and Transylvania film festivals, appears in nearly every frame of the movie. He plays Dante Remus Lazarescu, a Bucharest pensioner who lives in a drab apartment with his cats, his health problems and his fondness for liquor. The film chronicles the last night of Mr. Lazarescu’s life as he shuttles from one hospital to another, confronting the indifference of the Romanian medical system and finding succor only from a harried medical technician played by Luminita Gheorghiu. Fleshy, unshaven and haggard-looking, Mr. Fiscuteanu is painfully believable in the role. “He looked like a real person, not an actor,” Mr. Puiu said in a telephone interview, recalling the qualities that had first attracted him to Mr. Fiscuteanu. “Nothing glamorous, but something strong and powerful and very alive.” “He said, ‘There is no actor in Romania who will do this character better than me,’ ” Mr. Puiu remembered. “I thought this was actor’s ego, but he was right.” After meeting Mr. Fiscuteanu, Mr. Puiu said, he changed his conception of Lazarescu to accommodate the actor’s Transylvanian accent, but in the course of the 40-day shoot the two men often disagreed about how Lazarescu should be portrayed. “He was a strong character with strong ideas,” Mr. Puiu said of Mr. Fiscuteanu. “Every day he told me how much he hates Bucharest, how much he hates his character, how much he hates playing this character, but he accepted it and had to go to the end.” Ion Fiscuteanu was born in Bistrita, in northern Transylvania, on Nov. 19, 1937. He studied acting in Bucharest and worked in theater companies in his native region. Starting in the 1980s he appeared regularly in films, including “Glissando” (1985) and “Jacob” (1988), both directed by Mircea Daneliuc. After the 1989 revolution he continued to work in both theater and cinema. He also wrote short stories and poems. He is survived by his wife, Maria Serb, and their two children. |
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Wikipedia 8 December 2007
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6 December 2007
No squeaking pigs should be heard across the muddy glens across Romania come this Christmas, the first since the country joined the European Union in January 2007. At least that is what Brussels bureaucrats have requested from a land where tradition demands pigs be slaughter in every rural backyard on the eve of winter holidays. Still, the heirs of a pig farmer famous for his dramatic appearance in a traditionalist novel of long ago promise to stick to their tradition and slaughter the pigs as they've done it for centuries. For such dare, Hungarian farmers were applied heavy EU fines after their European accession in 2004. Lica Samadau was a pig breeder that appeared in a famous Romanian novel as a harsh man who ruled over a village with an iron hand. That is, until law enforcers of a century ago began hunting him down for his wrongdoings. He eventually had to choose between prison and death - and opted to smash his head against a tree. His heirs are still living in the village of Mocirla (Romanian word for 'mud'), and they are still breeding pigs. But this year was the first the villagers there were not allowed to chose a pig herder, who was usually picked from among the poor on January 1 of every year and given some food and money to take care of the livestock for the next 12 months. This time around, as Romania joined the EU, authorities banned the practice. Pigs are no longer to be seen in the meadows and forests near the pond on the village outskirts. These are the European rules. And this is how pig breeder Lica Samadau was killed once again. Mocirla, the village of literary resonance Mocirla is a village close to the Western Romania city of Arad. This is where Lica Samadau left with his stock to make a fortune. It is not easy to get there as the roads are muddy, slicing the deserted surroundings under flocks of crows. On a street banner in the middle of nowhere, a poster depicting a grinning Gigi Becali - the businessman-politician who believed he could make it to the European Parliament in the recent EP elections that took place in Romania, but failed. From the forgotten poster, he tells locals he wants to lead them into the EU. They answer back: move away with your darned Europe. The local priest's home: Sunday fish is baking while an old woman, Catita Pele, the grand-daughter of Lica Samadau, sits beside the stove with a cat on her knees. She doesn't know who invented these new rules on breeding pigs and says they're harmful for the local community. Bony face, huge hands cut by strong veins, thin lips of a manly cut, Catita Pele throbs at hearing her grandfather' name. "Lica was a brave man. So was I. Or how would I dare leave to Bucharest when I was 14? I worked as a house maid there, I earned some money and bought some and my brother and I returned home and rebuilt Lica's home, then a ruin as nobody else of his kin was around". "We've been breeding pigs as long as we've been around. We had stocks of four hundreds, we herded them across the land, just as Lica did with his stock". "But what would they do with the pigs, now?", old Catita wonders. "I don't know who invented this new stuff, 'cause he did no good. Everything breaks apart!" There's a pink house in the muddy village. On its porch, a forgetful old lady has a pig for sale. She sells it cheaply—some 600 Romanian lei (less than 200 euro). Unless she manages to sell it to a foreign client, she'd sell it to the guys who come from the city of Arad by car to buy pigs—4-5 lei per kilo. "Is it expensive? Alas, how much we fed it... It's not worth the effort anymore!" Slashing throats and boiling blood Mocirla was thus named long ago, after the muddy pond where pigs used to bathe. It was then renamed Vasile Goldis, after a politician "who had his role in bringing Greater Romania together in 1918 and whose house is now deserted - the yellow one with geese in its gate", as a local says. Next to it comes the hose of Florea Goldis, the politician's grandson. He has a marked pig and shows us his housuehold, built on pig-breeding business for more than 80 years. He is skeptical: I wouldn't imagine the vet reaching his house to sacrifice the Christmas pig in proper conditions when Christmas comes. A gun? Hoh-hoh! Shortly before Christmas Eve, locals used to leave a pig running around, squeaking with dread through the yard, hunt him down, slash his throat and let women collect its blood in a through. Florea Goldis tells how it all goes. "Some eight-ten men would come at dawn, to have a good sight of it. We'd let the pig in the yard to run around, like it is out in the fields, and the men would make some noise, hunting the pig, pretending they'd not catch it, then slash his throat". The blood collected in a through would then be boiled, the animal would be burned whole to clean it up, then cut to bits and pieces. An epoch-old tradition, which the heirs of Lica Samadau promise to stick to from now on despite EU orders. These say that in order to slaughter a pig a vet must come around with a tranquilizer gun, shoot the pig and let it be sacrificed without suffering, in a clean environment. What now? Back in 2006, as Romania was preparing for EU accession, authorities in Bucharest issued an order making the new practice compulsory throughout the country. But they failed to prepare the means for that to be possible. In late November 2007, the National Vet Authority management met with the Veterinary Doctors College to pass the responsibility for applying the new procedures as soon as possible, as Christmas is getting near. They failed to reach an accord. Vets would follow the procedure if they wanted to, but it's not compulsory. There are some 80 vets In the county of Cluj. We spoke with some, and none was ready and willing to go tranquilizer gun in hand and kill some pigs: in one single morning, at around 7 a.m., some fifty households in one village would like to have their pig slaughtered—all simultaneously. That would seem rather impossible as an average of six-seven villages come under the supervision of a single vet, Alexandru Duma, head of the top vet authority in Cluj says. But it doesn't end here. Authorizing butchers under EU rules means having them state their incomes, pay taxes and undergo psychological tests. Butchering pigs is a tradition that nobody has ever paid taxes for in rural Romania. And using tranquilizer guns is at least funny, if not dangerous to think of as the whole slaughtering ceremony includes large amounts of booze as a rule. The practice is also met extensively in Hungary despite it having to comply with the EU regulations since it joined the EU in 2004. But the country received a hefty fine because of the continuing tradition. Romanians have a long tradition breeding pigs—some four million bred yearly and fed on the leftovers from rural meals and whatever would not be useful in any other purpose. Pork was the cheapest food to have around when Romanians faced the communist rule and the famines of the first half of the 20th century. But now Romania has entered the hypermarket era: it's shown by the never ending queues at stores across the country, where pork is sold by the hundred grams, in colorful, clean wrappings. And the taste—what about the taste, when you have such a beautiful wrap? |
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6 December 2007
According to traditions all over the world, Saint Nicholas is one of the most beloved characters, as he brings lots of joy and presents. Bucharest - December 5 is one of the most beautiful days of the year, as Saint Nicholas is expected by everybody, to leave his presents in our boots. Beside the commercial aspect of the Saint Nicholas Day, celebrated by both Catholic and Orthodox believers, he is considered one of the most beloved Saints according to popular traditions, as he brings joy to the homes of Christians, and especially to children. His kindness is depicted by several legends. They say that he has rescued the daughters of a poor aristocrat from perdition, as he secretly threw a bag of gold in the aristocrat’s house, during the night, so that the man could assure the girls’ dowry. According to the legend, Saint Nicholas threw the gold for the third daughter through chimney, and it fell in a sock that was drying there and this is the origin of the tradition of hanging socks at the fireplace. They also say that, after his travel to the Holy Land, trying to remake Jesus’ travel, Saint Nicholas returned to his native country, on a ship. A storm started, threatening the ship. Then, the Saint prayed to God, and the storm suddenly stopped, to the surprise of the sailors. Thus, Saint Nicholas became the protector of sailors, fishermen and travelers. Disobedient children are warned by their parents that they will receive only twigs if they do not improve their behaviour and this is the origin of the analogy of the Romanian tradition, mentioned by writer Ion Creanga – disobedient pupils ride the “white horse” and receive the “blessings” of “Saint Nicholas” in his novel “Childhood Memories” (the “white horse” is a special chair and “Saint Nicholas” is the twig used for beating them, editor’s note.) Saint Nicholas was born in the Middle East, in the third century, under the reign of Emperors Diocletian and Maximilian. He was the Bishop of Mira, a city located on the territory of contemporary Turkey. He was acknowledged as a Saint during the sixth century. He was born in a wealthy family and, after his parents died, he inherited their entire fortune and used it in order to help people in need. The Holy Scriptures describe him as a special child. According to the Writs, he only sucked his mother’s right breast and, on Wednesdays and Fridays, he refused the milk until dusk. He died in the year 340 and, since 1087, his relics are preserved at Bari, in Southern Italy, as the Crusaders carried them home from Mira. He is the spiritual protector of Russia, Holland, Greece, and of the regions Apulia and Sicily (in Italy), Lorraine (in France) and of several cities in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Belgium. In Bucharest, at the Saint George Church, the right hand of the saint is placed in a box, and thousands of pilgrims travel there every year. |
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30 November 2007 For the first time in its history, Romania celebrates this year its December 1 national holiday as a European Union Member. A landmark in the history of the Romanian nation state is added today to the collective memory of a united Europe. But what exactly happened 89 years ago, a time which has left behind no survivors, but only their written memories? On December 1, 1918 in spite of the short time for preparations, 100,000 people gathered in Alba Iulia, representing the entire Romanian nation in Ardeal, Banat, Maramures, Crisana, the Baia Mare and Satu Mare areas - from the Carpathians to the Tisza River. It was the first proof of an in-depth sense of urgency involved by that moment: the establishment of a state that would bring together all Romanians. As many as 1,228 delegates elected from constituencies as well as representatives of all the Romanian political, economic, cultural, religious, military and sports rendered the event a plebiscite nature. Under the patronage of Romanian church leaders from across the mountains, bishops Ion Papp and Demetriu Radu, leaders of the national and political arena such as Gheorghe Pop de Basesti, Stefan Cicio Pop, Iuliu Maniu, Teodor Mihali, Vasile Goldis, Alexandru Vaida-Voievod, Ancel Lazar, Ioan Suciu, Ion Flueras, Iosif Jumanca, Tiron Albani, Enea Grapini coordinated the assembly works. After the religious service at 7 AM in the Orthodox and Greek-Catholic churches, at 10 AM the works of the National Assembly of Romanians in Transylvania, Banat and Hungary were opened, and the Declaration of the Romanian National Council was read. After a review of developments in the history of the Romanians in the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy, Vasile Goldis read the Resolution under which “The National Assembly of all Romanians in Transilvania, Banat and Hungary, gathered through their legitimate representatives in Alba Iulia on November 18 / December 1, 1918 decree the unification of those Romanians and of all the territories inhabited by them with Romania.” Justifying its name and drawing on the centuries of oppression experienced by the Romanians in Transylvania, the Assembly also put forth the fundamental principles for the foundation of the new Romanian State, which included equal rights and freedoms for all co-inhabiting ethnic groups, religious freedom and autonomy, a democratic political system based on universal, direct, equal and secret suffrage, freedom of speech and of association, a radical agrarian reform, labour legislation in line with that of the most advanced Western states. Unanimously endorsed, the Resolution thus became the unification act of Romanians in Transylvania with the Kingdom of Romania. On the same day when the Alba Iulia Assembly declared the unification of Transylvania with Romania, at 9 AM King Ferdinand I of Romania entered Bucharest, accompanied by Queen Maria, heads of the Romanian Army - Generals Constantin Presan, Ieremia Grigrescu, the French General Henri Mathias Berthelot. They were welcomed by the Government, the diplomatic corps, the metropolitan bishops of Walachia, Moldavia, Bucovina and Basarabia. The religious service was followed by a military parade in front of the statue of Michael the Brave. Just days later, a delegation was arriving in Bucharest, headed by Iuliu Maniu, Vasile Goldis, Alexandru Vaida-Voievod and Aurel Vlad, to communicate the Resolution of the Alba Iulia Assembly to the King. On November 10, 1918 Romania had entered the war alongside allies France, England, Italy and Serbia. And while a truce had been signed on the Western front the very next day, for a devastated and famished Romania the war was still to last. Battles on the Transylvanian front, freeing Dobrogea, freeing Bucovina to Ceremus, the defence of the Dniester line to the Black Sea. The Romanian army was only to be discharged in the summer of 1920. With the Peace of Versailles, European decision makers acknowledged the achievement of the Romanian national unification, under the treaties of Versailles, Trianon, Neuilly and Sevres. It was also the logical upshot of a principle that the European officials had turned into a keystone of the construction of our continent ever since the 1856 Treaty of Paris: the principle of nationalities. The unification of Transylvania was the conclusion of a historic process that had been launched ever since the winter of 1917. On April 9, 1918 the Country Council – the democratically elected representatives of the entire population of Moldova between the Prut and Dniester rivers, splintered from the Russian Empire – declared the unification of this province, known as Basarabia, with the Kingdom of Romania. Later the same year, with the dismantling of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire – a “prison of the peoples” just like the Tsarist Empire – the Romanians in Bucovina represented by the National Council decided, on November 28, 1918, the unification of this part of Moldova with the Kingdom of Romania. Thus, December 1, 1918 completes this splendid process of unification of the Romanian nation. We are bringing this fragment of memory to Europe this year, with the hope of a future achievement of the complete re-unification of the Romanian nation within the European Union. A European dimension is added today to our national identity as shaped through the resolutions of the national assemblies that concluded on December 1, 1918. |
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26 November 2007
Eugène Ionesco Romanian Eugen Ionescu Romanian-born French dramatist whose one-act “antiplay” La Cantatrice chauve (1949; The Bald Soprano) inspired a revolution in dramatic techniques and helped inaugurate the Theatre of the Absurd. He was elected to the French Academy in 1970. Ionesco was taken to France as an infant but returned to Romania in 1925. After obtaining a degree in French at the University of Bucharest, he worked for a doctorate in Paris (1939), where, after 1945, he made his home. While working as a proofreader, he decided to learn English; the formal, stilted commonplaces of his textbook inspired the masterly catalog of senseless platitudes that constitutes The Bald Soprano. In its most famous scene, two strangers—who are exchanging banalities about how the weather is faring, where they live, and how many children they have—stumble upon the astonishing discovery that they are indeed man and wife; it is a brilliant example of Ionesco's recurrent themes of self-estrangement and the difficulty of communication. In rapid succession Ionesco wrote a number of plays, all developing the “antilogical” ideas of The Bald Soprano; these included brief and violently irrational sketches and also a series of more elaborate one-act plays in which many of his later themes—especially the fear and horror of death—begin to make their appearance. Among these, La Leçon (1951; The Lesson), Les Chaises (1952; The Chairs), and Le Nouveau Locataire (1955; The New Tenant) are notable successes. In The Lesson, a timid professor uses the meaning he assigns to words to establish tyrannical dominance over an eager female pupil. In The Chairs, an elderly couple await the arrival of an audience to hear the old man's last message to posterity, but only empty chairs accumulate on stage. Feeling confident that his message will be conveyed by an orator he has hired, the old man and his wife commit a double suicide. The orator turns out to be afflicted with aphasia, however, and can speak only gibberish. In contrast to these shorter works, it was only with difficulty that Ionesco mastered the techniques of the full-length play: Amédée (1954), Tueur sans gages (1959; The Killer), and Le Rhinocéros (1959; Rhinoceros) lack the dramatic unity that he finally achieved with Le Roi se meurt (1962; Exit the King). This success was followed by Le Piéton de l'air (1963; A Stroll in the Air). With La Soif et la faim (1966; Thirst and Hunger) he returned to a more fragmented type of construction. In the next decade he wrote Jeux de massacre (1970; Killing Game); Macbett (1972), a retelling of Shakespeare's Macbeth; and Ce formidable bordel (1973; A Hell of a Mess). Rhinoceros, whose protagonist retains his humanity in a world where humans are mutating into beasts, remains Ionesco's most popular play. Ionesco's achievement lies in having popularized a wide variety of nonrepresentational and surrealistic techniques and in having made them acceptable to audiences conditioned to a naturalistic convention in the theatre. His tragicomic farces dramatize the absurdity of bourgeois life, the meaninglessness of social conventions, and the futile and mechanical nature of modern civilization. His plays build on bizarrely illogical or fantastic situations using such devices as the humorous multiplication of objects on stage until they overwhelm the actors. The clichés and tedious maxims of polite conversation surface in improbable or inappropriate contexts to expose the deadening futility of most human communication. Ionesco's later works show less concern with witty intellectual paradox and more with dreams, visions, and exploration of the subconscious. Additional Reading Surveys of Ionesco's life and works include Nancy Lane, Understanding Eugène Ionesco (1994); and Deborah B. Gaensbauer, Eugene Ionesco Revisted (1996). |
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17 November 2007 If I shut my eyes and think of Romania, I smell apples and hear horses
The steady clip-clop, but rather the more urgent clippety-clop, clippety-clop of a horse or two pulling a covered wagon down the homeward straight. On my atlas of Central Europe, published in Budapest on the eve of the World War II, there is even a horse map, each dot representing perhaps 100 horses. The dots, not surprisingly, become more heavily concentrated the further east your eye wanders. What would a horse map of Europe look like today, I wonder? A great white blank for much of the continent but still a healthy number east and south of the rusty old Iron Curtain, like red ants on the page, down over Romania and parts of the Balkans. There are still an astonishing 750,000 carts registered in Romania as a whole. Yes, carts, not cars. But now the horses and their owners are in trouble, and it seems they have nowhere to turn. A new law which bans them and their wagons from all main roads because they are blamed for 10% of all road traffic accidents in the country, is a cruel blow, aimed by the bureaucrats in Bucharest at the solar plexus of their own peasantry. Confiscation threat I met Andorin Gligor in the mountain village of Arieşeni, where I stood in the market place asking passers-by what they thought of the new regulation. No-one had a good word to say about it. Andorin suggested that we go and talk to his father, as long as we did not mind a good walk in the deep snow up the mountain to his house. I stepped in his tracks in knee-deep, dazzling snow between the pines, leaving the village far below us in the valley. The horses were cantering wildly about the small yard when we arrived, bells ringing round their necks, enjoying the snow as much as any child might. They scared the hens from under their hooves, and were watched by a slow-chewing, wide-eyed calf lying in the straw from the safety of the stable.
Ilarie Gligor arrived and tamed the horses in a moment with a soft word and a cob of corn. He led them both with one hand and harnessed them to his cart as we spoke. "It takes a long time to take care of horses," he began, "twenty-five, 30 years of my life." What worries him most is if the police follow through on their threat to confiscate any horses and carts they find using the roads. So far they have just warned people. "If that happens," he says simply, "many people will starve. "Winter here lasts seven months. We use the horses for everything: to travel, to plough the fields. "But especially to take timber from the woods here down on to the plains to sell. And with the money, we buy food to bring home." Long winter A significant proportion of Romania's population lives from subsistence farming. The mayor of Arieşeni, Marin Giurg, admits it is a big problem, especially in places like this where the main road runs right through the middle of the village. As mayor, all he can do is to try to gather funds for alternative roads. But where the mountains slope down so steeply, it is difficult to see where he would build them.
The prefect, the top state official for Alba county, is Cosmin Covaciu. "It's difficult to convince people not to drive fast," he explained. I searched his face to confirm he is talking about drivers of cars, not their more ancient wooden equivalents. "But they're in a hurry to get to their homes or their businesses." Speeding fines He told me how many new speed detection devices the county had bought in the past few years and how, right across Romania, the penalties for breaking the limit have increased dramatically. But he admitted that the regulation on horses was not well thought-out. "That's an issue in Romania all the time," he said, rather offhandedly. "We put legislation in place and we don't find solutions for the people concerned." Like the mayor, he sees the answer in the long run as the construction of side roads for horses and carts. Back in his yard, in snow as white as the icing on a Christmas cake, Ilarie climbed up into his cart to show me his brake pedal.
"Why could they not just ask everyone to wire this up to some lights on the back, like a car?" he suggested. "Or tell everyone to put reflectors on the back?" "It may happen from time to time," he added, "that a driver falls asleep at the reins, but even then the horses usually know where to go." He blamed reckless car drivers for most of the accidents. Down in the main square, all the horses and carts of the village have congregated. They have brought their animals to the vet to be vaccinated. A cheerful young man in a woolly hat, he rubbed the necks of each horse in turn, before applying his syringe. The horses, with a patience beyond human history, barely flinched. From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 17 November, 2007 at 1130 GMT on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times |
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16 November 2007 November 15, 1987, Brasov, Romania. We were in full delirium of the “golden epoch,” when Romania had become a huge prison for a starving and exhausted people, who had lost not only its freedom, but also the spirit of revolt. On that cold day of November, in Brasov, the portrait of the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was put on fire. A symbolic gesture, which marked the beginning of the end of communism in Romania, that came implacably two years later. At the same time with the anti-communist revolt of the workers from Brasov Truck Company, the roller of history began its march and nobody, not even the communist Militia, or the terrifying Securitate could stop it. The revolt of the workers from Brasov was followed by the brutal intervention of the special Securitate troops, the arrests and the physical and psychological tortures. After announcing initially the capital punishment for the arrested workers, under the pressure of the international public opinion the communist authorities changed their mind, deporting 61 workers and changing the places of work of another 27. Over 300 people were arrested and investigated in the Militia and Securitate headquarters from Brasov and Bucharest. 86 workers, as well as five pupils and three students had forced domicile in various localities from Brasov County and in other places around the country. Officially, the only victim of the revolt from Brasov is Vasile Vieru, father of five underage children, dead at Barlad less than one year after the brutal inquiry from Bucharest. The Brasov revolt represents today, 20 years after those tragic events, not only a history lesson, but, more importantly, a necessary exercise of memory. Caught in the daily whirl, some lulled asleep by the comfort conferred by the consumer society, others, more numerous, overwhelmed by worries, the Romanians frequently forget to pay a homage to their heroes and martyrs with whose help this people has recovered its freedom and national dignity. In the past few years, remembering the revolt from Brasov was just formal, one more duty on the agenda of some politicians, whose transient in the leading positions of the country, will be definitely taxed by history. The memory of those tragic days that have painfully marked the destinies of the 300 anti-communist fighters and of their families was maintained alive by the Association November 15, 1987. We cannot deny the importance of the revolt from 1987 in the collapse of the communist system in Romania. And, yet, the role played by the workers from Brasov in the recent history of the country, is not fully recognized, as it would have been fair and necessary. Moreover, the truth about the revolt from Brasov is unhappily distorted. In a letter addressed to the Presidential Commission for the analysis of communist dictatorship in Romania, the president of the Association November 15, Florin Postolachi, requests to repair the mistakes included in Tismaneanu Report for the condemnation of the communist system. According to the letter, published on Thursday by “Ziua,” the president of the Association cautions that the report, a document that has stirred significant controversies, does not present the anti-communist character of the revolt. For good reason, Mr. Postolachi draws the attention to the fact that the Report presents incompletely and erroneously the events, the anti-communist character of the revolt being entirely occulted. It is difficult to understand, even inadmissible, how the Presidential Commission, which had access to all the documents, to the transcripts of the interrogatories, and to Securitate archives, behaved like a group of amateurs and approached with dilettantism these events. In Poland, “Solidarnost” is a monument, an institution of the fight for freedom. Its role in the anti-communist fight and in the fall of the Iron Curtain was universally acknowledged. Unfortunately, Romania still has to learn even today, 20 years after the moment from Brasov, from the Polish lesson. Paying a homage to the heroes and learning the lesson of history are the guarantee of a future in which the horrors of the past do not have a place any longer. Today, 20 years after the revolt that has sealed the fate of communism in Romania, the existence of the Association November 15 - which, we should say, distinguished itself also after 1989 as one of the real representatives of the civil society, not simply an NGO set up in order to raise funds for various purposes - represents the guarantee that the still recent past will not be forgotten. The problem is that someone must relay it… |
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Wikipedia 16 November 2007
On this day... |
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12 November 2007
Romanian
gymnast, the first gymnast to be awarded a
Born this day in 1961, Romanian Nadia Comaneci (who later defected to the U.S.) was the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect 10 in Olympic competition, scoring seven of them at the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal. Comaneci was discovered by Bela Karolyi, later the Romanian gymnastics coach, when she was six years old. She first competed in the national junior championships in 1969, placing 13th, and she won the competition in 1970. Her first international competition was in 1972 in a pre-Olympic junior meet for the communist-bloc countries in which she won three gold medals, and in 1973 and 1974 she was all-around junior champion. In her first international competition as a senior in 1975, she bested the Russian Lyudmila Turishcheva, the five-time European champion, winning four gold medals and one silver. She won the American Cup in New York City in 1976, becoming the first woman to perform a backward double salto as a dismount from the uneven parallel bars. At the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, Comaneci received seven perfect scores and won the gold medals for the balance beam, the uneven bars, and the all-around individual competition. She won a silver medal as a member of her team and a bronze medal for the floor exercises. After the 1976 Games, she was named a Hero of Socialist Labour by her country. The song used to accompany her floor exercises was retitled "Nadia's Theme (The Young and the Restless)" and became an international hit, earning a Grammy Award in 1977. She finished a disappointing fourth in the world championships in 1978, however, and was out of competition during most of 1979 with an infected hand. At the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, she won gold medals for the beam and the floor exercises (tying for first in the latter event with Nelli Kim of the U.S.S.R.). She won a silver medal as a member of her team and tied with Maxi Gnauck of East Germany for second place in the all-around individual competition. She retired from competition in 1984. Comaneci defected to the United States in 1989; she became a U.S. citizen in 2001. In 1996 she married American gymnast Bart Conner, with whom she works to promote gymnastics. She published an autobiography, Nadia (1981), and a book on mentoring, Letters to a Young Gymnast (2003). |
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9 November 2007
Andrei Alexandrescu used to be a rocker. Andrei Alexandrescu used to be a sky diver. Andrei Alexandrescu was a Wall Street consultant. Today, Andrei, a Romanian IT expert working in the field of natural language processing in the United States, is the author of a best-selling programming book and is holding conferences around the world. Reporter: Many in the computing community speak of you as a guru of C++ programming. How would Andrei Alexandrescu recommend himself before a Romanian empty-pocket pensioner carrying his bag from the market, who knows nothing of computing? Andrei Alexandrescu: 'Dear madam, dear sir, I am a man like you, with goods and bads, I was just lucky to be born in other times.' I believe that the generation of our parents was a sacrificial one. I still feel sorrow when I think what my parents went through to raise their children. It is a huge pity that pensioners in Romania are living a life of misery. They have endured the communist gulag, and are now enduring the indifference of new capitalism. They received the worst from everything. In the nineties, I used to hear that some of the elderly have a nostalgia for communism and I thought of them badly. Slowly I learned that things are not that simple.People had structured their lives in a specific style and found themselves that the whole structure disappeared from beneath their feet. It's devastating. I read that convicts freed after 20 years want to go back to prison where life has a meaning fro them and don't like it in the outer world, which they find chaotic. Rocker, sky diver, scientist Reporter: Your biography looks more like one of an adventurer than of a computing expert. You were the member of a rock band, a parachutist in the Romanian army and a Wall Street consultant. Are there any close links between these and the calm wisdom of a researcher? Andrei Alexandrescu: There are two somehow contradictory tendencies within each man. One is to play the card he gets the best he can and the other to fulfill what he thinks his destiny is. The first tendency relates to his capacity to adapt, while the second to a spiritual question that I believe anybody should ask himself, no matter the God he believes in: Had I been built with a purpose, what is that purpose? Once this purpose found, there's no greater joy in life than fulfilling it. The path of lives of many can be explained as a mix of these two tendencies, and I am no exception. I had to enroll in the army and I thought I'd better make it interesting, so I volunteered to be a parachutist; I enjoyed doing music, so I sang; and I had the luck to get on the Wall Street, so I was glad to learn some of the financiers' secrets. But imagine a Star Trek-like scenario: 'Computer! Remind me to call friend Vasile every December 15 at 10 a.m.' 'Of course' - comes the reply. That'd be all!
Computers - an invention on par with wheel and writing Reporter: Wouldn't it be scary in a world where a computer is ready to listen to you everywhere? Wouldn't it mean cementing the addiction of men to their computers? Andrei Alexandrescu: Of course it may be scary. I believe such dystopian scenarios have been obsessing us for such a long time already that it's impossible for them to come true. We are too vigilant! Anyway, computers are still very far from the intelligence of humans. In a way, we're like aborigines who saw a plane flying over, they'd like to build one and are cutting through a tree trunk to build a fuselage. I believe a much more realistic scenario is one where global warming causes a severe fall of the quality of living throughout the world. THAT is an emergency! Anyway, it's clear that it only depends on us to use technology properly and that we have the responsibility to use it to improve our lives, not to have it more controlled or dull. Today we're truly dependent on computers, but instead of 'addicted' I'd rather say 'helped' or even 'amplified'. There has not been a tool in history to multiply our power to think and create to such an extent. I believe the only inventions truly comparable to computers are the epoch-making ones, like the wheel or writing. So we are the one to win from this relationship of addiction. And we're only beginning! European universities are dominated by bureaucracy Reporter: Some say about Americans that they're 'stupid'. Would this be the reason for which so many Romanians manage to become successful scientists in the United States? Or is there another reason...? Andrei Alexandrescu: (laughing) I was afraid of such a question. I don't agree with this stereotype. I met many a wise American and in its short history this nation delivered remarkable people. General terms applied to large populations cannot be dealt with but with scepticism. We Romanians for example tell anybody willing to listen that we are a nation of wise people. Here is a stereotype that I'll never oppose. (laughing again) The next question is, 'then why are you behind other nations who started reform as early as you?' And that's when stammering begins... oh well, you see, the heritage, politics, geography, corruption and so on. |
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4 November 2007
Alexandra Maria Lara Alexandra Maria Lara, 28, doesn’t shrink from a challenge. Francis Ford Coppola has given her not one but three women of different cultures and eras to play in “Youth Without Youth” (Dec. 14). Based on a novella by the Romanian writer Mircea Eliade, the movie is a complex story of time travel, the transmigration of souls and the longing for eternal youth. Ms. Lara portrays the great love of an aging linguistics professor, Dominic (Tim Roth), and, as the film’s press notes have it, three variations on one migrating soul. Potentially this is the stuff of camp. (Charles Busch, are you listening?) But Ms. Lara never gets close, breathing such intelligent life into each of her overlapping characters that she keeps the movie grounded. She displays a similar command of character in the recently released film “Control,” bringing both passion and unexpected delicacy to the role of a model-chic music journalist who was the lover of Ian Curtis, the charismatic, suicidal and married lead singer of the post-punk Manchester band Joy Division. Two of the roles in “Youth Without Youth” are simple enough: Laura, a 19th-century university student whom Ms. Lara makes so gentle and warmly appealing that when she breaks off her engagement to the ambition-crazed young academic, you pity him; and Veronica, a vividly beautiful, exuberant young woman of the 1950s, who represents the time-traveling professor’s second chance. Veronica is glorious, but it’s when she’s struck by lightning and wakes up as Rupini, a seventh-century Hindu mystic, that Ms. Lara’s gifts are put to the test. Not only does Rupini huddle behind her mid-20th-century hospital-room nightstand, terrified and babbling in Sanskrit, but before long, under the professor’s care, she is regressing nightly through time and a series of ever more obscure languages, until she approaches the dawn of language itself. As she thrashes around, hissing and spitting in a wordless struggle, Ms. Lara isn’t absurd at all. Poised at the prehistoric interface of animal and human, she embodies nothing less than the agony of a being clawing its way into speech.
Anamaria Marinca In Cristian Mungiu’s “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” (Jan. 25) the Romanian actress Anamaria Marinca plays Otilia, a college student in her early 20s in Bucharest, who, by the story’s end, has the disillusioned gaze of someone who isn’t young at all. The movie, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes this year, is set on a single day in 1987 in Romania, two years before the violent end of the Ceausescu regime, which had outlawed both abortion and contraception. Otilia’s best friend, Gabita, is pregnant and barely capable of facing the brute reality of her circumstances. It falls to Otilia to wheedle, bribe and contend with the grotesque demands of the leather-jacketed abortionist who creepily calls himself Mr. Bébé, and to provide what comfort she can to her hapless friend. At a New York Film Festival luncheon last month Ms. Marinca, 29, right, appeared spritelike, slim, pretty and ebullient, quoting a favorite writer (“As Ondaatje says, ‘Biography is everything.’ ”) and bubbling with curiosity and ideas. On the screen her transformation is remarkable. Tense and, initially at least, briskly competent, her Otilia looks tall, strong and rather plain, while Ms. Marinca’s quick intelligence is evident in the character’s alert, expressive face. At first Otilia seems like a typical college girl: eagerly examining some American cosmetics for secret sale in her dorm, giving her boyfriend a good-luck snuggle before he takes an important exam. But as she navigates the darker irregularities of a dangerous black market transaction in a severely deranged society, her youthful resilience loses its elasticity, gradually giving way to something bruised and worse. At the festival luncheon Ms. Marinca pointed out that Otilia emerges from the ordeal knowing her own strength as never before. She does, but in a last close-up, her still face and anguished eyes suggest the terrible cost. |
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29 October 2007
The best known Romanian brand, Bran Castle is classified by Forbes as being the scariest place in the world. The American magazine thinks Bran is the perfect location to celebrate a scary Halloween. The second place is taken by the Tower of London, closely followed by the Paris catacombs in France and Area 51 in Nevada, USA. The Romanian castle is seen as scary due to the small corridors or its dark places that shiver the 500,000 foreign tourists that come to visit it yearly. |
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28 October 2007
Quaint villages in a once-hidden corner of Transylvania are a cultural time capsule Maria Stan sits in front of her house on a dirt street in the village of Sapanta, twirling a spindle as if she were spinning cotton candy instead of wool from her newly sheared sheep. Dumitru Pop, a woodcarver, chisels grave markers from blocks of oak, creating images of his deceased neighbors the way he remembers them—drinking, dancing or playing music. Gheorghe Rednic, a shepherd, makes cheese by curdling milk over an open fire in the mountains. This is life in Maramureş, a once-hidden corner of Northern Transylvania known for its abundance of timber and villages filled with medieval-style wooden churches and log houses decorated with hand-carved gates. Isolated even today by mountains on three sides, Maramureş was insulated from invasions by the Romans and the Turks. Religious traditions, food and dress that disappeared elsewhere survived. Even the Communists failed with a plan called "systematization" to raze villages and relocate people in "agro-industrial" centers. Once prohibited by Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu from housing foreigners in private homes, families now welcome visitors as part of an agritourism program aimed at preserving the local culture. And tourists come, for a glimpse of authentic European peasant life. Guesthouses promise home-cooked meals, cozy rooms and bottomless glasses of homemade plum and apple brandy. All you have to do is get here, easier today than it was for the Romans and the Turks, but still enough of a challenge to deter the Dracula-themed bus tours. With Nicolae Prisacaru, a local guide I hired for the first few days, it took two hours to drive the 40 miles from the train station in Baia Mare over a winding mountain pass that cut through pine forests. When we reached the other side, it was like walking onto a movie set where all the actors were dressed in period costumes.
It was nearly 10 p.m. when Prisacaru dropped me at my first guesthouse in Vadu Izei, a village of thatched-roofed houses in a valley a few miles from the Ukraine boarder. Our hosts, Ioan Borlean, an artist who paints religious icons on glass, and his wife, Ileana, had dinner waiting in the century-old wooden house they restored. First came the plum brandy, called tuica, then a light red wine and homemade vegetable soup. The main course was a steaming pot of bulz, a traditional polenta dish made with sheep's cheese and sausage. Dessert was a dreamy Boston-meets-the-Balkans cream pie. Like most everything in Romania, a home stay in Maramureş is a bargain. We paid $34 each a night, including breakfast and dinner, for a second-floor room decorated with pine furniture. Wool blankets dyed in bright reds and greens covered the beds, and the bathrooms were new. The Borleans didn't speak much English, but we managed to communicate, using gestures, sounds and a little Italian and French. From Vadu Izei, we moved on to the village of Botiza. Eighteen years ago, there were just two cars (one owned by the priest) and one color TV (also owned by the priest) in Botiza, a village of about 3,000 known for its Ukraine mountain views and hilltop wooden church. Botiza doesn't yet have a high school, but horse carts share the roads with plenty of cars. It seems most everyone has a satellite dish and cell phone. New-home construction is booming as locals find work in Western Europe, and return to invest what they earn in new homes or guesthouses. "Soon," predicts local guide George Iurca, the land of wood "will become known as the land of concrete and asbestos." For now, though, life remains simple, and the villagers friendly to outsiders. Social life centers on church, and everyone turns out Sunday for a service that can last two hours or more. The older villagers arrive first, the men wearing nubby wool vests and felt hats; the women in black knee-length skirts, dark scarves and vests of wool or leather. Literally fashionably late are the younger women in short pleated floral-print skirts, heels, fitted jackets and flowered scarves. We stood watching one afternoon as 100 or so turned out for a funeral that began with a procession through the streets, and ended with a feast in the town hall. Three priests led a graveside service that was brief and filled with chanting. Then everyone walked down the hill to the hall, where long tables were set with cakes and plastic bottles of orange drink. "Familia," one woman said to me, putting her hand to her mouth in a gesture inviting us to share in the meal. Men and women sat separately, as they do in church. Everyone stood while the trio of priests blessed the bread, and each man put his hand on the shoulder of the one in front of him. It wasn't the first time I didn't understand all that was going on. That's the mystery of Maramure |
