True Romania

The Italian Church in Bucharest

2011-10-04T10:17:00.001+03:00

The Italian Church "Our Blessed Savior" is a Catholic church, built between 1915-1916 in Bucharest. It was consecrated by bishop Raymond Netzhammer in 1916. The funds were donated by King Victor Emmanuel III, the Vatican, the Italian Embassy and the Italian community in Romania that in 1915 numbered about 7000 people. An Italian journalist of the time launched an appeal to his compatriots: "Italian citizens, rather than cross the ocean to America and you experience surprise that the tycoons will not integrate you and die of hunger, better come in Romania, which is a rich country and has a very welcoming people of Latin origin, as us!"

The church is located on the busiest boulevard in Bucharest, Nicolae Bălcescu, and is owned by the Italian government. Architects were Mario Stoppa and Giuseppe Furaboschi. It was built after the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazzie in Milan, built in old Lombard style. The church in was built in order to recreate the typical atmosphere of Italian churches, with Romanic and Renaissance influences. The church parsonage was built in 1924 and for a time hosted the Italian school. The campanile is 27.75 m high and is equipped with four bells. The apartment buildings surrounding the church were built in the thirties, changing the atmosphere around the church. The earthquakes in 1940, 1977 and 1986 seriously affected the Italian Church, being further consolidated and restaurated.

Photo from here.

The first parish priest, Antonio Mantica, served here by the end of 1949 when he was arrested and forced to leave Romania. The second priest, Clemente Gatti, served until March 1951 when he was also arrested, sentenced to 15 years in prison and deported in April 1952. The church was closed until 1968, when it was reopened during the visit to Romania of the Italian Prime Minister Amintore Fanfani. It remained opened only for occasional services such as Easter, Christmas, Feast of Our Lady, etc.. The church was reopened after the Romanian Revolution of 1989. The Italian church hosts organ concertos, and Baroque music concertos.

John Houseman

2011-09-28T09:31:00.000+03:00

John Houseman (born Jacques Haussmann, September 22, 1902 – October 31, 1988) was a Romanian-born British-American actor and film producer. Academy Award-winning actor John Houseman's main contribution to American culture was not his own performances on film but rather, his role as a midwife to one of the greatest actor-directors-cinematic geniuses his adopted country ever produced (Orson Welles) and as a midwife to a whole generation of actors as head of the Julliard School.

Houseman was born in Bucharest, Romania in 1902, the son of a British mother of Welsh and Irish descent and a Jewish father of Romanian ancestry who ran a grain business. He was educated in England at Clifton College, became a British citizen and worked in the grain trade in London before emigrating to the United States in 1925, where he took the stage name of John Houseman. He became an American citizen in 1943.

He directed "Four Saints in Three Acts" for the theater in 1934. Houseman joined with Orson Welles (whom he affectionately called "The Dog-Faced Boy") in 1937 to mount startling productions of the classics in their avant-garde Mercury Theater. Their most important success was a modern-dress version of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," in which the spectre of Hitler and Mussolini's Fascist states were evoked. The Mercury Theatre on the Air subsequently became famous for its notorious 1938 radio adaptation of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, which had put much of the country in a panic.

As a producer assigned to Unit 891 of the Federal Theater Project funded by the government's Works Progress Administration, he produced the legendary production "Cradle Will Rock," a musical about the tyranny of capitalism. On Broadway, apart from the Mercury Theatre and the WPA, Houseman directed "The Devil and Daniel Webster" (1939) and "Liberty Jones" and produced "Native Son" (1941). During World War Two, Houseman went to work for the Office of War Information and was involved in broadcasting radio propaganda for the Voice of America. After the war, Houseman returned to directing and produced Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's 1953 version of Julius Caesar (1953).

Toward what looked like the end of a long career, when he was 66 years old, Mr. Houseman helped establish the school of drama at the Juilliard School and also became the co-founder and longtime artistic director of the Acting Company, the touring repertory group whose alumni include Kevin Kline and Patti LuPone. He resigned as artistic director last summer.

He helped establish the acting program at New York's famous Julliard School for the Arts, where he influenced a new generation of actors. Ironically, he had appeared in only one major movie, in a supporting role, before being tapped to replace James Mason in The Paper Chase (1973). He won an Oscar for the role and began a 15-year career as a highly sought after supporting player (Three Days of the Condor, Rollerball, The Cheap Detective, Ghost Story, My Bodyguard, Naked Gun, Winds of War, Noble House, and many others). Houseman, who wrote three volumes of memoirs, Run-Through (1972), Front and Center (1979) and Final Dress (1983), died in 1988 after making major contributions to the theater and film.

Simona Noja

2011-09-21T09:41:00.000+03:00

Simona Noja (born March 9, 1968 in Huedin, Romania) is the Executive Director of the Vienna State Opera Ballet School, and former soloist, dance instructor and co-founder of the ballet school "dance arts" in Vienna. She is known as "the Maria Callas of the ballet".

Noja received training in the Olympic gymnastics team of Romania and studied ballet at the Art Academy in Cluj-Napoca (Romania). She completed a degree in linguistics (Romanian-English) at the University "Babes-Bolyai" in Cluj-Napoca in 1994. Between 1986 and 1991 she was soloist dancer at the Romanian Opera in Cluj-Napoca, and from 1991 to 1995 Soloist at Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Düsseldorf. She joined Vienna State Opera as a principal dancer in 1995.

Simona Noja had acclaimed performances as principal dancer at the Ballet Estable del Teatro Colon (Buenos Aires), Teatro Municipal (Santiago de Chile), Ballet de Cuba (Havana), Bolshoi Theatre (Moscow), La Scala (Milan), Balletto dell'Opera (Rome), Dresden Opera, Teatro San Carlo (Napoli), Royal Swedish ballet (Stockholm), Finnish National ballet (Helsinki), Stuttgart Ballet, Frankfurt Ballet, Bavarian State Opera in Munich.

In 2002 she founded the cultural foundation "Simona Noja," and in 2006 the dance school "dancearts" in Vienna along with her husband, Boris Nebyla. Between 2006-2009 she was a guest teacher at the Vienna Festival ImPulsTanz. In 2009 she founded the company & dance studio theater RenaissDance. Since 2010 she was appointed Executive Director of the Vienna State Opera Ballet School.

Simona Noja won the Silver Medal at the dance competition in Jackson, USA (1990), was voted Best Dancer of the Year by the magazine "Danza e Danza" (2001), and received the Star of Romania (title: Chevalier) (2002) and the Austrian Honorary Cross for Science and Art, First Class (2008).

Images from here

Ileana Sonnabend

2011-09-15T09:31:00.000+03:00

Ileana Sonnabend (née Schapira, October 28, 1914, Bucharest, Romania - October 2007, New York City) was a dealer of 20th century art.

Her father, a successful businessman, was the financial counselor of King Carol II of Romania. Sonnabend was, for many years, married to Leo Castelli who she met in Bucharest in 1932 and married soon after. The couple had a daughter, Nina Sundell. They went in 1935 to Paris, then she and her husband left Europe in 1941 and settled in New York City.

In 1957 she opened her first art gallery in New York, where exhibited works by Piet Mondrian, Jackson Pollock, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg. She promoted new artistic trends as Neo-Dada art and Pop Art, showing works by Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg and James Rosenquist. She ran a contemporary art gallery in Paris during the early 1960s. After leaving Paris, she opened a Sonnabend Gallery in New York City in 1971, at 420 West Broadway, in SoHo, and will make a habit of promoting new forms of art (Minimalism, Arte povera, Conceptual art, Performance, Transavanguardia, Neo-Expressionism, Neo-Geo, New photography) both on Europe and America.

In the late 1999s, the gallery moved to Chelsea and continued to be active until Sonnabend's death. After the death of Ileana, some work in Sonnabend Collection were traded in two auction sales which totaled $ 600 million. The event is considered "the largest private sale of art ever (NY Times)".

Fortress Valley Cave

2011-09-05T10:58:00.000+03:00

Peştera Valea Cetăţii (the Fortress Valley Cave) is located near Râşnov, Braşov County, Southeastern Transylvania, Romania.

The cave was first opened in 1949, when a hydraulic blowup removed a rock and caused a huge flood in the Fundata valley. In 1954, a group of young from Râşnov managed to enter the cave through the opening. Margareta Dumitrescu and Traian Orghidan conducted the first study of the cave complex in 1958 and published a description and a sketch of the cave, indicating its length of 270 m. In 1981, a team from "Emil Racoviţă" speleological club in Bucharest have mapped 857 m with a 36m level difference. In 1988 and 1989 were mapped another 63 m, respectively 38 m, with a level difference of 38.5 m and a development of 958 m. The cave has undergone a continuous process of destruction due to uncontrolled access to various visitors.

Since February 2010, the protected natural area of the Fortress Valley Cave is in the custody of a firm. From this time, the damage of the karstic formations was fortunately stopped, and the cave was set up using the latest technology. The cave was opened for visiting by the public in December 2010 after a titanic work of restoration. Due to the amazing acoustic of the cave, it used also for classical music concerts.

Photos from here

The Eye of the Noisy

2011-08-31T09:25:00.001+03:00

Dofteana is a commune in Bacău County, Moldova, România. The commune is situated around confluence between the Trotuş and Dofteana rivers, in a beautiful natural place. It was first attested in a document of 1436, issued by the hospodar (voyvod, ruling prince) Ştefăniţă, who donated to his adviser Babor Plopescu six villages on the Trotuş and Tazlău valleys, one of which was Dofteana, called Dohtana in that period.

Image from here

Ochiul Huitorii (approx. The Eye of the Noisy) is located behind the Dofteana rail station. It is a niche in a wall of salt that attracts moisture, a natural barometer announcing weather: when moisture in the air increases, on the rock it forms a trail of water and the locals are sure it will rain.

Dan Lecca

2011-08-19T08:54:00.000+03:00

Runway photographer Dan Lecca is the undisputed king of the runway. He reigns supreme towering above the other photographers, a modern day Moses on the Mount, graybeard, stern and imposing. At just about every fashion show, when he walks up to the podium, the others part for him as the Red Sea did for Moses. "Dan Lecca is a gorilla in a group of monkeys" (Jason Riffe).

Image from here

He was a Rock and Roll star in Romania. His group was called Choral and was #1 in Romania in 1968. Dan left Romania in 1970. He went to Rome where his wife's parents were and worked for 9 months until they got enough money to go to the States. He came here not speaking a word of English. Lecca took a job as a short order cook and eventually landed in a textile studio as a 'man Friday', answering telephones and running errands.

Image from here

In 1976, he went to Puerto Rico for work and bought a Cannon FTB with a normal lens for $170. He loved 3 of the slides so much that he became immediately hooked. The camera became his tool to do something artistic. At first, he had no idea what he was doing. He bought a long lens and a wide lens. The camera went everywhere with him: to work, to lunch, on the streets. He had become a shutterbug. Some English clients told him he should go to the Paris Vision fabric show. He had some time to kill, so he went to a couple of shows and snapped pictures. It wasn't difficult to get into fashion shows then like it is today. Lecca met John Duka (one of the founders of KCD) at one of these shows. At the time, he was working for New York Magazine and bought some of his pictures. He also met a Texan, Terry Weir, at the shows. He offered him a job as an assistant at his studio. He was setting up to shoot something for Saks (Fifth Avenue) when Dan made a comment about the lighting in front of the client. Maybe the client heard him, because the next day, Linda Gaunt (who now works for Armani) called Lecca and offered him the job for the next month. He rented the studio from Terry.

Image from here

That was the beginning of an astounding career. Dan is shooting runway for some of the biggest newpapers and fashion magazines in the world. His client list includes: Harper's Bazaar, Allure, Town & Country, Marie Claire, The New York Times and The New York Times Magazine among others. In addition, Dan is currently the house runway photographer for many of fashion's best known designers including Calvin Klein, Michael Kors, Ralph Lauren, Gucci, Celine, and shortly Louis Vuitton. His wife is shooting for The New York Times. "Do you remember in National Geographic where you see the top monkey ruling the pack? That's Dan, he's the top monkey on the runway scene. Everyone follows his lead, he has that kind of domineering personality. It's an unwritten law that he oversees the runway scene and straightens-out any problems happening up there" (Bill Marpett).

Anybody can be a hero

2011-08-09T10:37:00.001+03:00

Following the campaign Anybody can be a hero, Discovery Channel made 10 short documentaries about the stories of some Romanians who can be considered "Discovery heroes", thanks to their passion, curiosity and adventurous spirit. The films were seen for the first time, at Transylvania International Film Festival (TIFF), on June 6th, 2011. An international jury chose Laurenţiu Şerban as The Discovery Hero of 2011.

Photo from here

Laurenţiu Şerban (33) is a soldier by 13 years. During a mission in Afghanistan in 2006, a Romanian night patrol was attacked and he was badly injured, losing a leg and having 9 surgical interventions at a hand. The tragedy changed its vision on life, making him stronger. He married and he has a daughter, he fully lives his life - flying with a paragliding, climbing, running, go on a high speed motorcycle, and building itself everything from an engine to a gate.

Moreover, the hero wants to go back to Afghanistan, considering that "what does not kill you makes you stronger!" and this statement apply to everyone. This days, his dream become true and he returned in mission in Kandahar.

The Dragons' Garden

2011-08-02T10:14:00.000+03:00

Grădina Zmeilor (approx. The Dragons' Garden) is a geological nature reserve that offers a spectacular landscape by the messy placed huge rocks - blocks, towers, poles, animal shaped rocks. It is located in Northwestern Romania, Transylvania, Sălaj County, near Galgăul Almaşului village, on Meseş Mountain. This remarkable nature reserve is considered unique in Europe.

The "garden" was formed by a broader phenomenon of collapse and destructive erosion, developed in the Sânmihaiu sandstone. This is a lower Miocene sandstone, relatively weak cemented, consisting of characteristic intercalations of gravel and conglomerate layers.

Photos from here.

700 posts

2011-08-01T09:06:00.000+03:00

This is our 700th post. Many thanks to our followers and supporters, we expect your suggestions for our future posts... Stay tuned, more to come!

Buzău Folk Art Collection

2011-07-13T10:16:00.000+03:00

The city of Buzău is the county seat of Buzău County, Romania, in the historical region of Wallachia. It lies near the right bank of the Buzău River, between the south-eastern curvature of the Carpathian Mountains and the lowlands of Bărăgan Plain.

The Vergu-Mănăilă house is the oldest surviving building in Buzău. Erected in the 17th or 18th century and attested since 1794, the house belonged to the Vergu and Mănăilă families, personalities of the town at the end of the 18th century. The building was nationalized in 1948 and became derelict; it was restored between 1971-1974 (but it’s inside structure and it’s outside look were kept) and since then it hosts a museum of ethnography and folk art.

The museum hosts seven exhibition halls in which inside textures, ornaments, clothes and accessories, household objects were exposed. Also, women clothes can be admired, special outfits and traditional shirts (specifically to our area) and man clothes; a great variety of towels, wedding handkerchiefs, sheets, old carpets painted with natural colors; floral silk veils; different colored blankets of a variety of textures.

One of the rooms was decorated as what was called the “big house” stile, which represents the quest chamber which used to be part of each peasant house in the Romanian countries. The collection also contains objects that are specifically to different jobs: potting, fishing, hunting, viticulture and sheep-breeding.

Images and info from here

Zugreni Gorges

2011-07-12T10:10:00.002+03:00

The Zugreni Gorges are formed by Bistriţa River between the Giumalău Massif and the Pietrosul Bistriţei Massif. Zugreni Gorges are located in the central part of the Eastern Carpathians, Suceava County, on Crucea commune territory, at ca. 20 km north-east of Vatra Dornei town. This natural reserve is distributed in the forestry wards of Vatra Dornei and Crucea (Latitude 47'24', Longitude 25'3 1'). With a surface of 100 hectares, the area was declared a geological and floral reserve in 1973.

The Bistriţa River is crossing down this reserve on a length of ca. 2 km, making there those gorges relief type. The nature reserve is located on the northern slope of Pietrosul Bistriţei summit (made of gneiss) and on the southern slope of Rarău-Giumalău massif (made of limestone and crystalline schist, belonging to the Jurassic age). According to Koppen, that region has a boreal climate (type Df), with cold, wet winters, and unstable and chilly summers. The average temperature is +4.2 ^OC per year. The most frequent winds are those from the west (31.7%), while those from the east have a frequency of 9.4%. Those western winds raise the degree of soil humidity by their raining contributions. One can remark the fact that along the Bistriţa river, the winds have a smaller intensity, being channelized by the passage of that valley.

Photo by Emilian Pricop

Wilderness of rocks, flora, scenic beauty, make this area a sight of great interest. The first mentions over the flora of that region have been made by D. Brândza (1889); later on, D. Grecescu (1898), A. Procopianu-Procopovici (1906) made other mentions. The Queen flower is found here in the lowest area in the country and is a natural monument, is found here in the lowest state in the country. Also here was detected the presence of endemism Pietrosia levitomentosa (syn. Andvyala levitomentosa), housed in an inaccessible area (on Pietrosul Bogolin summit, at ca. 1750 m.s.l.).

Can be seen here Carpathian endemites (in general): Aconitum moldavicum ssp. hosteanum, Campanula rotundifolia ssp. polymorpha, Cardamine glanduligera, Festuca carpatica, Symphytum cordatum, Leucanthemum waldsteinii, Melampyrum saxosum, Poa rehmannii, Campanula carpatica, Phyteuma vagneri;
Romanian Carpathian endemites: Aconitum moldavicum ssp. moldavicum, Scabiosa lucida ssp. barbata, Silene nutans ssp. dubia, Dianthus tenuifolius, Eritrichium nanum ssp. jankae, Thymus bihoriensis;
Eastern & Southern Carpathian endemites: Gentiana cruciata ssp. phlogifolia, Primula elatior ssp. leucophylla, Ranunculus carpaticus, Hepatica transsilvanica.
Some plant species into the natural reserve of "Zugreni Gorges" are pretty rare, such as: Matteuccia struthiopteris, Pinus mugo, Arnica montana, Avenula compressa, Corrallorhiza trijida, Doronicum columnae, Elsholtzia ciliata, Epipogium aphyllum, Ligusticum mutellina, Lilium martagon, Rhodiola rosea, Telekia speciosa, Euonymus nana, Leontopodium alpinum (this last one is situated at only 740 m.s.1. there).

Zugreni is one of the most beautiful and exciting areas of Romania, very popular for spending active holidays or free time (fishing, trekking, hiking, rafting).

AG Weinberger

2011-07-11T09:55:00.000+03:00

Attila Weinberger (aka AG Weinberger, born August 30, 1965 in Oradea) is a Romanian blues guitarist, singer, and producer.

In the mid eighties, Weinberger made the transition from rock to blues, then promoting this genre. In 1986 he began his career as a bluesman, setting up with Harry Tavitian (piano), Corneliu Stroe (drums) and Cătălin Rotaru (bass) the first blues band in Romania - Transylvanian Blues Community. Ignoring the communist censorship, the four managed to make tours in the country with a great success.

After 1990, Weinberger toured in Germany, Switzerland, Israel, Turkey, Hungary (where in 1992 sang in the opening of the concert of the famous guitarist Al Di Meola). In 1991, he established his own blues band - Weinberger Blues Machine. He released the first blues album in Romania - Good Morning, Mr. Blues (1996), followed in 1997 by Standard Weinberger. The release of this album concert was televised and had the merit of removing the blues from underground, giving it public. However, the album won the prize for Best Jazz Disc of 1997.

A.G. Weinberger - I Heard It Through The Grapevine

A.G.Weinberger - Take Me To The Highway

A.G. Weinberger - Spoonful

AG Weinberger - Break The Man

Further, the musician produced and presented two weekly radio shows, on radio stations Radio Contact and Romania Youth. In 1998, he established the foundation BlueSylvania and he sang at the festival Bluestock in Memphis, Tennessee (being the only non-American singer accepted). At the end of 1999, Weiberger released his 3rd album - Transylvania Avenue. Between 2000-2004 he was in a "cultural exile" in the U.S., singing in Chicago, New-York (at Decade, Bitter End, Red Lion), Las Vegas, and touring over 30,000 miles across U.S. In July 2006, Weinberger released the 4th album, Nashville Calling, a first for the music market in Romania: the first blues album by a Romanian artist recorded and produced entirely in the U.S. Followed Guitar Man vol. 1 & 2. For now, Weinberger produces and presents a successful show on a Romanian public TV channel, The Lollipop.

Norman Manea

2011-07-04T09:28:00.000+03:00

Norman Manea (born July 19, 1936) is a Romanian writer and author of short fiction, novels, and essays about the Holocaust, daily life in a communist state, and exile. He is a Francis Flournoy Professor of European Culture and writer in residence at Bard College. He currently lives in the United States.

Norman Manea was born in Suceava, Bukovina, Romania, in 1936. As a child he was deported to a Transnistrian concentration camp in the Ukraine with his family and the entire Jewish population of the region. He returned to Romania with surviving members of his family in 1945. Manea graduated with high honor the "Stephen the Great" high school in his home town, then he studied engineering at the Construction Institute in Bucharest and graduated with master’s degree in hydro-technique in 1959, working afterwards in planning, fieldwork and research.

He published his first work of fiction in 1966, in the avant-garde literary magazine "Povestea Vorbii" (The Story of the Word), an avant-garde and influential magazine that appeared in the early years of cultural “liberalization” in communist Romania and was suppressed after six issues. He became a freelance writer in 1974. Until he was forced into exile (1986) he published in Romania ten volumes of short fiction, essays and novels, among them "Anii de ucenicie ai lui August Prostul" (1979; Engl: The Years of Apprenticeship of Augustus the Fool), "Octombrie, ora opt" (1981; Engl: October, Eight O'Clock, 1992) and "Plicul negru" (1986; Engl: The Black Envelope, 1995).

Critics have compared his complex narrative strategies to Kafka, Joyce and Musil. In 1979 he was awarded the Literature Prize of the Bucharest Writers’ Association. Two years later, in an interview with the literary magazine "Familia", he pleaded for a democratic opening up of the country as well for greater integrity of writers, sparking off a hostile official media campaign with anti-Semitic undertones. In 1984 he was awarded the Literature Prize of the Romanian Writers’ Union but was then denied the award under pressure from the state's cultural authorities. His work was an irritant to the authorities because of the implied and overt social-political criticism and he faced a lot of trouble with the censors and the official press. At the same time that sustained efforts were made by the cultural authorities to suppress his work, it had the support and praise of the country’s most important literary critics. "Plicul negru", the last novel published in Romania before he decided to leave the country, provoked a sharp and prolonged conflict with the State's censors, which the author went on to describe in his essay "The Censor's Report" in the volume "Despre clovni: dictatorul si artistul" (1997; Engl: On Clowns: The Dictator and the Artist, 1992).

Even before any of his books came out abroad, in 1983 Heinrich Böll urged for his work to be published in the West. The first publication in Germany, "Roboterbiographie und andere Erzählungen" (Engl: Robot-Biography and Other Stories) appeared in 1987, when Manea was a guest of the DAAD. He then went on to the USA on a Fulbright scholarship and has been living there ever since. After the collapse of the Ceausescu dictatorship, several of his old and new books started to be published in Romania. The publication in the Romanian democratic press of his essays Happy Guilt, appeared in the US (The New Republic, August 1991) on Mircea Eliade and his former fascist connection provoked a big scandal in the entire Romanian press and hysteria in the nationalistic newspapers. Echoes of this scandal can be still be found in some articles of the current Romanian cultural press. Meantime, in the United States and in the European countries, Norman Manea’s writing was received with great acclaim. Over the past two decades he has been proposed as a candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature by literary and academic personalities and institutions in the United States, Sweden, Romania, Italy and France. Important contemporary writers expressed admiration towards the author’s literary work and his moral stand before after the collapse of communism: the Nobel laureates Heinrich Boll, Gunther Grass, Octavio Paz, Orhan Pamuk, as well as Philip Roth, Claudio Magris, Antonio Tabucchi, E. M. Cioran, Antonio Munoz Molina, Cynthia Ozick, Louis Begley and others.

In his memoir "Întoarcerea huliganului" (2003; Engl: The Hooligan's Return, 2003), for which he was awarded the French Prix Medicis for Foreign Literature 2006, Manea chronicled his visit to his native country in the late nineties, his experience of exile and life under two totalitarian systems, fascist and communist. He has received many honours, among them the MacArthur Fellows Award, The Guggenheim Grant, the Literary Lion Medal of the New York National Library, the National Jewish Book Award and the International Nonino Prize for Literature. In 2005 Manea was Holtzbrinck Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. Elected member of the Berlin Academy of Art (Germany) 2007 – Finalist, The Latinity Prize by the Association of Latin Countries 2007 – Awarded the Order of Cultural Merit (in rank of Commander) by the President of Romania (Romania) 2008 – Honorary Degree in Literature, University of Bucharest (Romania) 2008. His work has been translated into 15 languages. Norman Manea is a member of the American PEN Center. He teaches European Literature and is Writer in Residence at Bard College, north of New York City. He lives with his wife in Manhattan.

Info from here and here.

"Franz Binder" Museum

2011-06-28T08:34:00.001+03:00

The "Franz Binder" World Ethnographic Museum is set in Sibiu, 11 Small Square, is the only museum in Romania that specializes in non-European ethnology, and, due to the exceptional value of its patrimony, represents an important department within the 'ASTRA' National Museum Complex - that also includes other subdivisions such as Romanian, Saxon or Roma ethnography. The museum is named after Franz Binder, a merchant and a diplomat who spent more than 20 years in Africa at the middle of the 19th century.

Image from here

The museum premises are a historical monument. The existing Hermes House, initially called The House of the Small Handicraftsmen's Association (Burger- und Gewerbeverein-Haus) was built between 1865 and 1867 and inaugurated on November 24, 1867, thus, becoming the administrative centre of this Association as well as a place where various activities took place (club, library, school for journeymen, exhibition room for handicraft products). Then, this building had several destinations and, only in 1990, it became the premises for the new ethnographic museum, regaining its true purpose of popularizing the authentic values of material and spiritual civilization.

Image from here

The museum collections were established in the 19th century through donations and acquisitions that belonged to travellers and collectors of such objects: Franz Binder, Andreas Breckner, Karl Meliska, Carl F. Jickeli, Arthur von Sachsenheim, Herman von Hannenheim, Gustav Adolf Schoppelt, Alfred Capesius, W. Schonhut, A. Schwabe, G.A. Seraphin, Emerich Schuleri, Hans Mallik, Rudolf Nussbacher, Christine Schuster, Helene Fischer, Wagner von Wetterstadt a.s.o. Most of them were members of the Transylvanian Society for the Natural Sciences (Siebenburgische Verein fur Naturwissenschaften), which carried on its activity between the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.

Image from here

The exotic collections of the museum fall into two categories: the old collections constituted between the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century as a result of the Transylvanian Saxon travellers' donations to the Transylvanian Society for Natural Sciences from Sibiu; and the new collections established by exchanging collections, distributions, donations, acquisitions a.s.o. Thus, the exotic ethnographic patrimony of the museum, starting with the Egyptian mummy (donated by the Austrian-Hungarian consul in Egypt in 1907, Hermann von Hannenheim) and ending with the latest handicraft acquisitions, can find its place within a very diverse historical, geographical, ethno-cultural, and anthropological background. Originating from various parts of the world - northern Africa and the springs of Nile, China, Japan, Oceania, Asia Minor, Brazil, Lapland, Australia etc. - the objects belonging to the 'exotic collection' entered into the patrimony of the Natural Sciences Museum, forming a cabinet exhibition that was opened in the museum building until 1957.

Image from here

The collections were enriched after 1990 through successive acquisitions, exchanges or donations: the Zairean collection purchased from Violeta and Catalin Rang from Bacau, the ex-presidential collection of presents, comprising objects of extra-European origin (over 400 pieces donated from the gifts fund donated to the Romanian Presidency between 1965 and 1989), Japanese traditional toys obtained through an exchange of collections with the Museum of Toys from Hyogo, the national minority costumes collection donated by the Embassy of the People's Republic of China at Bucharest a.s.o.

"Emil Sigerius" Museum

2011-06-21T10:00:00.000+03:00

The "Emil Sigerius" Museum of Saxon Ethnography and Folk Art in Sibiu was established in an attempt to fill a gap, presenting the role of the Transylvanian Saxons ethnic group in Transylvanian culture.

Image from here

The museum's collections are based on the Karpatenmuseum (the Carpathians Transylvanian Museum, or MSVK) collections opened in 1895 by the Siebenbügishen Karpathenverein Association. The first exposition was inside the Museum of Natural History building and was organized around the collection of Emil Sigerus, the most important collector of Transylvanian Saxon Folk Art at the end of the 19th century. In 1920 the museum's collections were included in the Brukenthal Museum and they were displayed in a new space inside the Brukenthal Palace; from 1950, they were included in the Folk Art Section.

Image from here

After the establishment of the new Museum of Traditional Folk Civilization in 1990, the Saxon collections were given over to the new establishment along with all other ethnology-related collections. In 1997, the Emil Sigerus Museum was opened in a building adjacent to the Franz Binder Museum in the Small Square. After the end of the restoration project restoring the House of the Arts in the Small Square, the museum will have a more appropriate space to exhibit its collections of over 2,700 ceramic pieces, including the permanent exposition of decorative tiles, over 4,000 objects in the classifications of costumes, textiles and embroideries and over 400 wooden, metal, or bone objects out of which over 150 are painted furniture items. Its heritage includes over 7,000 items from Transylvania from the 14th - 20th centuries. The most relevant belonged to renowned collectors such as Emil Sigerus, Julius Bielz, Wilhelm and Gisela Richter, Carl Engber and Erwin Ulbrich, completed by the acquisitions made by the museum specialists.

Image from here

The museum heritage comprises three collections - costumes-textiles, pottery, wood-bone-iron, each of them including extremely valuable pieces, representative for the culture and civilization of the Transylvanian Saxons and especially for their contribution to the growth and enrichment of Romanian and world culture. The permanent exhibition "Transylvanian Store Tiles (15th - 19th centuries), located in the pavement of the building in 12 Huet Place, is a unique original attempt of presenting one of the representative crafts of the Saxon community - the manufacturing of store tiles (the store tiles collection is considered to be the most complex valuable collection of this kind in the country and one of the richest in Europe; it was first presented within the permanent exhibition opened in 1998). The archaeological excavations conducted in 1996 revealed that in the place of the current building there was a wooden house, dated on the basis of a coin from the reign of King Bela IV (1235-1270). The building was raised on a trapezoidal surface, with a pavement, two storeys and an attic. Both fronts, the one facing Small Place and the other one towards Huet Place, with identical decoration, were restored by the end of 1997. The vaulted cellar, 3-3.5 m high, was inaugurated as exhibition hall in 1997, and since the autumn of 1998 it has housed the permanent exhibition of the "Emil Sigerus" Museum of Saxon Ethnography.

Image from here

The House of Arts (attested as the Butchers Hall since 1370) is considered the oldest guild house in Sibiu. In the 15th century, the building had only the ground floor, divided in 11 butcher shops with 8 open arches in front. The first floor was added later as a warehouse or meeting hall for butchers' guild. The building was used for a time by the sheepskin makers guild; in 1765 the first floor was used as show room. In 1789 was added the town coat-of-arms on the facade; in the 19th century the arches were closed and the ground floor was divided in small shops. Between 1967-1972 the building was restored and since 2002 it became property of the "Astra" National Museum Complex and was restored again. In 2007 the "Emil Sigerius" Museum moved here.

Petru Poni

2011-06-16T11:38:00.000+03:00

Petru Poni (b. January 4, 1841, Săcăreşti village, Iaşi County - d. April 2, 1925, Iaşi) was a chemist, physicist, educator, mineralogist and Romanian politician, pioneer of chemical education in Romania.

He followed the primary school in Tâgu-Frumos and then the Central Gymnasium in Iaşi (1852-1859). He received a scholarship in Paris specializing in physical chemistry and mineralogy at the College de France and the Sorbonne. Poni returned in Romania in 1865 and in 1866 he taught at the Military School of Sciences. In 1878 he became head of the Department of Chemistry at University of Iaşi, where he taught for 33 years. Here he founded: the first laboratory of Chemistry (1882) and the Department of Organic Chemistry (1891). In 1897, Petru Poni and Anastasia Obregia inaugurated in the new building of the University of Iaşi a chemistry laboratory, after the German model. In 1903 Prof. Petru Poni introduced a new course, The chemical study of the oil.

In June 30, 1879 he was elected member of the Romanian Academy and in 1889 he was appointed Commissioner of the Romanian government at the Universal Exhibition in Paris. He collaborated on the establishment of scientific societies in Romania: the Romanian Society of Sciences (1890), the Society of Sciences (1900), and was a member of the Society of Natural Sciences in Moscow (1910).

Petru Poni is noted as one of the prominent members of the National Liberal Party (PNL). He was elected several times as deputy or senator. He also served as mayor of Iaşi in 1907 and 1922. He served three times as Minister of Religious Affairs and Education (July 21 to November 26, 1891, October 4, 1895 - November 21, 1896; October 24 to November 29, 1918).

He studied over 80 minerals collected from various parts of the country and even discovered two minerals he called Broştenite and Badenite. Petru Poni studied the action of nitric acid of various concentrations on paraffinic hydrocarbons isolated in indigenous oil. He studied the country's mineral waters and made meteorological observations in Moldova. He was one of the pioneers of Romanian Chemistry is considered the founder of the Romanian school of Chemistry. Currently, the Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry of the Romanian Academy bears his name.

Unique flora in Retezat Mountains

2011-06-14T10:10:00.000+03:00

The Retezat Mountains National Park, founded in 1935 and considered by Greenpeace the last intact forest landscape of the Europe, has over 38,000 hectares. A third of this surface is represented by virgin forests and wild areas unaffected by human intervention. Retezat Mountains is famous for the floral diversity, accommodating nearly 1190 species of higher plants of over 3450 known in Romania. The existence here of more than a third of Romania's flora is one of the reasons for which was declared a National Park. To these are added about the same number of inferior species.

Very important for plant conservation in Retezat are over 90 endemic taxa of the 127-400 total endemic taxa accepted by different authors for Romania. The first reported endemic plant is Draba dorneri, discovered in 1858 by Heuffel. Here can be found 130 plants rare or vulnerable listed on the "Red List of higher plants in Romania" published in 1994.

Draba dorneri

In florogenetic terms Retezat Mountains are the genetic center for the genus Hieracium, which includes 257 taxa here, some endemic as Hieracium borzae, Hieracium nigrilacus, and that for the genus Poa, which includes 31 taxa. Also, a whole series of taxa and infra-taxa have their place here, like Barbarea lepuznica, Centaurea pseudophrygia ratezatensis, Oxytropis jacquinii retezatensis, Hypochoeris maculata var. carpatica, Festuca rupicola var. retezatensis.

Image from here

Buhui Cave

2011-05-31T08:54:00.000+03:00

The Buhui Cave is situated on the left slope of the Buhui Valley in the mountains of Anina, Southwestern Romania, at an altitude of 600 m. With a length of 3217 meters, the cave Buhui is the second longest cave in Banat and owns one of the longest underground routes in Romania; the Buhui Rivulet forms inside the cave several lakes and waterfalls.

The Buhui Rivulet is a tributary of the Caraş River in Romania. The river first flows through Buhui Lake. Thereafter it flows through the Buhui Cave and, after emerging from the cave, flows through a reach of narrow gorges before joining the Caraş River.

The cave has a gallery of various sizes, with many turns and a few big rooms along. Both of the main gallery and the rooms start as short side galleries, the end is clogged with concrete or alluvial material. The Buhui Creek appears in upstream end of the main gallery, receives the tributary stream Certej next the entry with the same name, partially losses water through sinkholes and some tears. It completely disappears next the second entry (Dolina, 975 m downstream), then it reappears 108 m downstream through an intermittent spring, forming waterfalls and deep domes up the dam at Buhui entrance. The cave can be crossed from one end to another, but to avoid more difficult obstacles is recommended the use of the three successive entries.

The Buhui Cave is impressive not only in size but also by the wide variety of galleries and halls with concretions and fossils. It has a great scientific importance due to its karst hydrology and bio-speleological aspects. Therefore it was proposed in 1969 as a speleological reserve.

Photos from here

Macea Castle

2011-05-26T11:50:00.001+03:00

Macea (Hungarian: Mácsa; German: Matscha) is a commune in Arad County, Romania, composed of two villages, Macea and Sânmartin. It is located 23 km from Arad and 6 km from Curtici.

Although the traces of settlements on this place are very old, traces from the Neolithic and from the Bronze Age having been found on its territory, Macea was first mentioned in documents only in 1380, while Sânmartin in 1477. The Macea domain belonged over time to many Austrian, Hungarian or Montenegro noble families. After the wars concluded with the peace treaties from Karlovitz (1699) and Passarovitz (1718), the Imperial administration from Vienna donated or sold the Macea domain several times. Thus, Macea belonged since 1715 to the Edelspacher family. Sigismund Edelspacher sold part of its properties to Arsenie Ciarnoievici, a Serbian noble from Montenegro. He and his son contributed to the release of Banat under Ottoman occupation and were ennobled by the House of Habsburg.

The first design of the castle dates from 1724. Yhe arboretum was then the main attraction of the domain. After his second marriage, Pavel Cernovici - Arsenie Ciarnoievici's nephew - retired to Macea. Cernovici was preoccupied with planning the reconstruction of the castle. The Macea Castle was built in a neoclassical style with a single level and a rectangular plan, in the first part of the 19th century and it has a sober architecture. Both the front and the back terrace are guarded by columns with Doric capitals.

Pavel's son, Petru, became a deputy. His connections with the Serbian and Romanian national movement leaders, but also with a number of foreign diplomats in Belgrade have been seen with bad eyes by Austrian police and fell into disgrace. In 1862, the castle was lost during a cards game. The new owner, Count Karolyi of "Nagy Karoly", was one of personalities of Hungary. Between 1862 and 1886, it was built the second wing of the castle, much larger, with eclectic elements. That gives the entire building a French style look.

The arboretum and the botanical garden were designed by the famous gardener Joseph Prochaska. He arranged the garden, built a fountain and a swimming pool, a tennis court, alley and brought many plants. After the First World War, both the park and castle went through a period of regression. In 1939, the park has come into possession of a doctor, which cleared over 10 acres of forest. The first large-scale repair of the castle was made in 1956. Only in 1968 the garden and the arboretum were declared a dendrological park and protective measures were taken for maintaining and and redevelopment. Subsequently, the complex became the siega of a local agricultural association, then in the castle was moved a school for children with disabilities.

After the Revolution, the "Vasile Goldiş" University in Arad renovated the castle and the botanical garden - with a surface of over 20 ha. Currently, saved from ruin, the Macea castle hosts international events - scientific Congresses, symposia, research meetings.

A few days ago, the first hunting museum in Western Romania opened to the public at the Macea Castle. The trophies on display include some awarded gold medals in national competitions or animals coming from the Socodor game fund, killed during Nicolae Ceausescu’s hunting trips. The museum is the third in the country, after those in Posada and Sibiu. The trophies on display in the museum include stags, wolves, bears, wild boars, foxes, lynxes and a number of birds. Alongside the trophies, visitors can see images of the animals in their natural habitat, hunting rifles or various hunting objects.

Fănuș Neagu

2011-05-24T19:08:00.000+03:00

Motto: I loved life as a rake! (Fănuș Neagu)

Ştefan "Fănuș" Neagu (April 5, 1932, Grădiștea-de-Sus, Brăila County - May 24, 2011, Bucharest) was a Romanian storyteller, memoirist, short story writer, novelist, and playwright, one of the most talented contemporary authors. A terrible child of the literary world, a bohemian par excellence of that were forgiven all the excesses and drift, bon viveur, he has become extremely popular as a man and a writer.

He was born in a modest peasant family. Neagu studied for five years in his village. Between 1944-1948 he continued his studies at the Military High School in Iaşi and Câmpulung-Muscel. Then he followed the Pedagogical School in Bucharest in 1952, and by the year 1953 became student of the School of Literature "Mihai Eminescu" in Bucharest. Here he was colleague with Nicholas Labiş and Radu Cosaşu. Between 1954-1957 Neagu studied at the Faculty of Philology in Bucharest, but he could not complete a degree.

Fănuș Neagu published in 1954 the story "Enemy of the world" (Dușman cu lumea) in the "Young Writer" magazine. In 1960 has editorial debut with the volume of stories "Was snowing in Bărăgan" (Ningea în Bărăgan), volume reprinted in 1964 under the title "Left Canton" (Cantonul părăsit). He developed high-density epic deployments with ample availability of original and verbal invention. The Danube Delta, the surroundings of Brăila, the Bărăgan make up in his prose a spiritual geography that finds expression in an unmistakable style. He was editor of the Luceafărul and Amfiteatru magazines, he wrote highly appreciated sports chronicles in Literary Romania magazine. He was director of Ţara magazine and Cronica Română newspaper.

He received the Writers' Union Award four times, for The left canton, The beautiful madmen of the great cities (Frumoșii nebuni ai marilor orașe), The noises team (Echipa de zgomote), and The midnight house (Casa de la Miezul Nopții). Between 1993-1996 he was director of the National Theater in Bucharest. In 1993 he became Corresponded Member of the Romanian Academy, and in 2001 full Member. Fănuș Neagu died today at 3.30 AM. God rest his soul!

Historic houses of Romania

2011-05-19T13:55:00.000+03:00

Historic houses of Romania is a very well documented blog focused on the architectural heritage of Romania. The author is Valentin Mandache, a market analyst and historian, who publish his analyses and opinions on the subject of period buildings, architectural heritage and traditional habitats from Romania’s historic provinces.

Valentin Mandache has a particular passion for Art Nouveau and Art Deco buildings, and presents also exhaustively the flamboyant Neo-Romanian architecture.

If you want to know more on the historic houses of Romania, visit the blog here.

It happens in Romania

2011-05-17T08:17:00.000+03:00

Wakeboarding is a water sport where the rider stepped on a board is pulled over water by a boat, using the techniques of skiing, snowboarding and surfing.

An extremely dangerous and spectacular sport, which the Dutchman Duncan Zuur made it even more spectacular. World vice-champion, nicknamed the Flying Dutchman, Duncan has achieved a world first in Romania. Zuur (36 years) was wakeboarding on Lake Techirghiol pulled by a train traveling between Eforie Nord and Eforie Sud.

"I am very happy that I had the chance to be the first athlete in the world to make a train pulled wakeboarding. It was a unique experience, new, and full of adrenaline. If I have the opportunity, I would do it once" Duncan Zuur said immediately after concluding the project.

Images from GSP

The Romanian Communism Photo Archive

2011-05-16T12:52:00.000+03:00

The project Online Communism Photo Collection was initiated as a result of an increased interest of the public towards the communist regime in Romania and because of the unavailability of the photographic sources for the respective period. The project became possible in July 2007 after the real and total opening of the archive of the communism preserved by the National Archives of Romania.

On 14th of November, 2008, the National Archives of Romania and The Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes in Romania, concluded an agreement of cooperation in order to bring into being the Online communism photo collection, which is the first and the largest Romanian free data base, containing photos from 1945-1989 and 1921-1944, available on the Internet.

The photos cover a vast period and a huge number of events, from inter-war period, the World War II and Ceausescu dictatorship. There are images from communists’ meetings in illegality, portraits from their youth, photos from the prisons where the communist leaders were locked. Most of the photos pertain to the period 1944-1989: the entering of the Red Army in Bucharest, the political events from 1944-1947, the visit abroad of some communist leaders, aspects from the private life of Gheorghe Gheorghiu Dej and Nicolae Ceausescu, official visits in the country, Communist Party’s conventions, cultural reunions, communist nomenclaure on different hypostasis, manifests, meetings, official portraits, public events etc.

The photos within this data base were made between 1945-1989. However, photographic documents pertaining to the Romanian communism prior to 1945 may be found. The users should understand that most of the photos from this data base were made for propaganda purpose. ANR and IICCR specify that the photos’ captions are the original ones wroted down at the time when the photos were made and do not represent the version of NAR and IICCR experts.

The Photo Collection

Gherla Fortress

2011-05-10T10:25:00.001+03:00

Gherla Fortress (Martinuzzi Citadel) was built in 1540, on the order of the Bishop of Oradea George Martinuzzi, chancellor and treasurer of the Hungarian royal court.

The fortress was built on the right bank of the river Someşul Mic at a distance of only a few kilometers from the ruins of the Roman camp Secunda Pannoniorum and around the small village of Gherla small village, now a city. Led by architect Domenico da Bologna (1540-1551), the fortress was built as a quadrilateral with bastions at the corners, surrounded by 3 to 4 meters thick walls and a moat, with a mobile bridge (on east side), and there is access through a series of underground tunnels. As building materials were mainly used the remains of Unguraş citadel. Over time the fortress became possession of several noble families, including the princes of Transylvania - Sigismund Bathory (1580) and George Rákóczi II (1648), making it a princely residence.

Postcard from here

In the early 17th century the fortress lost its strategic importance, so in 1706 it was originally transformed into barracks, was then abandoned and put up for sale. On October 20, 1785 Emperor Joseph II transformed the citadel into a central jail in Transylvania (Carcer Magni Principatus Transilvaniae). The transformation followed to a mass escape from the Trei Scaune county prison, so the noblemen desired to create a maximum security prison in Transylvania. Between 1857-1860 was built the central pavilion as a special detention place by the architects Danil and Ioan Reschler from Bistriţa; here was also the 6-rooms apartment of the director.

Photo from Gherla News

On May 1, 1913 the prison is converted into a prevention institute for minors, where children studied and learned trades. During the Communist regime it became a political prison (1945-1964), and a common-law prison (1964-1989). The Gherla Prison, one of the oldest in Romania, became a maximum security prison since 1989.

Inna

2011-05-09T11:11:00.001+03:00

Inna (b. Elena Alexandra Apostoleanu, 16 October 1986 in Mangalia, România) is a Romanian dance singer.

She graduated the high school in Mangalia, then she attempted a degree in Political Sciences at the University of Constanţa. At the end of 2007 she met the members of Play & Win Project and she started the recording of her debut album. She released in 2008 the single Hot, that became an instant hit and was remastered at the end of the year; it also became an airplay success worldwide.

Inna - Hot (Play and Win Club Remix)

A second single, entitled Love, was released in 2009 and peaked at number four on the Romanian Hot 100 in April 2009, surpassing the achievements of Hot. The song Deja Vu became yet another top ten hit on the Romanian Top 100, peaking at number seven in July 2009. It also was a major hit in Moldova, Bulgaria, Russia and Hungary.

Inna - Love

In the end of June, Inna won a Romanian Top Hits Award, the special one given by the Jury, for her top five hit Love. Later that summer, the song Hot hit the first position of the Spanish Singles Chart, being certified Platinum by ProMusicae. The song sold over 40,000 copies during that summer.

Inna - Amazing

In France, she has four consecutive top-10 singles, Hot, Deja Vu, Amazing, 10 Minutes and Sun Is Up, and her debut album "Hot" became a top-10 in France, In the United Kingdom, she has two songs charted within the top-20 of the The Official Charts Company's UK Singles Chart, with a top-10 (Hot) and another top-20 (Amazing).

Inna - 10 Minutes (Club Remix)

Her latest single Sun Is Up became a number-one hit in Bulgaria and a top three in France, Romania, Russia and Switzerland. For 2011, Inna is preparing a new record, entitled "I Am The Club Rocker!". Along with this record, Inna encourages her fan base to affirm themselves as CLUB ROCKER. Inna is currently on her European concert tour "INNA en Concert".

Inna - On & on

Black Adler Inn, Baia Mare

2011-05-05T12:50:00.000+03:00

The Black Adler Inn (Romanian: Hanul Vulturul Negru) is located in the historical center of Baia Mare, Northwestern Romania.

According to the historical sources, the inn existed already in 1736, when it was mentioned for the first time as being property of the town. Its name was inspired probably by the coat-in-arms of the Habsburg family and in the documents of the time it appears also as Fekete Sas (in Hungarian), Aquila Nigra (in Latin) or Schwarzes Adler (in German).

The inn had rooms, a pub, and a games room (pool, cards, ninepins). At the floor of the northern wing were the ballroom and the concert hall. The inn was leased each year, the tenants having to restore the building and to guarantee the quality of services offered. Because the wooden building was degrading, the town restored it in 1784 and build another wing (the architect was János Gáspár Huzel). In 1802 was built a floor and the facade was modified in neo-classical style. In 1870 the in was modernized in neo-Renaissance style.

In 1925 the building became the headquarters of the City Hall and in 1950 here moved also the Courthouse. In 1970 the City Hall moved into a new building, and in 2003-2004 the former inn was renovated and transformed into a business center. The building has a L shape, with basement, ground floor, and floor. In the wall of the inn were discovered medieval carved stones, obviously reused as masonry material. These stones came, most probably, from St. Stephen's Church (14th century), that in the early nineteenth century was already ruined. The main facade of the building has 11 articulated goals. In the first goal from the center was opened the access into the basement, whose door had a stone frame as the handle of a basket, and unfortunately was closed during recent rehabilitation.

In the old central axis - the fifth goal from the center - opens the main gate of the inn, having the shape of a basket handle. The stone arch is decorated with a bunch of grapes, indicating that the building is an inn. To the spacious patio of the inn opens a string of arches from the ground floor and first floor east wing. Some of these arches were closed prior the last renovation. On the ridge rises a wooden tower.

The Black Adler is one of the most significant historical buildings in the central square of Baia Mare.

Photos from here

Stephen's Tower, Baia Mare

2011-04-28T08:41:00.000+03:00

Stephen's Tower (Romanian: Turnul Ştefan; Hungarian: Szent István-torony) is a tower located on Citadel Square in Baia Mare, Romania. Over 40 meters (130 ft) high and built in a neo-Gothic style, it is a symbol of the city.

Eventually used for strategic observation and detecting fires, Stephen's Tower was initially a bell tower for Saint Stephen's Church, built in 1347-76 as the only double-naved church in medieval northwestern Transylvania. The church (50.6 m long and 19 m wide, with naves 25 m long), though not quite finished, was dedicated in 1387, when it was first mentioned as St. Stephen's. The bell tower was added in 1446 on the church's southwest side; it was begun during John Hunyadi's reign in honor of his 1442 victory over the Ottomans near the Ialomiţa River and completed in 1468 under his son Matthias Corvinus.

In the mid-16th century the tower and church were partly destroyed by powerful lightning. The tower was rebuilt in 1559-61; the church passed from Roman Catholic to Reformed control in 1588. In 1619 both structures underwent a thorough restoration: the tower received a new roof, high and sharp-pointed, in the shape of a square-based pyramid. In 1628 four mechanical clocks with moons (one on each face), manufactured by a Prešov clockmaker, replaced the tower's bell. Another lightning-induced fire in 1647 devastated the church and tower. Yet another fire seriously damaged both structures when they were again hit by lightning in 1769.

The tower was rebuilt the following year, when the gallery was raised a level and the roof redone in Baroque onion-dome style. The church was in ruins and repairs estimated to be very costly, so the authorities decided to demolish its remaining walls in 1847 using gunpowder; the former church site became a park in 1856, with Ferenc Schulz's 1870 plan for rebuilding it remaining unimplemented, and only the bell tower remained standing. This was destroyed by fire in 1869 and rebuilt in 1898-99 in neo-Gothic style, a form it preserves to this day.

The aged light green slate roof was damaged by a storm in 2007; repairs, finished the following year at a cost to the city of some €200,000, included its replacement with a copper roof. The tower is open to visitors.

From Wikipedia

Robert Helman

2011-04-21T09:01:00.000+03:00

Robert Helman (1910-1990) was one of the major representatives of abstract painting of the Nouvelle Ecole de Paris.

He was born in Galaţi, in 1910, into a wealthy family. In 1927, he went to Paris to study law and became a lawyer in 1933. His wife was from Romania. During the WW2 he went to Barcelona, from where he returned in 1946 and installed in Montparnasse, in the former workshop of the Mane Katz.

After numerous participation in group exhibitions, in 1983 he organized a major retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris.

In 1984, he lost his left eye (remember that in 1938, Victor Brauner lost his left eye, also from a shard of glass!). He continued to paint, but he realized also metal sculptures. In 1990, he had another major retrospective at Cannes. Robert Helman died in November 1990 and he was buried at Berulle, on his tomb being placed his sculpture "The flight".

In 2010 at Orangerie des Musées des Sens was organized a large retrospective exhibition and Lydia Harambourg published an album on the artist. Quote from this album presentation: “Un paysage imaginaire de la genèse " : telle était la phrase employée par Helman à la fin de sa vie pour qualifier sa création. Et de fait, cet artiste d'origine roumaine installé à Montparnasse dès 1946 se détache rapidement de la Nouvelle Ecole de Paris pour construire une œuvre panthéiste hautement personnelle qui se distingue également par la diversité de ses supports. Helman multiplie les médiums pour élaborer une vaste cosmogonie et travaille sans relâche des sujets "obsessions" : les genèses et les soleils, les figures, les germinations et les racines, le candélabre, l'arbre et les branches, les envols...

Photos from here and here.

Hunyadi Castle, Timişoara

2011-04-07T10:23:00.000+03:00

Hunyadi Castle is a historical monument and the oldest building of Timişoara.

Image from here

The King of Hungary Charles Robert of Anjou decided after a visit in 1307, to establish a provisional residence in Timişoara. It was necessary ato build a castle to meet the needs of the King. The construction was carried out and completed by Italian manufacturers probably most likely in 1315, because in 1316, the King was already established in his new castle. He lived here for almost eight years. The building was developed around a rectangular courtyard with cylindrical towers at corners. Situated on an island, the castle was linked by a mobile bridge to the city of Timişoara, strengthened also by the King. Major renovations were done during count Pippo Spano.

Between 1441 and 1456, count of Timişoara was Iancu de Hunedoara (John Hunyadi). It has established residence here and ordered the building of a new castle on the ruins of the old palace, the royal castle, badly damaged by an earthquake. A major contribution to the building was brought by Italian architect Paolo Santini de Duccio, who was serving at the time the count. Both the castle and city fortifications were equipped with artillery adapted semicircular towers. Until 1552, the castle served as residence for all the kings who passed by. During the Ottoman occupation (1552-1716), it served as the residence of Turk dignitaries of Timişoara.

During the siege of the Austrian army which led to the reconquest of Banat, the castle was damaged, so in 1716 it was renovated being transformed into military barracks and artillery storage. In 1849, the Hungarian revolutionaries besieged the city and destroyed the castle to the ground, to the point where it was needed to rebuild it. Reconstruction and renovation works were completed in 1856, and the castle was very much modified, particularly to the facade.

Despite of many changes, the castle has kept the organization around a courtyard with corner turrets, the dungeon tower position and the "Knights Hall", details that are found also in the Corvin Castle in Hunedoara. The main facade was restored in a romantic style. Windows, ending in semicircular arc with neo-Gothic decoration above took place of the holes for the artillery and the facade was made in brick. The first floor with a height of two storeys comprises two vaulted rooms in Gothic style, one with three naves and the other with two, constructed of brick and supported by a series of massive columns. The building is finished in vertical plane through an attic floor and at the top of the facade is an embattled cornice.

The towers are low, rectangular, with small windows, and decorated with battlements at the top so that the roof is not visible. The main entrance has been modified and is flanked by two massive pillars that have at the top a specific collection of medieval weapons, which contribute to the aspect of a Gothic castle.

Since 1947 the castle hosts the history and nature science sections of the Museum of Banat.

Images from here.

Mocăniţa

2011-04-05T10:28:00.001+03:00

The word mocăniţă is a term of endearment, derived from the Romanian word mocan, meaning shepherd or one who lives in the mountains, and suffixed as feminine and diminutive in keeping with the tradition of naming conveyances and indicating small size. Mocăniţa is a narrow gauge railway in Romania, most notably in Transylvania and nearby regions. They are situated in mountainous areas and the locomotives operating on them (which themselves can also be referred to as mocăniţăs) are steam-powered. These railways were built for cargo and passenger services - some in the era of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, before 1920 - but fell into disrepair over the years.

Forestry railways were widespread over Europe, especially within the Carpathian Mountains. The operating principles were very simple: following close to the river, in case of need with narrow curves (therefore the use of the narrow gauge!), and constructed to enable the small locos pulling the the empty logging cars up to the mountains and to coast down the heavy loaded trains to the saw mills.

While replaced in most of the European countries after 1945, the forestry railways in Romania survived for a long time: In 1970 the state-run forestry administration still operated more than 3.000 kms of tracks, up to 1986 still new forestry steam locos were built in Romania, and in 1989 still more than 15 forestry railway existed with together approx. 1.000 km of tracks. Some are now being rehabilitated for the purposes of tourism. Mocăniţa is one of the last remaining steam rails still in active use in Europe.

The most well-known mocăniţe:
Vasar Valley, Maramureş - 43 km long, from Vişeu de Sus to Comanu, near the Ukrainian border, though the service may terminate before then at Faina. This trip usually takes between 3 and 4 hours each way. There are two other branches: along the Novat Valley (13 km) and towards Ştevioara (3 km).

Arieş Mountains, Alba County - built in 1912; trains are now operating on Abrud to Câmpeni section of this line, that has 4 stations and 21 stops; it is planned that in the future they will run from Abrud to Turda. When operated as a non-tourist railway the journey time for the 93 kilometres trip from Turda to Abrud took some six and a half hours.

Hârtibaciu Valley, Sibiu County - from Sibiu to Agnita. This line is now designated as a historical monument, so it is saved from being scrapped and the plans to revive it may now go ahead.

Covasna County - from Covasna to Comandău - Regular journeys last occurred here in 1999, but an association was formed in 2002 to save the train and a number of trips have since been made. The inclined plane at Siclău was absolutely unbelievable, operated in the same manner as many funiculars. As soon as it could hear a wagon approaching, the resident horse shunter would appear from its box and with a little bit of persuasion shunt the wagon.

Hunedoara County - from Crişcior to Brad. The line is currently classed as a historical heritage line and used for tourism on holidays.

Mureş County - Târgu-Mureş to Band.

Moldoviţa, Suceava County - built in 1888 the German Louis Ortiep. From the 24 km of the line, there are active 4 km.

Caraş Severin County - Berzasca to Stănic, 32 km.

Photos from here.

Coasta Lunii Cheţani

2011-03-15T08:12:00.000+02:00

Coasta Lunii is a Natura 2000 protected site located in Cheţani commune, Mureş County, Transylvania, Romania, and it has a surface of 830 ha (3% of commune's surface).

In this area, following investigations conducted by members of the Romanian Society of Lepidopterists, were identified 739 species of butterflies of which a species is new to science, one is unique in Europe, 14 new for the fauna of Romania, and many new for the fauna of Transylvania. Were identified also over 160 species of plants. For many steppe species, the steppe habitats of the Transylvania Plain are the western extremity of the area of distribution.

Importance: the area has steppe slopes of the most representative and best preserved in Transylvania, with rich flora (Crambe tartaria, Iris humilis, etc.). Among the Lepidoptera - the best studied group of invertebrates - there is found the endemic species Filatima transsilvanella, but also a series of 17 rare species, particularly in terms of zoo-geographic importance.

Vulnerability: the adversely impact of the surrounding agrarian land is felt primarily through the accumulation of waste or occasional arson. In the future, it will prevent forestation of pine and acacia, leading to drastic reduction of biodiversity, leading in extreme cases even to the complete elimination of native vegetation. In some parts, from excessive grazing can be observed a pronounced ruderalization.

Iernut - Cipău Ponds

2011-03-08T09:51:00.000+02:00

Iernut - Cipău Ponds are located in Mureş County, Transylvania, Romania. The ponds were created by damming, initially the water was pumped from the Mureş River located in the vicinity. In recent years the rains are raising the water level regularly, especially at Iernut Pond. The Iernut ponds were created in 1975 - two ponds with an area of 108 ha, and the Cipău ponds in 1983 - 4 ponds with an area of 57 ha.

Photo: Neluţu

Importance: Natura 2000 protected site, C4 - large gatherings of water birds. The two farms are an important resting place for migratory birds in Transylvania, and regularly host between 35,000 to 48,000 water birds. In recent years, at Iernut the willows grew in the midst of one of the lakes and there formed a small colony of night herons (Nycticorax nycticorax), which, with a proper management, could increase in coming years. The human impact is more pronounced at Iernut due to disturbance created by the large number of fishermen and hunters in some periods, and due to some management issues of the fisheries.

Secular oaks from Breite

2011-03-03T12:49:00.001+02:00

Breite is a nature reserve near Sighişoara, Mureş County, Transylvania, Romania. It has a surface of 70 ha and protects six centuries old oaks.

Geological / geo-morphological aspects: the hilly region tilt slightly with slopes with partly sunny exhibition. The geological substrate is located on a Transylvanian Neogene sedimentary basin with deposits consisting of marly clays and sands.

Vegetation: the area is located in a hilly zone, with sessile oak forest. On the pasture are secular trees, aged between 400 and 600 years with uneven settlement in small groups, with densities of 0.1-0.2 / ha. The trees are in a ratio of 80-90% viable, with broad crown covering the whole trunk and leafy branches typical to singular trees. The oaks have a shaft diameter between 1.0-1.8 m and a height of 12-20 m. The grass vegetation is typical for hilly areas.

Fauna: the fauna do not have special characters, is a normal fauna for the hilly forests and grasslands.

Fărăgău Lake

2011-03-01T10:24:00.002+02:00

Fărăgău Lake is a nature reserve in Mureş County, Transylvania, Romania.

The area is located in the hills of Transylvanian Plain, between Tg. Mureş and Reghin. The geological formations are Tertiary and Quaternary, frequently occurring Panonian and Sarmatian formations consisting of clays, marly clays and sands. The lake is situated in the valley on the NW-SE, with an inclination of 10° and at an altitude of 360 m. Situated in the Mureş River hydrographic basin, Fărăgău Lake was formed behind of a natural dam of sediments on Sar Rivulet, being the latest natural lake in Transylvania. In the years 1984-1987, the lake was transformed into fish pond. It has a total length of 750 m, total width of 350 m, maximum depth of 4.5 m and a layer of lacustrine deposits of 3-5 m.

Plant species on around the lake reveals a series of rarities such as: Sonchus paluster, Senecio paludorus, Lathyrus paluster, Epipactis palustris, Oenante silaifolia, Hammarby paludosa, and some rare hydrophyte species specific to this biotope as: Parnassos palustris, Sium latifolium, Rorippa anphibia, Oenante aquatica, Salix rosmarinifolia, asperula rivalis, Epilobium palustre, Triglochin palustre, Carex paniculata, Geranium palustre, etc. The reserve regime of the is motivated by the presence of the areas where peat moss (Sphagnum) form associations with the fern Dryopteris thelypteris.

In terms of fauna there are a number of rare species as: the ostracoda Darwinula Zimmer, relict of tropical origin, the frog species Rana arvalis weltersterffi, but the real reason for declaring the area as a protected area is that this lake with the whole downstream fish development are a great place of refuge and feeding grounds for many species of birds (about 180 species have been observed, of which 40 nesting species).

Călimani National Park

2011-02-24T11:44:00.000+02:00

Călimani Mountains represent the most grandiose volcanic complex of the Romanian Carpathians and the youngest mountains of our country. It cover an area of about 2000 sq. km. laying from north to east on 60 km. It is an immense andhesytic barrier between the two Romanian provinces, Moldavia and Transylvania. Mountains with volcanic origins, Călimani is the biggest crater (without activity) in Europe, measuring about 10 km in diameter. The highest peak is Pietrosul Călimanilor (2103 m), but there are also other formations more than 2000 m height, like Retitis, Călimani Izvor, Călimani Cerbuc.

Photo: Marius Traian Roşca

In 1975, the Biological Research Center in Cluj proposed Călimani Mountains as national park. In 1976, the scientific data for park establishment were gathered in a research work. In 1990, the Ministry for Waters, Forests and Environment declared the park with a surface of 15,300 ha In 2000, the Romanian legislation list the Călimani National Park with a surface of 24,041 ha (actual surface). Since 2003, the park is officially a protected area, category II IUCN, managed for ecosystem protection. The main objectives include preserving wildlife, habitats and landscapes as well as sustainable development of the neighborhood area so that the conservation targets to be achieved; education and research are encouraged, while recreational activities are allowed. Landowners and local communities benefit from their rights in accordance with the conservation management principles. In May 2004, the Călimani National Park Administration was settled as part of the National Authority for Forests Management.

The sulfur quarry in Negoiul Românesc (photo: Alpinet.org)

Călimani National Park shelters a rich variety of wild plants and animals along the rim of the largest volcanic crater in Romania. From the valley floor up the sides of Călimani's crater, a large variety of forest ecosystems thrive: mixed forests of spruce and beech in the Mureş River Valley; spruce forests in the Neagra Valley; mixed forests of spruce and Arolla pine trees in the scientific reservation; and above the tree line, dwarf pine bushes and juniper shrubs. Beyond 1900m are the siliceous alpine grasslands. Călimani National Park plays an important role with respect to the conservation of Romania's wildlife and mountain ecosystems. The beetles identified to date belong to the following 7 families, the Amphibian Class is represented by 8 species, and 5 species of reptiles have been identified. 68 species of birds have been identified through field observation in the north side of the Park. But research on the Calimani Mountains by Milvus Group indicates that there are some 108 species of birds, 21 of which are included in Annex I of the Birds Directive, species requiring the designation of special areas of conservation. Mammals make up a relatively small fauna group in the Park, but are well represented by big carnivores, including brown bear (Ursus arctos L.), wolves (Canis lupus L.) and lynx (Lynx lynx L.); by the weasel family, including otters (Lutra lutra L.), martens (Martes martes L.) and badgers (Meles meles L.); and finally, by the wild cat (Felis silvestris Schrb.).

Saru Dornei (photo: Alpinet.org)

The landscape is also animated by roe deer (Capreolus capreolus L), red deer (Cervus elaphus L) and wild boar (Sus scrofa L), all preferring the abundant fresh grass and remoteness of the Park. We ask that visitors respect the peace and tranquility which makes Calimani such a haven for wildlife. From the rodent family the main source of food for owls and other small predators. The Park is home to fat dormice (Glis glis L.), common dormice (Muscardinus avellanarius L.), wood mice (Apedemus silvaticus) and alpine shrews (Sorex alpinus Schinz). In the Park's forests, two bat species have been observed: the brown long-eared bat (Plecotus auritus L.) and the parti-coloured bat (Vespertilio murinus L.). Both are listed in Annex IV of the Habitats Directive, species requiring strict protection.

The 12 Apostles (photo: Dinu Oprea)

Things to do in Călimani National Park: hiking, mountain biking, equestrian tours, cross country skiing, bird watching, photo hunting, backpacking, paragliding.

Info from the official site of the park.

Prislop Pass

2011-02-21T12:57:00.001+02:00

Prislop Pass (Romanian: Pasul Prislop) is a mountain pass in northern Romania, connecting the historical regions of Maramureş and Bukovina over the Rodna Mountains, in the Eastern Carpathians.

The Prislop Pass is situated at an altitude of 1,416 meters, being the highest Romanian pass. It has a length of 50 km and a width ranging from 30-40 km, the north is steep gorge to the south continuing with a gentle slope. The road that crosses the pass (DN18), links Vişeu, Moisei, Borşa (province of Maramureş) with Câmpulung Moldovenesc, Suceava County (province of Moldavia).

In winter the pass is blocked by snow, because of the altitude, but in the summer the tourist has a wonderful view to the Obcinile Bucovinei, to the Rodna Mountains with Pietrosu (2303m) and Ineu (2279m) peaks, and to the springs of Golden Bistriţa. In the second Sunday of August here it takes place the folk festival "Hora de la Prislop" celebrating the descending of the sheep flocks from the mountains.

Photos from Wikipedia.

Duruitoarea Waterfall

2011-02-15T11:54:00.000+02:00

Located in Ceahlău Massif (Eastern Carpathians) in the point called Duruitoarea (1270 meters altitude), the Duruitoarea Waterfall is formed on the Rupturii Rivulet that comes from the alpine valley and flows into the Schitului Valley and then in the Bicaz Lake. This impressive waterfall has height of 25 to 30 meters on every drop of water. At the waterfall base is built a wooden staircase that one can climb about 30m up on a platform that fragment the waterfall in two different columns of cascading water, accompanied by a strong noise.

One can reach the waterfall on the alpine trail from Durău Resort (840 m altitude) to the Dochia alpine chalet. The trail has a length of 7.5 km, and its difficulty is medium

Photo from Wikipedia

The Banloc Manor

2011-02-14T10:31:00.000+02:00

Banloc (Hungarian: Bánlak, German: Banlok) is a commune in Timiş County, Banat, Romania. The village was first attested on 13 May 1400 in a document given by the copyist of Cenad as "Byallak" and for almost two centuries (1552-1716) became the summer residence of the Ottoman Pasha of Timişoara. In 1716, the Banat was conquered by the Austrians. The Banloc estate became the property of Croat Ban Draskovici and in 1783 was sold to Count Lázár (or Lazarus) Karátsonyi of Beodra (today Novo Miloševo, Serbia).

In 1793 the Count built the manor and during the 19th century and in the first years of the 20th century the buildings and the park enjoyed many improvements. At the end of WWI, the Serbians occupied the manor and devastated it. Covered in debts, the last count – Keglevich Karátsonyi Imre – sold in 1935 the remains of the domain, including the manor and the park to the ex-Queen Elizabeth of Greece, the sister of King Carol II of Romania. She renovated the entire complex, so the castle knew it’s last period of glory.

U-shaped, the Banloc castle is a Renaissance-style massive building with thick walls (approx. 1.25 m) of burnt brick, with the main façade facing south and at north with two wings forming a terraced courtyard. On the south façade the sole ornament was the Karátsonyi family crest carved in stone. The heraldic insignia was retained after the castle became property of the House Royal Romania, and was taken down after 1948. Compared with the simplicity of the south facade, the north façade - especially the two wings enclosing the yard - shows several elements of decoration: Baroque windows, alto-reliefs with well-defined themes (motives and heraldic themes inspired by Greek and Roman mythology) embedded in the masonry.

In addition there are 18th century iron decorations and the wrought iron lamps (one on each corner of the court) with the year 1793 specified on them. The wooden gates are provided with 18th century iron hardware and above there is a different themed alto-relief for each entry. The castle has basement, ground floor, first floor and attic. Each floor has a central large room, two rooms at left and two at right, and three rooms on each left and right wing.

An article appeared in "Dacia" newspaper in 1939 said: "Banloc’s beauty is given by the park which takes a good part of the right wing of the village, ending its surrounding walls – like ones of a castle - in the center. At the crossroad of the alleys there are Roman statues and lapidary inscriptions, chiseled in the first decades after the conquest of Dacia, taken from Sarmizegetuza after a german paleography study enlightens me. Among the lines of trees, sit in circles and connected with the cemented wounds, one of the 100 acacia, brought to America by Maria Thereza (1740-1780). Banloc Castle walls have a Gothic sweetened line with the arrow pointed top, in front of the park. It was built on the old ground in 1783."

In 1948, immediately after the Communists seized the power in Romania, the Queen left and the manor was devastated, the statues were vandalized, and the archives and the library were burnt. Between 1950 and 1997 the building and its land were successively used as a headquarters of the agricultural association, care home for the elderly, orphanage or local school.

Photos from Wikipedia.

The Turkish Bazaar, Lipova

2011-02-07T11:28:00.001+02:00

Lipova (Hungarian: Lippa, German: Lippa, Serbian: Lipova, Turkish: Lipva) is a town in Romania, Arad County, located in the Banat region of western Transylvania. It is situated at a distance of 34 km from the Arad and it consists of two rural settlements called Radna and Şoimoş, its total surface is 134,6 square km.

The first written record of the town dates back to 1314 under the name Lipva. In 1324 the settlement was mentioned as castellanus de Lypua, a place-name that reflects its reinforced character of that time. Situated at the crossing of the roads leading to Transylvania, Banat and Ţara Românească, Lipova had a history full of vicissitudes. It was situated strategically at the Mureş River's exit from the defile, and consequently it was an extremely enviable centre. After the Tartar invasion in 1241 the fortresses were rebuilt, and the lines of the future urban settlement started to get contoured around the castle. Due to the continuous disputes, the town has became two times under Turk administration (between 1552-1595 and between 1613-1716), and starting with 1716 it became under Habsburg domination. In the 18th-19th centuries Lipova was a well-developed economic centre with famous craftsmen working here. In the period of the revolution in 1848-49 and in the beginning of the 20th century Lipova became an important centre of political and national emancipation.

The Turkish Bazaar is perhaps the most important and interesting monument, a true emblem of Lipova. It lasts from the second phase of Ottoman rule (1613-1716), and its construction began in 1637. Its imposing proportions confirm the data in documents about the intense exchange that took place here between merchants coming from the three Romanian countries and from central Europe. The Bazaar, as it survived until today, kept its original shape, with a large facade guarded by eight massive cylindrical pillars connected by arches. In the center of the facade there is a triangular frontispiece, decorated with five ceramic discs with figures, probably added later. Behind the columns there is a wide passage, where merchants, according to Eastern traditions, exposing the merchandise to reach buyers. The rooms of the Bazaar have been transformed and adapted to other requirements during time. Under the Bazaar is a huge basement, originally used for storage.

The Turkish Bazaar is listed in the catalog of the Ottoman monuments in the world and is unique in Romania.

Photos: CiMEc, Wikipedia.

The Şofronea Castle

2011-02-04T09:37:00.001+02:00

Şofronea is a commune in Arad County, Romania, lies in the Arad Plateau and it is located at 15 km from Arad. It consists of two villages: Şofronea and Sânpaul. The first documentary record of Şofronea dates back to 1437, while Sânpaul was first mentioned in 1235. Its most attended touristic sights are the springs of thermal water with therapeutic effect in the treatment of rheumatic diseases and the complex of the Purgly Castle with its park and households, registered in the national cultural patrimony.

According to documents kept in London, Lisbon, Budapest, Vienna, the Şofronea Castle was built in 1789. In 1889, the owner of the castle exchanged properties with Purgly Janos, the owner Gurahonţ Castle. After he established in Şofronea, Janos Purgly has renovated the castle in Secession style and bought an important area of agricultural land. He was one of the well-known barons of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. His youngest daughter, Magdolna Purgly de Jószáshely, married in 1901 with Horthy Miklós, a young officer. The wedding took place at the Reformed Church in Arad. The exact involvement of Horthy in maintaining of the Şofronea property is not known. Horthy was concerned about its military and political career; during World War I he became the commander of the Austrian-Hungarian fleet in the Adriatic, then in 1920 he became regent of Hungary until 1944, when he was arrested.

Purgly Janos donated the property to his son, Purgly Laszlo: 860 acres of land, the castle, an animal farm, a plantation of fruit trees and a vineyard. Purgly Laszlo's one of the main concerns was the financing of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (The Red Church) in Arad, which he was the main sponsor. In 1922, the baron's wife, Margit, committed suicide because of her husband's infidelity. He buried she in the courtyard of the castle and remarried his wife sister. In 1949, the Communist authorities deported him to Târgu-Jiu, then he returned to Arad in 1951 and died of starvation in the basement of the parish which belonged to the Red Church.

The castle was nationalized by the Communists and became the headquarters of the local agricultural association. After the Revolution of 1989, it was leased to the Humanitas Gura-Popii Foundation, that renovated it according to the original design. The facade is richly decorated and provided with medieval-style projections and towers. The interior maintained its original shape. The main entrance conduce to the central body, in the reception room where the ceiling provided with wooden boxes is a remarkable artistic work. The ground-floor dining room, lounge and the great room are very spacious and decorated with specific ornamentation. The staircase is richly carved, there are many other artistic works made of wood and stained glass windows. In the courtyard are the Roman baths with thermal water, visited by thousands of tourists.

Photos from Wikipedia.

The Liteni Fortress

2011-02-03T09:33:00.000+02:00

The Liteni Fortress (or Geczy Citadel, or Lita Citadel), is a medieval fortress built 3 km southwest of the present village of Liteni (Hungarian: Magyarléta), Cluj County, on a cliff above the Iara River Valley. The ruins (some of the most picturesque ruins of medieval Transylvania) are located in Apuseni Mountains (Western Carpathians), about 30 km southwest of Cluj-Napoca and about 30 km north-west of Turda, on the road between Luna de Sus and Buru, near the Muntele Băişorii resort.

It seems that here was a citadel in 1241, where the authorities of Cluj County fled during the Mongol invasion. Attested since 1324 as "Castrum Leta", the fortress had a very troubled past. In 1405 King Sigismund of Luxembourg (1368-1437) gave the citadel to the city of Cluj, and later the municipality shared the lands into three parts and gave them to Jakcs Janos, to judge Vana, and to Laszlo, voivod of Beiuş. After the death of Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg, the fortress was first the property Losonczi Dezsö, and later (after year 1441) was owned by Herepei Márk.

In 1456, Ioan de Hunedoara (Ioan Corvin, Hunyadi Janos) gave the fortress to Csolnokosi Klara, a cousin of Pongracz Janos. Then, it has successively passed to several owners (Perényi Orsolya, Corvin Janos, Balassa Ferenc, Artanhazi Bornemissza Boldizsar etc.). It was badly damaged following the explosion of the powder warehouse in the underground on 12 February 1562, during a siege. In 1569, the ruins and the surrounding forests were given to Geczy Janos, who renovated the fortress, and his descendants lived here for a century (until approximately the second half of 17th century). There are no precise data on the causes of the definitive abandonment of the city, but seems that it happened during the Kuruts' war led by Francisc II Rákóczi in the early 18th century.

The Dietrich-Sukowsky Castle

2011-02-02T11:09:00.000+02:00

Pâncota is a little town located in Arad County, Western Romania. A Catholic monastery belonging to the Benedictine Order is attested here since 1177; famous handicraft center of the nineteenth century, Pâncota was known for its fairs since the eighteenth century.

The estate belonged to the Losonczy, Gyulay, Rajnáld noblemen, then to the Prince Rinaldo of Modena. The Pâncota estate, that included several villages, was bought in 1822 by the German baron Joszef Dietrich, whose family was ennobled for its military services to the Austrian Empire. He established in Pâncota, and began the construction of a castle using stones taken from the ruins of the Benedictine monastery.

The castle was completed in 1840 and at the time was the most representative Baroque castle in Arad County. It has the U shape, with three wings, one central and two lateral. The main wing facade is richly decorated and the roof with colored tiles has the shape of scales. The castle includes spacious rooms and a large living room, very interesting and with great artistic value being the wrought iron doors and the grilles on the windows. The baron Dietrich was not only a good manager, but also an arts lover, the castle being visited by Franz Liszt and the famous Hungarian writer Jokai Mor. Dietrich bought four Sequoia trees during a visit to the United States in 1835, that he planted in his wineyard, two of them surviving until today.

The prosperity of the Dietrich estate ended up after the death of the baron; the domain was inherited by the Polish Prince József Schulkowschi (or Sukowski), the baron's son-in-law since 1855. After the untimely death of his wife, the prince married an actress from Budapest, very fond of parties and spending, so the family need for money has increased to meet the insatiable spending appetite of the wife and the prince began to sell his properties. In the years 1919-1920, the surviving wife had great debts and sold the rest of the estate and castle to some Jewish merchants who have managed it through an anonymous company.

After the Second World War, the castle was nationalized. It was renovated between 1967-1968 and became the siege of Pâncota Town Hall, but the owner company claimed and obtained the castle in court.

Photos: Dream Destinations.

Tia Peltz

2011-02-01T08:47:00.000+02:00

Tia Peltz (January 30, 1923, Bucharest - March 5, 1999, Bucharest) was a Romanian graphic artist, painter and writer of Jewish origin, a member of Union of Artists of Romania and of Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. She was the daughter of writer and journalist Isaac Peltz.

He studied fine arts at the Institute of Fine Arts "Nicolae Grigorescu" in Bucharest. His artistic work includes paintings, graphics, drawing and book illustration. Prolific artist, Tia Peltz has had numerous solo exhibitions and participation in collective exhibitions both in Romania and abroad (Berlin, Köln). Some of his works are exhibited in museums such as the National Art Museum in Bucharest and the Craiova Art Museum, other works being in private collections.

Images from here, here, here, here.

Crina Popescu (again)

2011-01-27T17:55:00.000+02:00

The 16 years old Romanian alpinist Crina "Coco" Popescu is the first climber to complete the "Seven Volcanoes" circuit. The circuit includes the highest volcanoes on the seven continents:

Elbrus (5.642 m) – Russia, Europe
Kilimanjaro (5.895 m) – Tanzania, Africa
Damavand (5.671 m) – Iran, Asia
Giluwe (4,368 m) – Papua New Guinea, Australia and Oceania
Ojos del Salado (6,891 m) – Chile / Argentina. South America
Pico de Orizaba (5,636 m) – Mexico, North America
Mount Sidley (4,285 m) – Antarctica

Photo from here

She is also the first woman who conquered Mt. Sidley and the youngest woman who climbed Mt. Vinson. Crina Coco Popescu climbed already six of the Seven Summits and wants to complete the circuit before 18yo.

Bohodei Waterfall

2011-01-25T10:13:00.000+02:00

The Bohodei Waterfall (Romanian: Săritoarea Bohodei, En. approx. Bohodei Jump) is the highest waterfall in Apuseni Mountains (Western Carpathians).

The waterfall is located at 15 km from Stâna de Vale Resort; the access is difficult, 8-9 hours with adequate equipment. The water falls from over 80 m on a very inclined slope, a nearly vertical wall. At its base there is a cave-like niche hanged between suspended rocks above the Bohodei Valley.

Photos from here.

Harry Tavitian

2011-01-24T09:06:00.000+02:00

Harry Tavitian, considered by International Herald Tribune "the most interesting contemporary Romanian jazz-man", was born in 1952 in Constanţa in an Armenian family.

Tavitian started classical piano at the age of 6 and graduated the Academy of Music in Bucharest. In 1970 he saw bluesman Memphis Slim live in Braşov and this was a major influence in his future career. After this event, he started singing and playing the blues and soon he made his first steps in jazz, and in 1976 he gave up classical music completely for jazz. He came to prominence in 1978-1987, when he set up a jazz club, organizing recordings and listening sessions where he presented albums by some of the world's most prominent jazz-men. The club was hosted by Constanţa Library, where he was working at that time.

Harry Tavitian is jazz pianist and singer, whose style covers free-jazz, blues, ethno-jazz and avant-garde. He has a style of his own, well defined in East European new jazz, through his incessant artistic experiences. His sound is a melting pot of American jazz, folklore of the Balkans, contemporary chamber music, blues, old music. Also, his Armenian roots are obvious. His music has a strong ethnic character. The Romanian spiritual area, where he has developed is a synthesis between the cultural traditions of Orient and Occident. In this area archaic convictions are still preserved and Tavitian's music is full of myth. Harry Tavitian is also concerned about the syncretism of the arts. In his performances he uses elements of instrumental theatre and costumes.

Harry Tavitian performed concerts and attended important jazz festivals in Romania, Russia, Lithuania, France, Italy, Germany, Bulgaria, Portugal, Republic of Moldova, Yugoslavia, Poland, Scotland, Hungary, Greece, Turkey, Netherlands, USA, Armenia (as a personal guest of the president of Armenia), Slovakia, Switzerland, Slovenia, Austria.

Harry Tavitian - Old Balkan Ballad

Harry Tavitian - At Levant's Gates

Harry Tavitian - Tanarica

Sir Blues

2011-01-21T12:38:00.001+02:00

Valerian "Sir Blues" Răcilă is a Romanian actor, psychologist, and musician. After a career of 22 years as actor at "Mihai Eminescu" Theater in Botoşani, Vali Răcilă worked as psychologist for children with special needs in Răcăciuni, Bacău County. Now, he lives in Sighişoara.

Vali Răcilă is not a star, but he is a legend among music connoisseurs. The non-conformist singer plays almost all forms of Blues, has an amazing technique and a special feeling for this kind of music.

Sport News

2011-01-20T09:23:00.000+02:00

The President of the International Handball Federation, Hassan Moustafa, announced the results of the survey among experts, journalists and supporters, for the nomination of the best handball player in 2010. The Romanian Cristina Neagu (22) was declared the Top Player 2010.

Emanuel "Mani" Gyenes, the best enduro and rally-raid Romanian motobike pilot, won the Marathon class at the 2011 Paris-Dakar Rally. With a KTM 690 Rally Factory Replica, he won also the 3rd place at the "over 450cc engines" class.

The renowned Romanian football player Gheorghe Hagi, according to FIFA official site, accomplished the most beautiful move in the history of the World Football Championship, during the match against Colombia (3-1), June 18 1994.

The Romanian Peasant Museum

2011-01-18T09:42:00.002+02:00

In 1906 the first autonomous museum for peasant art was established. Lucky circumstances brought the art historian Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaş as its first director. He renamed the institution the Ethnography and National Art Museum and from 1912 on, the National Art Museum. During the 40 years of Tzigara Samurcaş’ leadership the museum was in the avant-garde of European museology.

After the WWII, the Communist regime moved the museum in the Ştirbei Palace on Calea Victoriei, for 25 years and under a new name: the Popular Art Museum of the Romanian Popular/Socialist Republic. During this period, the museographers were forced to not exhibiting some valuable collection pieces, especially the religious ones. However, they succeeded in increasing the heritage of the museum with three times as much objects of peasant art.

In 1978, the Popular Art Museum and the Village Museum were united in one institution. The unification mainly meant that most of collections of the Popular Art museum remained hidden in a long and unhealthy sleep until 1990 when the museum was reestablished and brought back to its home on 3, Kiseleff Blvd.

The Romanian Peasant Museum’s building is placed in Victoriei Square in Bucharest, next to the Natural Science Museum “Grigore Antipa” and the Geology Museum. The construction of the building, including its design was assigned to architect N. Ghika-Budeşti, leading member of the Romanian school of architecture. In 1941, after 29 years and many interruptions, the building, in its current shape was ready. Representative for the neo-Romanian style, inspired by traditional architecture, especially the Brâncovenesc style, the building is remarkable by its composition using mainly floral and zoomorphic decorations. The visible red bricklayer, the big windows under arches, the columns of the loggia, the elegant silhouette of the main tower reminding of the bell towers in old monasteries make the building a true palace of art. (Slightly adapted from the museum's site).

You can visit the Romanian Peasant Museum here, - an interesting commented virtual tour.

Valea Rea Cave

2011-01-11T09:42:00.001+02:00

Peştera Valea Rea (Eng. approx. Bad Valley Cave) is located in Apuseni Mountains (Western Carpathians), in the North-West of Padiş karstic plateau, near Pietroasele village, Bihor County, at 1300 m altitude.

The karst from the area of Cârligate – Valea Rea is special because of the first poli-genetic endokarst of Romania. Valea Rea cave (21 km long) began its evolution due to post-magmatic hydrothermal substances, associated to the eruptive area of Vlădeasa. These created a mineral hydrothermal paleokarst and a relict hydrothermal karst. As a consequence of the end of post-magmatic activities and of the lifting of the northern Bihor Mountains block during the Pliocen age, the pre-conditions for the formation of a classic endokarst of cold water, which partially re-organised the previous spaces, appear.

The Valea Rea Cave, besides the fact that it is one of the most complex caves of the world, is also Romania's greatest underground mineralogical "museum". Over 37 different minerals described as components of some speleological formations - speleothemes (cave pearls, gyps, quartz, celestit, malachite, rhodochrosite, metatyuyamunit etc.), a lot of these being described for the first time in speleologic environment - place this cave among the World's top 10 caves. It is also the most complex cave system in Romania (developed on about 20 km) including mineralized hydrothermal paleo-karst (including native gold veins), relict hydrothermal but also cold water endokarst. The cave has the greatest vertical underground waterfall of Romania (the Ventilator Fall): 82 m high, 10 m diameter. It is the largest Romanian cave entirely developed in dolomite.

The Valea Rea Cave measures 21 km in length, and after the entrance (only 1 sqm) follows a system of deep ravines up to 120 m, and then continue with the galleries, shafts, vertical chimneys and spacious rooms. Unfortunately, the cave can't be visited since it was declared a scientific reserve. (Infos from Apuseni Natural Park site).

The Minorite Church, Tîrgu-Mureş

2011-01-10T09:59:00.000+02:00

The Minorite monks settled in Tîrgu-Mureş at the beginning of the 18th century, hosted by count Keresztes Márton József in his home inside the fortress. As soon as the fortress was turned into an Austrian military headquarters, the houses were destroyed; therefore the Minorites had to move to Curteni, a village a few kilometers away from the city.

It is unknown when the works on the church and monastery dedicated to Saint Anthony of Padua began. The inscription on its façade indicates the year 1725, in contradiction with the documents that certify the arrival of the Minorites in Tîrgu Mureş in 1726. Most sources indicate that the works were initiated sometime between 1735 and 1740. The building complex was conceived initially as the most sumptuous religious edifice in town, but was not finalized due to lack of funding.

The first stage of construction was finalized in 1767, in a very sober Baroque style as far as decorations are concerned, but at its best in terms of structural solutions. The complex included the church with a wooden tower and a long, two-storey building attached to the church. In 1892, the entrance and the wooden tower were re-built out of bricks, and at the beginning of the 20th century the monastery was built, turning the complex into an U-shaped ensemble.

The plan of the church is simple. It is made up of a tower, a small pentagonal pro-nave, a nave with a single trave and an altar of roughly the same size as the nave. On the right side of the altar there are two doors that connect it to the monastery. The first room of the monastery is the sacristy, followed by other rooms connected to a long corridor ending with the staircase that leads to the first floor. The roof for both the church and the monastery is made up of bohemian caps reinforced with arcs supported by pilasters. The pilasters of the altar are also decorative thanks to their composite caps. The facades are sober, with no decorative elements. The windows are simple, semicircular, and do not have profiled framings.In time, the monastery building changed its destination several times.

It hosted the Institute of Theology between 1895 and 1914 and the Primary School Teachers’ College between 1945 and 1948, and later was turned into a boarding house for Medical School female students.

Via. Images from here.

Isverna Cave

2011-01-06T12:00:00.000+02:00

The Isverna Cave (Romanian: Peştera Isverna or Izverna; 600 m altitude) is located in Mehedinţi County, South-Western Romania. As famous as the flooded caves in Mexico, Florida or the Alps, Isverna is passed by the largest karstic spring in Romaniaa, and still retains the charm that made famous the natural wilderness of the Romanian Carpathians. That is why, from a desire to maintain it, the cave was declared a speleological reserve. Here is an ideal place for speo-scuba diving, visited every year by hundreds of divers all over the world.

The cave was first explored by the bio-speleologist C.N. Ionescu, on a length of 200 meters. In 1914 he published a description of this section, and in 1951 P.A. Chappuis and A. Winkler made a more detailed description. Between 1964-1967 V. Decou made a bio-speleological research, and in 1973, C. Goran made a cave plan published in 1976. The "Living Fire" speleological team led by S. Roată, re-mapped the cave November 1979, discovering new galleries, so that the current length was 1,500 m. The same year began the diving exploration, with promising results, and continued in 1980 when Florin Paroiu and Costel Vanau hunted, cave diving pioneers from Romania, were first that passed the Green Siphon (50 meters long), then the shorter Yellow Siphon.

It followed the exploration of a gallery with water 1.5 m deep and strong currents, ended by the Black Siphon - the longest in Romania (over 400 m and a negative bump of 40 m). In the early '90, Jacques Yves Cousteau came here with a team of cavers and divers. In January 2005, Gabor Mogyorosy and Mihai Baciu passed the Black Siphon and found hundreds of meters of galleries, of which 300 m of active galleries. So far have been explored since the beginning of Black Siphon over 1800 m of galleries. Exploration continues today due to high potential of the cave and to the discovery of new siphons at the end of the flooded gallery.

It is said that in the cave is hidden a silver treasure of the Empress Maria Theresa. In March 2010, speleologists made an amazing discovery in the cave: in an completely isolated room, they found a unique species of little birds, resembling to the bats. Those birds hadn't ever a contact with the exterior (the access gallery is flooded), but they reacted to the light and hid in the cavities of the wall. In this room the researchers found also some circular objects with a diameter of around 1 m, with strange signs, much heavier than the lead. The area of the objects is much colder.

Images from Drobeta Turnu-Severin

Hans Eckart Schlandt

2011-01-03T10:40:00.000+02:00

Hans Eckart Schlandt has been Cantor and Organist at the “Black Church” in Braşov (Kronstadt), Romania, since 1965. His early organ instruction was with Viktor Bickerich, who served as organist at the Black
Church from 1922 to 1962. Later studies were with Helmuth Plattner at the Musikhochschule in Bucharest.

Since 1965 Hans Eckart Schlandt took over the "Bach" choir of the Black Church. During the period of Communism, adverse to the religious music, he managed to provide continuity and quality with the amazing great oratorios and passions of Bach, Mozart, Brahms, etc., to protect the Black Church by the totalitarian regime of the time, turning it into a musical haven of inner freedom. In addition to his duties as organist and choir director, Hans Eckart Schlandt directs the summer concert series at the Black Church. He is also on the faculty of the Musikhochschule in Braşov, where he teaches organ and chamber music.

For several decades, Hans Eckart Schlandt has pursued an active career as a performer and teacher, including concerts, radio and television broadcasts, CD recordings, and master classes. He has presented numerous recitals throughout Eastern and Western Europe, and an American tour.

Ilse Maria Reich

2010-12-30T11:40:00.000+02:00

Born in 1944 in Sibiu, Ilse Maria Reich studied the pipe organ in Prague with Jiri Rheinberger, in Essen with Gisbert Schneider, and at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hannover with Ulrich Bremsteller. Stated as a most valuable organist in Romania, with participation in international festivals, she was known worldwide due to its genuine vocation - after emigrating in 1988 in Germany.

In 1990, she founded a music school in Rottenburg - which now has 500 students - which she led for 18 years. As conductor of the choir and orchestra ensembles toured with the school in South Africa, Italy, Romania, Czech Republic and China. Over several years, Ilse Maria Reich has prepared and made possible the collaboration between the school choir "Chorgemeinschaft der Musikschule Städtischen" and the Romanian Radio Chamber Orchestra in several vocal-symphonic concerts.

Barbu the Fiddler

2010-12-27T11:31:00.000+02:00

Barbu Lăutaru (Vasile Barbu, 1780-1860, known as Barbu the Fiddler), was a legendary singer and cobza player, member of an old family of musicians. Staroste (chief of the guild) of fiddlers in Moldova for 40 years, Barbu the Fiddler was one of those great Romanian folk singers who, through the creation and interpretation, contributed to the formation and enrichment of lăutăresc popular music style. He aroused the admiration of Franz Liszt on the occasion of its passage through Moldova, in the winter of 1847 in Iaşi. The French weekly La Vie Parisienne reported that, during the visit, Barbu Lăutaru reproduced perfectly one of Franz Liszt's improvisations at a first audition, when the Hungarian composer was the host of the writer Vasile Alecsandri. It is said that Franz Liszt said: "You are a greater musician than me!"

Taraf of Ochi-Albi, 1860, Carol Popp de Szathmary (from Wikipedia)

The Romanian word Lăutar denotes a class of traditional musicians. Most often, and by tradition, Lăutari are members of a professional clan of Romani musicians (Gypsies), also called Ţigani lăutari. The term is derived from Lăută, the name of a string instrument similar to a Lute. Lăutari usually perform in a band called Taraf. Originally, the word was used only from those that played the lăută. The other were named from their instruments, too, such as: scripcar (violin player), cobzar (cobza player), and naigiu (nai/panflute player). From the 17th century, the word lăutar was used regardless of the instrument that was played. The lăutărească music is complex and elaborated, with dense harmonies and refined ornamentation, and its execution requires a good technique. The lăutari drew inspiration from all the musics they had contact with: the pastoral music of Romania, the Byzantine music played in the church, as well as foreign music, most notably Turkish, but also Russian and Western European. Another distinction should be made between the lăutărească music played by lăutari and the Romanian peasant music. A more proper name for someone who plays peasant music is that of rapsod.

One of the most popular Romanian folk tunes is the Ballad of Barbu Lăutaru. You can listen it in several versions (folklore, jazz, rock...). It worth a try!

Fănică Luca - Eu sunt Barbu Lăutaru (historical recording)

Ion Luican - Eu sunt Barbu Lăutaru (traditional)

Ion Ghiţulescu - Barbu Lăutaru (traditional)

Emy Dragoi & Jazz Hot Club Romania - Barbu Lăutaru (jazz)

Marius Mihalache feat. Teodora Enache - Barbu Lăutaru (ethno-jazz)

Gheorghe Zamfir - Barbu Lăutaru (instrumental, panpipe)

Phoenix feat. Gheorghe Zamfir - Barbu Lăutaru (rock)

A homeless artist

2010-12-16T13:45:00.000+02:00

Ion Bârladeanu was born in Vaslui County, in Zăpodeni, and left the natal village at 18. He did not get along with his relatives, especially his father, because it was a communist. He had several jobs, as docker in Constanţa or reed cutter in the Danube Delta, then went to Bucharest, where he worked as lumberjack, construction worker, watchman or grave digger. After the fall of Communism in Romania in 1989, he was eking out life on a grubby mattress at the bottom of a garbage chute in a Bucharest housing block, recycling bottles and metal.

His collages, created from discarded magazines that he has rifled through for many years, were an art for him from the beginning. It is a line of work, in fact, that he began before the fall of Nicolae Ceauşescu in 1989. Created with a cinematographic edge, they depict shiny possibilities outside the gulag-like background in which he sets them. It's work that would have landed him in danger for many years. Although he have not artistic studies and did not have access to the art world until 2008, Ion Bârladeanu has a vast culture. He likes philosophy, movies - especially dramas, and knows a lot of people - domestic and foreign actors, and local celebrities. His intuition seems to be almost infallible.

He was discovered as an artist by Ovidiu Feneş, which recommended him to an art gallery owner, Dan Popescu. In his gallery exposed Bârladeanu for the first time, at 62, 20 collages on political themes - his favorite subject. Last year, he was flown to Art Basel and to London. In February, he was brought to Paris for the show, titled Realpolitik, and in the ultimate accolade for a burgeoning artist, surely, he had lunch with Angelina Jolie. His collages were exposed along works by Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp, Richard Hamilton, Tom Wesselmann. There is possibly something distasteful about plucking a man from homeless obscurity in Romania, dressing him up and parachuting him into Parisian society, with A-list celebrities fawning at their latest darling.

In 2009 the director Alexander Nanau and HBO Romania made a documentary film about the artist, called The World According to Ion B., film which won an International Emmy, category "Arts Programming".

Awards

2010-12-14T09:02:00.000+02:00

The Romanian researchers Emilia Moroşan and Eric Pop have been awarded yesterday at the White House by the American president Barack Obama during the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers Gala. The PECASE Award is the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers. Ten Federal departments and agencies join together annually to nominate the most meritorious scientists and engineers whose early accomplishments show the greatest promise for assuring America’s preeminence in science and engineering and contributing to the awarding agencies' missions. The two Romanians were proposed by the U.S. Department of Defense, Office of Strategic Research of the U.S. Air Force.

Emilia Moroşan (34) graduated the "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" University in Iaşi, Faculty of Physics and worked for an year as a teacher in Romania. Now, she is Assistant Professor of Physics, Astronomy and Chemistry at Rice University, Houston, Texas. She received also the National Science Foundation Career Award.

Eric Pop is Assistant Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. He received some important prizes, as: NSF Career Award, Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, Air Force Young Investigator Award, DARPA Young Faculty Award.

The Synagogue, Tîrgu Mureş

2010-12-12T19:31:00.001+02:00

The Synagogue of Tîrgu-Mureş, also known as the “Large Temple", was built between 1899 and 1900 at the initiative of the Jewish community "Status Quo" and is considered to be one of the most beautiful buildings of its kind in Romania. The marble plaque in the hall of the temple bears the names of all those who contributed materially or spiritually to its construction. Among these is the name of the then- president of the community Burger Adalbert, of its vice-president Farkas Mendel, of Rabbi Dr. Wilhelm Joachim and of the main donors.

The design of the synagogue was drawn up by Jewish architect Gartner Jacob of Vienna and the construction works were coordinated by Sóos Pál. The architectural conception is defined by monumentality and a harmonious eclecticism. Various Western European styles were combined with Muslim ones in order to create a visual effect of richness. The main facade consists of a central part and two lateral towers crowned by bulb-shaped vaults of oriental inspiration. The main entrance is sheltered by a portico with three semi-circular arches supported by columns. Above it lies the large, floral rosette. An inscription in Hebrew can be seen on the gable of the façade, which follows the curved contour of the rosette and the gable. The text is a quote from the Old Testament (Isaiah 56/7) and it means: “My house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples”. Elements such as svelte columns with caps decorated with floral motifs in relief, which support semi-circular arch openings are placed next to laced profiles and tri-lobed ornaments. Each tower has an access door to the stairs that lead to the balcony inside the temple, as well as a smaller rosette. The entire edifice is dominated by the central cupola. Each side of the central spire is decorated with a floral rosette similar to the ones on the facade. This type of window is also used several times on the lateral facades.

The vast interior is richly decorated, both with shapes and color. The temple has 314 seats on the ground floor (for men) and 238 on the top floor (for women). The space consists of an access corridor separated from the central nave by doors decorated with colorful stained glass windows. The central nave is delimited from the two lateral naves, above which there are balconies, by columns placed on high socles. The central vault is painted with star motifs in vivid colors and is decorated with shell-shaped motifs or fret-sawed panels with the Star of David in their center. Underneath the vault there is the bima – a square space surrounded by a railing – where fragments of the Tora are read.

An essential element of the Synagogue is the shrine where the rolls of Tora are kept, at the end of the central nave. Attached to the railing of the shrine is the monument dedicated to the Jews of Tîrgu Mureş who died in the Holocaust. In 1944 Jews were deported from Tîrgu Mureş, as well, as it was part of the Hungarian state. According to statistics, 5943 Jews of Tîrgu Mureş died in the concentration camp of Auschwitz. The plaque in the Large Temple bears the following Hebrew inscription in their memory: “The number of martyrs from our town is 5943. The stones in the walls themselves and the entire Jewish people mourn the extermination of our parents and our loved ones who were asphyxiated and burnt in Auschwitz in the year 5704 (1944)”.

Via. Photos from here, here.

The Jesuit Church, Tîrgu-Mureş

2010-12-07T08:51:00.000+02:00

At the beginning of the 18th century, one of the most representative Baroque churches of Transylvania was built in Tîrgu-Mureş: the Jesuit Church of Saint John the Baptist. It was erected in the North-Eastern part of the city center and belongs to the Roman Catholic parish.

Jesuit monks settled in Tîrgu-Mureş in 1702 with the purpose of revitalizing the Catholic community. During the first years, they found lodging in the home of Boer Simon, but in 1704 managed to buy a plot of land near the Nagy Szabo house in order to build a church. Facing the diffidence of the mostly reformed population, but supported by Vienna, the Jesuits began erecting the church as late as 1728. Until that time, religious services were held in a small wooden chapel. Architect Hammer Konrad of Schwalbach was entrusted with the building of the church. He had also coordinated the building of the Jesuit church of Cluj, the first Baroque church of Transylvania. It is therefore not a coincidence that the two edifices resemble each other both structure-wise and in what concerns the appearance of the facades. Even though the Jesuits left the town in 1733, before the church was finished, its building was accomplished at the initiative of the Catholic priests who remained in charge.

The rectangular-shaped church of Tîrgu-Mureş is divided as follows: the altar (finalized in 1729), rather large and surrounded by smaller rooms, the central nave (erected in 1734 and covered in 1740), flanked on both sides by three chapels, the entrance area under the tribunes, separated from the rest of the nave by an arch with three openings and having the two towers on the sides (also built in 1734). The central, larger spaces are covered by cylindrical archways with penetrations, whereas the lateral ones are covered by cross archways.

The façade is divided into three vertical registers and two horizontal levels. The first level includes the inferior part of the towers and the façade up to the gable. The rectangular opening of the entrance topped by a small semi-circular gable, the oblong semicircular windows of the middle register with the extremely plastically articulated “eye-brow” cornices, the rectangular windows with the slightly curved long sides, the niches which hold the statues of Saint Ignatius of Loyola and Saint Francisc Xavierus, the monumental pilasters that mark the towers vertically are all elements of typical Baroque architecture. The superior part of the façade, delimited by a strongly-profiled cornice, includes the triangular gable with its sides slightly curved toward the exterior and decorated with volutes, as well as the two tower roofs shaped as successive bulbs.

The inside of the church is luxurious, with liturgical objects that are true works of art. The main altar, made in 1755 by Anton Schuchbauer and Johannes Nachtigal is of monumental dimensions and has a pseudo-architectural structure with paired columns which support a beautifully profiled entablement with gilded stucco. The main painting of the altar is The Baptism of God, supposedly painted by Michael Angelo Unterberger, a student of the famous Baroque painter G.B. Piazzetta. The main altar also includes the coat-of-arms of the Haller Family, the most important donor, and a painting of the Virgin and the Child. The painting is placed in a typically baroque ensemble made up of a false curtain supported by two putti - sunrays that seem to be springing from behind the painting - angel masks and decorative elements such as volutes. The adornment of the altar is accomplished by the angel statues on the upper area, above the columns, and the two statues in between the columns. The last two represent allegorical characters: Ecclesia embodied by Saint Barbara and the Sinagogue represented by a prophet’s figure. The way body movement is reproduced, the subtle interpretation of the physiognomy, the volumetric and the draping of clothes make of these two statues masterpieces of Transylvanian Baroque art. On the North side of the nave lies another of the church’s piece-de-resistance. It is the pulpit, decorated with wooden statues of the four evangelists: Saint Marc, Saint Matthew, Saint John and Saint Luke, as well as relieves of the crucifixion scene. This was also done in 1755 by Anton Schuchbauer and Johannes Nachtigal, the creators of the altar, with the donations of count Bethlen Miklos and countess Csaky Krisztina.

The paintings of the altars in the lateral chapels: Saint Ladislau, Saint Joseph, Saint John of Nepomuc, Holy Cross belong to the same Michael Angelo Unterberger. The stained glass windows made by the Türke Company of Grottau were installed in 1898. The church was decorated with frescoes only in 1900. Painter Szirmai Antal was the one who decorated the archway with a copy of “The Adoration of the Kings” by Paolo Veronese, in line with the principles of Baroque painting, as well as with the portraits of the Holy Fathers, of Saint Elisabeth, Saint Margaret and the scene of Virgin Mary's assumption.

Via. Photos from here, here, here, here.

Toldalagi Palace, Tîrgu-Mureş

2010-12-02T08:46:00.000+02:00

The Toldalagi Palace is located in Tîrgu-Mureş, the seat of Mureş County, Transylvania, Romania.

Between 1759 and 1772, count Toldalagi László and his wife Wass Katalina raised on their property near the Franciscan monastery of Trandafirilor Square the most beautiful and representative building for the Baroque in Tîrgu-Mureş. The beginning of the construction works was delayed by the City Council, but after 1759 when Toldalagi became judge of the Royal Table he was eventually able to realize his plans.

The palace at 11 Trandafirilor Square was built in two stages (1759—1762 and 1770-1772) based on the designs of French architect Jean Louis D'Orr. He designed an U-shaped building, but it was modified later by the addition of a new wing that closed the rear part. Thus, the building is nowadays a rectangular plan, having an interior yard with open galleries. The construction works were supervised by constructor and architect Paul Schmidt. The resulting edifice has a basement covered with semi-cylindrical arched ceilings, a ground floor with rooms lined up on the two sides of the interior yard, a mezzanine and one floor, with a large reception room in the main wing, the one facing the square. A staircase leads from the ground floor to the open gallery of the top floor, with arches supported by brick posts. From here the various rooms disposed on all four sides of the yard may be entered. The ceiling of the rooms on the floor is divided into squares and decorated with floral stucco.

The most spectacular element of the building is the main façade, beautifully decorated in accordance with the artistic precepts of late Transylvanian Baroque. The sculptures that adorn the façade were created by Baroque artist Schuchbauer Antal, author of an impressive portfolio of Baroque ornaments based on anthropomorphic motifs.

The portal of the entrance has an ample basket-handle opening, with a curved keystone. The windows are rectangular and have plaster framing both on the ground floor and on the first floor. The ones on the first floor are larger and more richly decorated, with wreaths of flowers and semi-arched “eyebrow” cornices. Some of the upper parts of these arch segments metamorphose into modeled volutes. Underneath the windows of the top floor lie panels ornamented with stucco that start at the windowsill and descend to the middle area of the façade. Other important elements that articulate the façade are the segmented lesena on the ground floor, composite-capped pilasters on the first floor and the cornice that delimits the ground floor from the first floor on the outside.

On the roof there is a triangular gable with its top severed by a curved cornice the sides of which take the shape of volutes, flanked by two ovoid skylights. The cornice of the gable and the stone framing of the skylights support busts of men placed on small trapezoid supports. These statues, sculpted by Anton Schuchbauer represent Turkish soldiers with their heads wrapped in turbans. The two coats-of-arms of the Toldalagi and Wass families are sculpted on the gable, and above them a crown symbolizing the union between the two noble families. On the façade, above the commemorative plaque an oval medallion with a richly decorated frame is visible. The medallion represents the relieved image of a crow with a ring in its beak.

The building had many functions over the years, in 1786 has been a printing house, in 1920 a bank and in 1960 was installed here the History Department of the County Museum. Currently, since 1984, the building houses the headquarters of the Ethnography Department of the Mureş County Museum.

Via. Images from here, and here.

Happy National Day, Romania!

2010-12-01T11:07:00.000+02:00

Happy National Day, Romania!

La Mulţi Ani, România!

1st December 1918

2 photos by Liviu Mihai, from here.
About the National Day of Romania, see our previous post.

Ion I. Agârbiceanu

2010-11-23T18:40:00.000+02:00

Ion I. Agârbiceanu (January 6, 1907, Bucium - March 9, 1971, Cluj) was a Romanian physicist, son of novelist Ion Agârbiceanu.

He graduated the Electrotechnical Institute in Bucharest (1925-1929), then the Faculty of Sciences in Paris, where he received his doctorate (1934), prepared under the leadership of A. Cotton. His doctoral thesis, Recherche sur le spectre de fluorescence et d'absorption des vapeurs de Iodine became a reference work in the field.

In 1948 Ion I. Agârbiceanu became professor at the Petroleum and Gas Institute in Bucharest. Since 1951 he was professor at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Bucharest, then he was Head of Department of Physics at the Bucharest Polytechnic Institute (1955-1971). He was Romania's representative to the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics and the European Group for Atomic Spectroscopy. On 21 March 1963, he was elected member of the Romanian Academy.

In 1956, Prof. Dr. Ion I. Agârbiceanu organized at the Institute of Atomic Physics in Bucharest, the "Optical Methods in Nuclear Physics" Laboratory, with outstanding results in the research on atomic hyperfine and isotopic structures, magneto-optical resonance, and thin dielectric layers.

The Agârbiceanu Laser (image from Wikipedia)

Under his leadership was realized in 1962 the first gas (helium-neon) laser with infrared radiation, after his original design. By focusing the laser beam produced by monochromatic light, there are obtained enormous radiation densities on very small surfaces.

Ştefan Lupaşcu

2010-11-16T18:28:00.001+02:00

Ştefan Lupaşcu (Stéphane Lupasco, 1900–1988) was a Romanian philosopher who developed Non-Aristotelian logic.

Stéphane Lupasco was born in Bucharest on 11 August 1900. His family belonged to the old Moldavian aristocracy. His father was a lawyer and politician, but it was his mother, a pianist and student of César Franck, who established the family in Paris in 1916. After high school at the Lycée Buffon, he studied philosophy, biology and physics at the Sorbonne and, briefly, law. He participated fully in the artistic and intellectual life of Paris in the 20’s and 30’s and defended his State Doctoral Thesis in 1935.

In 1946, he was named Research Assistant at the French National Science Research Center, a post he was obliged to leave ten years later because of the inability of the Center to decide in which faculty his work belonged! The next ten or fifteen years were those of greatest acceptance of his work by the public and other thinkers, but unfortunately not by main-stream logicians and philosophers. His Trois Matières, published in 1960 was a bestseller, and people began calling Lupasco the Descartes, the Leibniz, the Hegel of the 20th Century, a new Claude Bernard, a new Bergson, etc. He continued to publish books in the 70’s and 80’s, the last being L’Homme et ses Trois Ethiques in 1986, two years before his death on October 7, 1988 in Paris. An Award of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1984 was among the few honors that came to Lupasco during his lifetime. Lupasco was one of the founding members of the International Center for Transdisciplinary Research (Centre International de Recherches et Etudes Transdisciplinaires (CIRET)), founded in Paris in 1987 by Basarab Nicolescu, Edgar Morin, René Berger, Michel Random and other key figures of the French intelligentsia. As Nicolescu has recalled, Lupasco was deeply affected by the stubborn resistance of the academic community to honest debate and discussion of his new principles and postulates, and it is with an understandable bitterness that Lupasco saw in this resistance another example of the operation of his principles.

Lupasco's work is a complex philosophical system focused on the dynamic logic of contradiction. It is about a theoretical daresome creation meant to offer a solution to the epistemological contemporary crises, towards a new and original approach of the philosophy as a science. Further on Stefan Lupascu aims even an essential change of the human capacity to understand the reality. Having the new logic as a basis, without being classical, he places the whole explanation about the surrounding environment in other terms. Stimulated by Einstein's works and quantum theory, Lupasco founded a new logic, questioning the tertium non datur principle of classical logic. He introduced a third state, going beyond the duality principle, the T-state. The T-state is neither 'actual', nor 'potential' (categories replacing in Lupasco's system the 'true' or 'false' values of standard bivalent logic), but a resolution of the two contradictory elements at a higher level of reality or complexity. Lupasco generalized his logic to physics and epistemology and above all to a new theory of consciousness.

Main source of informations: Wikipedia.

Orzea Gorges

2010-11-15T13:15:00.000+02:00

Located north of Scropoasa Lake in Bucegi Mountains, Cheile Orzei (Orzea Gorges) are among the tightest, beautiful and spectacular gorges in the Ialomița Valley and even in Romania. The gorges are over 1.5 km long, dug into the limestone walls. In 1970, to protect this valuable space, was created the Orzea Gorges Nature Reserve Complex.

Mixed nature reserves Orzea-Zănoaga and Zănoaga-Lucăcilă includes Zănoaga karst systeme: Big Zănoaga Gorges, Little Zănoaga Gorges, Orzea Gorges - all nature monuments, forests of spruce (Pices abies), a thermophilic vegetation consisting of rare Southern-European, Southern-Mediterranean and Balkanic floristic elements: mountain rye (Secale montanum), iris (Iris dacica), Sorbus cretica, Carduus candicanus, Athamantha hungarica, Phleum montanum, Lonicera caerulea, Astragalus depressus, and many others.

Orzea Gorges are guarded by stone walls of 100-300 m high, between Lespezi Mountain and Orza–Brânduşi Mountain. Here, Ialomița Valley is very narrow and provides an exciting spectacle of the falls on the stones. At the end of the gorges are the Scropoasa lake and dam.

Images from here, here, and here.

The four musketeers

2010-11-14T16:24:00.001+02:00

The Women Sword Team of Romania won the 2010 World Championship in Paris, France. In the female sword tournament, the team of Romania defeated Ukraine (45-35) in the eights, France (45-40) in the quarterfinals, and South Korea (45-31) in the semifinals. The bronze medal was won by South Korea, which defeated China (45-37), and Romania won a dramatic final against Germany (35-26).

Ana Maria Brânză, Simona Alexandru, Anca Măroiu and Loredana Iordăchioiu are the new World Champions! All for one...

Foto: Agerpress

Aiudului Gorges

2010-11-13T12:44:00.000+02:00

The Switzerland of the East, the name given to the Apuseni and Sebeş Mountains, are without any doubt, and will remain, the main touristic destinations of Alba County. One who has visited the county’s beauties will certainly come back again and bring his friends as well.

The shallow water limestone from the Trascău Mountains crop out in two parallel alignments with a generally N-S orientation: Tureni-Buru-Rimetea-Cheile Aiudului alignment in the east, and the Lunca Arieşului-Râmeţi (Bedeleu ridge) in the west. Cheile Aiudului (Aiudului Gorges or Vălișoarei Gorges or Poienii Gorges) are located in eastern Trăscau Mountains, Alba County, and are carved in Mesozoic (Jurassic) limestone. Aiudului Gorges are crossed by the county road DJ107, connecting the Mureş Valley (Aiud) and the Arieş Valley (Buru village). The gorges are situated at a distance of about 15 km from Aiud, 15 km from Buru 15 km, 35 km from Turda and 65 km from Cluj-Napoca.

Aiudului Gorges were declared as geo-morphological and botanical nature reserve (20 ha - strict protection, 100 ha - nature reserve and a buffer zone of protection). The reserve is located in the southern part of the Rimetea Depression, with a maximum altitude of 779 m and a minimum of 425 m. On the slopes of the mountain can be found several rare, protected species. The gorges presents shelf slope facies associations and open shelf edge facies associations, with bio-constructions and bio-clastic shoals.

On the right of the gorges, there is a rock called The Fortress, where some 13th century documents attested the Zedecheu Fortress, unidentified until now in site. The area of the gorges is a paradise for trekkers, hikers or paragliders.

Images from here and here.

The Năsal cheese

2010-11-10T15:50:00.001+02:00

The traditional Romanian products obtain identity and recognition by European legislation. These products can have an immeasurable value for the cultural heritage of the Romanian people and represents also a highly economic potential.

The Năsal cheese is the only sort of Romanian cheese with mould, having also a specific technology. It’s identity is due to it’s specific qualities given by the ripening in the natural den from Ţaga, Cluj County. In this unique location the temperature and humidity of the air are constant all year long favoring also in this way the obtainment of a quality product. In this way Brevibacterium linens “contaminates” the cheese and transforms it into a highly appreciated specialty by the consumers. The conditions in the den, and the existence of bacteria, are impossible to reproduce in any other place, with the result of uniqueness of this cheese.

It is said that the area was owned by a rich and cruel count. One day, some brave farmers have ignored the commandments of the noble and took some pieces of his cheese, for their children. They hid the cheese in the den near the Năsal village, and did not rushed to go and take it. Weeks passed, and one day a villager went into the cave, convinced he will find the cheese rotten. He had a big surprise when he found it in good condition. The cheese changed its color to a reddish yellow, but the taste was very good, despite the smell. Finally, the count found out and punished the peasants. However, he began himself to keep in the cave cheese pieces, with whom he served all his noble guests, proud of its exquisite taste.

The cheese is hard, reddish at exterior and it has a soft, creamy consistency. It is recommended to be served with a dry red wine. You can use slices of red onion, red grapes, nuts or integral crackers. Today, the Năsal cheese is produced by Napolact, a major dairy producer from Cluj and sold in a wooden box.

RIP, Adrian Păunescu

2010-11-05T18:49:00.000+02:00

Adrian Păunescu (b. July 20, 1943, Copăceni, Bălți County, today in Moldova Republic - d. November 5, 2010, Bucharest)

A literary prize

2010-11-01T16:47:00.000+02:00

For her first novel, "Terre des affranchis" which was published at Gaia Publishing House last year, the writer Liliana Lazăr was awarded the Prix des cinq continents. The prestigious prize, awarded by the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), rewards since 2001 Francophone writers. The Romanian Cultural Institute in Paris and the OIF will promote internationally the novel of Liliana Lazăr.

Liliana Lazăr received also for her novel the Prix La Première in Belgium. The action of the book takes place in Romania, in 1955, and the hero is Victor Luca from Slobozia. Because he committed a crime, he must live secretly, but the need for redemption leads him to the point that it will accept a secret mission: to be a clerk and to save the holy writings, banned during the communist regime. The jury considered the novel as "a cruel story, politics and metaphysics, where, in the struggle between good and evil and in face of brutality, there is no salvation".

Luminiţa Dinu-Huţupan

2010-10-31T14:02:00.001+02:00

Luminiţa Dinu-Huţupan (née Dinu) (born 6 November 1971 in Piatra Neamţ) was the best keeper in the history of the Romanian handball and maybe the best in the world.

Luminiţa began playing handball in 1985 and she has played for CS Oltchim Râmnicu Vâlcea, HC Kometal Gjorče Petrov and Krim Ljubljana. She is 3 times winner of Champions League Cup (2001, 2002, 2003), 2 times winner of European Super Cup (2004, 2007), 5 times winner of Romanian First League of Women Handball, 4 times winner of Romanian Cup, Winner of Romanian Super Cup, 6 times winner of Slovenian Championship, 6 times winner of Slovenian Cup, Winner of Cup Winners' Cup (2007), Winner of Champions Trophy. She is also Vice-champion of the World with Romania in 2005.

She was declared the best goalkeeper of 2000 European Women's Handball Championship and the best goalkeeper of 2005 World Women's Handball Championship. International Handball Federation has launched this days an online poll on its website (www.ihf.info) for choosing the best all-time women goalie, Luminiţa Dinu-Huţupan leading for now. She retired in 2009.

Photos from here and here.

Jazz Made in Romania

2010-10-30T21:37:00.000+03:00

In a steady Saturday night, some of my favorite Romanian jazz players... Enjoy!

Teodora Enache - My Favorite Things

Marius Popp - Xybaba

Aura Urziceanu - Paganini, Capriccio no. 24

Dan Mândrilă - Ballade

Aura Urziceanu - J.S. Bach, Air from Suite no. 3

Decebal Bădilă - Georgie's Pub

Teodora Enache - Erev Shel Shoshanim

Cantacuzino Castle of Buşteni

2010-10-29T17:45:00.000+03:00

Gheorghe Grigore Cantacuzino (September 22, 1833 – March 22, 1913) was a Conservative Romanian politician who twice served as the Prime Minister of Romania: between 23 April 1899 and 19 July 1900 and between 4 January 1906 and 24 March 1907. He was born into the Romanian noble Cantacuzino family and was a descendant of Romanian voivods (ruling princes) and Byzantine Emperors. Prince Cantacuzino was known as "the Nabob" due to its fabulous richness, being the the largest owner of land in Romania at that time. He built the Cantacuzino Palace in Bucharest (The George Enescu Museum) and the Cantacuzino Castle of Buşteni.

Buşteni is a small mountain town in the north of Prahova county, in the center of Romania. It is located in the Prahova Valley, on Bucegi Mountains, and it is one of the most popular mountain resorts, offering spectacular views with lots of year-round tourism opportunities, ranging from skiing to mountain climbing. Cantacuzino Castle was built in 1911 in the park owned by the Prince and is one of the top castles in Romania in terms of architecture. During the communist regime, the castle was nationalized and transformed in a TB sanatorium of the Ministry of Internal Affairs; after 1989 it was returned to the heirs of the Prince, who sold it in 2004 to a group of investors that restored it and reinstated in the tourist circuit.

The castle has 1200.30 sqm ground surface, composed of basement, ground floor and first floor with a developed surface of 3148.09 sqm, with concrete foundation, walls of carved stone, and covered with tiles. It has also a service pavilion of 201.90 sqm ground surface, ground floor and first floor with developed surface of 403.80 sqm; an administrative mansion of 114.41 sqm ground surface, one level; the chapel.

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Impressive in terms of architecture, the castle is compared to other buildings completed in neo-brâncovenesc style. The interior decorative repertoire consists of polychrome molding, ornamental and figurative painting, stained glass windows, carved carpentry, tiled ceilings, railings carved in stone, wrought iron or wood, floors in decorative sandstone slabs or floors with parquetry, which confer a romantic feel to the interior, even if the molding of the interior columns and door framing sculpture reminds us of the decorative Brâncoveanu style repertoire. The interior polychromy supported by the geometrical motifs of the receptions hall arcades reminds us of the paintings found in religious spaces due to neo-byzantine style.

Stained glass windows, railings, the stairways of the hallway and the ceilings with visible beams some of them painted, remind us of the romantic decorative repertoire. All this decorative repertoire emphasizes the unique character of the building, bringing forward the ensigns of the Cantacuzino family as well as those belonging to families related to this, painted in the reception room next to the fresco of the most outstanding members of the Cantacuzino boyar-related Wallachian branch. The complex is in full coordination with ample exterior decorations, terraces and walls of support, ramps and stairs with railings of stone that besides functionality makes perfect integration of this complexity in the mountain area. The castle is surrounded by waterfalls, caves and fountains. In addition, the complex is located in an area scientifically proven as being an important energetic pole and studies stand for it.

Photos from here, here, here.

Rural Romania

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Images from rural Romania...

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From here

Jazz Made in Romania

2010-10-27T19:06:00.000+03:00

Romanian-American Jazz Suite - Transylvanian Dance

Emy Drăgoi & Jazz Hot Club Romania - The Skylark

Marius Preda - Cimbalom Piece

Marian Petrescu Jazz Trio - Lacrymosa

Andrei Roşulescu & Răzvan Slama - Virtual Seasons

Cheese in fir tree bark

2010-10-26T11:38:00.000+03:00

The cheese in fir tree bark is a exquisite cheese specialty prepared by the Romanian shepherds from Carpathian Mountains, especially from Bran, Sibiu and Braşov areas. The cheese has a special flavor due to the fir bark resins.

The bark of a fir tree with a diameter of over 20 cm is cut to form a cylinder and two lids. The shiny inner layer must be separate from the outer layer. Cylinder and the inferior lid are assembled with thick rope. The fresh sheep cheese is cut in slices 1 cm thick and is introduced in water with salt. After a day, it is well drained, then shredded (and well-mixed with salt if needed). After one hour, small pieces are placed in the bark cylinder and pressed, until the cylinder is filled, the superior lid is assembled, then it is placed on a grating and left for one day to drain completely. The cylinders are then smoked for two weeks and kept under 20 ⁰C.

Images from here and here.

The Red Ravine

2010-10-25T17:25:00.001+03:00

Râpa Roșie (English: Red Ravine), is a geological park of 25 hectares, located about 3 km from Sebeş, Alba County, and was declared nature reserve since 1950. Its walls with heights between 80-100 m, have very unusual shapes: columns, towers, pyramids, all with reddish color.

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The Red Ravine detritic deposits consist of sequences of red clay, gray and red sandstone, white sandstone, loose, red marl, white calcareous marl; by erosion, subsidence and collapse processes was sculpted the richness of forms that make the Red Ravine a natural monument of rare beauty. Here are some of the largest caves in the world developed in earth, of which one of 25 m.

Here can be found also several rare plant species (Cotoneaster integarrima, Ephedra distachya, Centaurea atropurpurea, Dianthus serotinus, Cephalaria radiata, Asplenium nigrum).

Images from here.

The 100 million years concert hall

2010-10-24T15:29:00.000+03:00

Românești Cave is located in the south-east of the Românești village, on the left slope of Fărăşeşti Valley, in Poiana Ruscă Mountains, Timiș County, Banat, South-Western Romania. The cave is famous for its great acoustic and the concerts played here.

The Românești Cave is 1,450m long and has three different levels. The entrance is oriented north by northwest and is 9.5m wide by 2m high, allowing a diffuse illumination for 70m. The three levels have sub-fossil character, and the main rooms were formed at the intersection of several faults. The third level is accessible only for speleologists. Geographer T. Orthmayr made the first geological and natural research and exploration in 1872. He, and later researchers, found archeological artifacts from the Musterian Culture (over 15,000 years ago), from Tisa and Coțofeni Cultures, bear cave bones - that are on display in the Banat Museum in Timișoara and the Museum of Natural History in Lugoj.

On October 11, 1984, Romania had a unique and beautiful cultural event - the first symphonic concert in a cave. Three hundred and sixty visitors entered into the cave-hall lighted with candles, lamps, projectors, to hear it. Since then, every October comes with a new concert. Live concerts in caves are extremely rare, and Romania hosts the only annual speleo-concert. In Gibraltar are sometimes concerts in a small cave that can fit 30 people, while in the Românești Cave were 5,000 spectators at the concert of master Ştefan Ruha!

Images from Agenda, Speleophilately and Wikipedia.