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Published: August 7th 2007
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Lonely Planet said 'Travel no further - you have found what you are looking for' about the Maramures region of Romania. This surprised me because I hadn't emailed them about my love affair with Romania rural, peasant, horse and cart culture, but somehow they knew that this was exactly what I was looking for in Romania.
They described the Maramures region as having a thriving peasant community, shit loads of horses and carts and a remarkable isolation from 20th and in fact 19th century practices, technology and fashion, due to the Carpathian mountain range that surrounded it. Modernity hadn't even touched a skerrif of hay there (still kept in traditional haystacks, put there with pitchforks which are wooden and handmade - its true - we saw them being sold.)
An overnight train saw us pulling into the Maramures at dawn - I woke up and saw misty magical landscapes of pretty trees dotting fresh green hill sides, bubbling brooks and funny little fences surrounding small quaint houses. However, the town we disembarked at, Sigetu Marmatieu, was a depressing hole of a place that reminded me of dull small town NZ on a bad day. We were weird-vibed to the
end of our tether at the place we ended up staying at - purporting to be a hostel but really a room in a new house beside the owners room - a middle aged English guy and his Romanian wife. It sort of felt like we'd rented a holiday home in some sort of 'blind date' way. We spent a few hours sitting slumped on our bed (there was nowhere else to go, no lounge, we weren't allowed to use their kitchen...) looking at the walls feeling like we'd reached hell AND been recommended it by Lonely Planet. with the phrase 'travel no further' echoing in our minds...
Day 2 took on an entirely different disposition. Think: inspired, awed and charmed. Also fillled with wonderment. And astonishment. We went with the English guy (Rob) on a tour of the Maramures, as there was no other conceivable way that we'd be able to get into the real countryside without a car. He turned out to be excellent, and knew exactly where to take us.
First we drove to a livestock market happening close by - something that only happens once a month so we were in luck. The place
was filled with horses and rickety old wooden carts with plump head scarved women and men in waistcoats and small hats wrestling with large pigs, driving the horse and cart through with reasonable proficiency through the crowd, which was made up of exactly the same configuration in every direction you looked. There was one stall selling handmade wooden pitchforks along with all this. Apparently there was a lot of buying and selling of horses and pigs going on, but all we really saw was a lot of contented looking peasants. We were told that before deciding to buy a horse, the men would take them out to a paddock out the back, put a cart heavily loaded on it, with the brakes on, and see if the horse would 'giddy up'. We wandered around in our tevas and felt very welcome - this was the first place in our travels where the people smiled willingly (albeit toothlessly) when we asked to take a photo and didn't ask for money at the end.
We then went to a tiny village named 'Buchesti' - that had lots of traditional wooden peasants houses and a beautiful simple wooden church that had no
nails, just wooden pegs, carved wooden roof 'tiles' and a tiny little wooden shack beside it where all the flowers would be put during funerals. This church was nestled on a forested hillside, was from the 17th century, and apparently is packed on Sundays. We walked down the village road a little way (passing many plump women in headscarfs and short, full skirts) and crossed a little bridge over a stream where we met a little man who ran the village water wheel / mill. A lovely rustic wooden wheel was turning with full gusto outside a little house, inside which we found corn being ground into chicken feed by a mechanism (also wooden) powered by the water wheel. Was this just for show? Were they doing this for our benefit? Were they just humouring us? No! The people of the village actually used this mill frequently because thats the way they ground their grains. They really hadn't been touched by the industrial age at all. Now at this point something wondrous happened: I was standing there feeling like I'd reached mecca, and was told that Prince Charles had been there, to this very mill, adopted a village nearby and
bought two small village houses to save them from a lesser fate. Now my love affair with Romanian peasant culture seemed to morph into a love affair with Prince Charles... he who appreciated rustic antiquated, pre-industrial peasant charm even more than me!! Xavier soon snapped me out of it and promised that as soon as he could, would also purchase two wooden houses to save them from a lesser fate.
Our next stop was at another little man's house where we were invited in to sample some 'Plenka' - plum brandy, very strong at 52%, with a ladder inside the bottle. We were admiring the courtyard (the stick with pots hanging on it means that they have a daughter who they are desparate to marry off..) when we heard folky, very fast violin music coming from inside the house. As we entered the little old man smiled and finished with a theatrical flourish, then packed the violin away in its box and invited us to sit down. Obviously this served as a welcome song, and although short-lived, I got my gypsy music fix. We sat down at a table inside a room filled to the seams with embroidered cushions,
blankets, curtains and cloths hanging on all walls. Splendid. We were handed a glass of plum brandy and also a piece of fresh-out-of-the-pan fried bread with sheep cheese inside it by the little man's dumpy plumpy wife. We looked around us and contemplated how the little man got those ladders inside the bottles of his plum brandy as we felt the alchohol course through our bloodstream with as much intensity as he played the violin.
Out into the open again, we travelled to 'Sapanta', a place where a cemetery called the 'merry cemetery' has made the town famous. The brightly coloured wooden crosses on each grave depict each persons life or in some bizarre, dare we say it, funny cases, the way that they died. Check out the snaps.
And that was the end - the day had totally fulfilled our dreams of finding a world that we thought had long disappeared. And now we're back in a modern university town in Romania, dreaming of wooden pitchforks and water wheels.
Back during the livstock market I had asked Rob if he thought that the horse and cart culture was dying out. His answer made me miss a
Back from the fields
Traditonal peasant house behind. few heart beats - he said - "Yes. I think in 5 or 10 years this will all be gone. Replaced by moden farming techniques finally."
So. YOU ALL GET A MOVE ON TO ROMANIA BEFORE THIS OR ANYTHING ELSE COOL IN THE WHOLE WORLD DISAPPEARS INTO A LONELY SOLELESS EXISTENCE AT MUSEUMS ONLY!! THERES NOT MUCH TIME!
P.S Heads up to Prince Charles.
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Kaylee
non-member comment
Amazing!
wow. this is so unbelievable. I've always wanted to see Romania .. mostly lured to it by the magnificent castle of Vlad the Impaler (Our buddy, Dracula) . . but you've provided a side of it to me that seems so pure. Your blog was fantastic. The pictures are absolutely incredible! From one traveler to another .. . . Thanks! and Happy Journeys!