Putna. Painted Monastery; Cabanas for Hikers Trekkers

Monastery, Putna, Romania
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Timing is important at monasteries. Arrive before 5 PM in order to hear the chanting here at Putna Monastery, in the north. We just missed it.
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Putna is a welcoming place, with a fine hostel for the night. Look for "Cabana" on the signs. Stay at the local hostel. A late arrival is welcomed, and there will be good food nearby. 

Hostel, Putna, Romania. Cabana.















There are Cabanas for hikers and trekkers, and the rest of us, ranging from the clearly hotel-like, to the more informal youth rooms, conveniently spaced around Romania.  They were always safe and clean.  See http://about-romania.net/en/romania-getting-around/about-romania-accommodation/about-romania-cabanas.html

Cabanas:  Some boast their own companionably loud cafe. We chose some exercise and walked to another cafe in Putna on the main street. Dan, with Down Syndrome, often brings nods and smiles of recognition. In the town cafe, we sat in the pub room and watched the only tv show going:  a local wedding from earlier in the day,  If you are not an immediate invitee, participate in the pub later. Then someone motioned for us to follow, so we did, into another room where  another Down syndrome young man had been sitting with his parents, and were just leaving. We all gave especially long handshakes and smiles. Universals.
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Maramures. Carved Wooden Gates. Prislop Pass. Mongols. Gates: Barrier; Protection; and Status.

Prislop Pass, and Gateways Against Evils; For Recognition.
Gates Against Incursion, and as Memorials.
Genghis Khan

I.  Residence carved gateways.

Maramures, Home Gateway, Romania
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These are elaborate, see with recurrent twisted rope and other motifs.  The gates served notice of private property beyond, and against incursion.There are seldom high walls on the sides, however, so protection is minimal as a practical matter. here, roosters adorn the gate openings on top. See http://www.romaniatourism.com/maramures.html
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Elaborate carved gates mark the homes, out at the street, with walkways to the compound beyond. See Maramures gates at http://www.puzzleworld.org/Maramures/budes01. The bigger the gate, the more prestige sought or claimed, as anywhere else in the world. Gated communities are an old concept.
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II. Historical Gateways

Prislop Pass.

This gateway at the Prislop Pass, see video at http://vimeo.com/49895673 is in the mountains on the way to Maramures from the Suceava area. There is no residence, no building or community nearby, and it signifies instead the farthest advance of the Mongols. In about 1242, the Mongols had reached Brasov, destroying old churches, see http://www.romaniatourism.com/brasov.html

Prislop Pass, Romania, Gateway

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What stopped the Mongols? It was not a battle.  Mongol and other horses could not manage the pristine forests.  The Mongols, a/k/a Tatars, began in about 1214, kept at it until 1717, as far as they could canter in.  See http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC2G74R_prislop-pass/

Reminiscence:  The film  Cold Mountain - with its vistas. No wonder. The movie was was filmed here.
 Currently there is much logging in the mountains, but the logging is turning to clear-cutting. 


III.  Ethnic Groups in Romania and elsewhere.  Mongols, Tatars.
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Mongols:  Western contemporary accounts are inaccurate in many respects.  The Mongol culture was far more than our lens showing brutality.  The interesting angle is that initial brutality to subdue an area was followed often with wisdom and accommodation in the subsequent administration, adaptation, adoption of ideas, fostering arts, culture, see http://www.phocas.de/The_Mongols/the_mongols.html.  Theirs was the largest land empire in history, and remains so, see http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200301/the.arts.of.the.mongols.htm
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Mongols contributed to Romanian culture and the gene pool.  See http://romanianhistoryandculture.webs.com/1241mongolinvasion.htm  After the Romans and Dacians had long blended, see Romania and the Eastern Question, 1989, at  http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/593Rom.html, enter the Tatars or Mongols.

What is the ethnic makeup in Romania now? Apparently, 1 in every 200 men (need to check if this in all Europe?) carry the Genghis Gene.

That is some 16 million men and who knows how many women that carry his genetic makeup, and it is unique and measurable, see Forbes Magazine on High Achieving Genes, the Khan's chromosomes, at http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml.
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Genghis himself fathered so many children, as did his followers, that any gateways on the highways designed to keep him out, did not keep out the conquest by chromosome. Epicanthic folds at the inner eye? Many disappear in Caucasians by age 2 or so, I understand.  Mongol history: see http://history-world.org/mongol_empire.htm

Vlad Route Highlights

This is a summary of the primary Vlad sights:

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1. Bucharest - Fly in.  Have some Romanian cash with you already - we had $200 from home.  The airport has ATM's also and Bank exchanges, but those lines can be long. ATM's outside the airport may not be available outside main towns.  Get rental car.  We immediately headed north, but have put all the Bucharest sites here at the beginning to better suit the chronology.  We actually spent our days in Bucharest at the end of the trip. Our usual practice is to save big cities for the end, and immediately aim for the countryside.  Thus, the need for cash.

• Curtea Veche (at Bucharest), an actual court of Vlad III Tepes, the "old court", is still being excavated), Bucharest court, Curtea Veche, see http://bucharest.romaniaexplorer.com/page_10857.html 

•  Dracula Club (Bucharest).  This is a themed eating club, kitsch and fun, and clearly and appropriately geared for tourists. Dracula Club. Apparently the idea has caught on, see http://www.mysteriousjourneys.com/halloween-2011-transilvania/.  When we were there, unfortunately at the same time as a promotional evening October 31 for tour guides from the US, some guides were commenting to each other that the distance between Vlad sites would be a detraction from tours just focused on Vlad, and we agree.  So incorporate Vlad in everything else.  Fried rats.  Yum. Chicken breast covered with poppy seeds, tail of pasta, ears of pasta, whiskers, little beady eyes.

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2. Lake Snagov.  This is the possible-doubtful burial place for all or part of Vlad Tepes, beheaded on a battlefield, apparently.  The burial is at a lovely monastery, not the original, but a smaller reconstruction.  Parts may have been there, still lovely and worth being rowed over). Vlad. monastery island claimed burial place , and Lake Snagov;  for details on Vlad, read the novel "The Historian" by Elizabeth Kostova -- definitely a novel, but a good read with interesting facts and factoids, see http://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm/book_number/1589/the-historian
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3. Bran Castle (not much connection in fact with Vlad, but it is tourist-convenient), Brasov. Bran Castle.  The guides there will disavow any Vlad connection except perhaps an occasional overnight stay as a visitor.  Tourism has taken over, but enjoy.
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4. Poinari Citadel, Poinari Citadel, at the Transfagarasan Pass.  This pass takes you from Wallachia to Transylvania; on the way, through the steep and formidable vales, is the real castle, now a ruin but worth the climb.  To make it easier, the climb is an easy series of switchbacks for walking, and a rail. Transfagarasan Pass.  Take a few dollars for the guides up there. I understand that a dollar can buy a great deal. 
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5. Sighisoara (birthplace), Sighisoara, a lovely medieval town, long staircases from one level of the town to another for protection, great timbers for the stairs.  His birthplace is now a restaurant, and a good one.
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6. Bistrita (fiction author Bram Stoker and his "Dracula" site, tavern there).  This gets to the fictional side of Dracula.  The town is unremarkable except for the interest in how Bram Stoker, an Irishman, turned the historic Vlad into the vampire Dracula.
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7. Castel Dracula, at Piatra Fontanele.  There is a new hotel here, serving not only the tourists who enjoy Dracula's story; but also serious hikers, climbers.  This is where Bram Stoker's fictional character's castle supposedly located, in central hiking-outdoor-near wilderness type park, some kitsch but fine), Castel Dracula, Piatra Fontanele,
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8. Hunedoara.  Town. Its castle is known as Hunedoara Castle, a/k/a Corvinilor Castle, or Corvinilor Castulul.  It was built in the 14th Century by Hungarian John Hunyadi, ruler of Transylvania, sometime ally, sometimes enemy (he ordered the death of Vlad's father), see Corvin Castle, Hunedoara. 
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Iancu de Hunedoara. Johannes Hunedoara. Spellings from different languages, make researching complex.
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•  This site underplays his role with Vlad, see http://biography.yourdictionary.com/john-hunyadi; this Angelfire site goes too far into areas of the occult, see http://www.angelfire.com/realm/shades/demons/vampires/vladlifeofvlad3.htm

Start research instead with Romanian sources? Try http://www.romanianmonasteries.org/romania/corvinilor-castle
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9. Targoviste (actual court), the Princely Court,  Targoviste, practice your browser's translation ability at http://www.targoviste.light-soft.ro/  For a touristy site but with a nice photograph, see http://www.draculasteps.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=48&Itemid=55
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10. Bucharest (details at #1)

For those not interested in driving:

• If you prefer a formal tour, this one looks reasonably good if you like buses; but bus rides over long distances must get boring.  See photos and narrative at http://www.covinnus.com/tours/tour005.html.  
• Here is a site with a fine introductory set of photographs on Vlad Tepes sites - at http://www.richardleveson.com/Romania3.html/.

Campulung Moldovensc. Jewish Romanians.

Campulung lies between Vatra Dornei and Suceava.  Some areas have a history that is unexpected.  The terrain here shows ravages of clear-cutting as the logging technique.  Leaving Putna and heading west, there are vast areas of over-logged mountains.  Is anyone reforesting?
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Campulung Moldovensc, Romania. Logging.












 Campulung also was a major population area for Jewish Romanians, see http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/bukowinabook/buk2_088.html/  The group may have begun with traders, commercial travelers coming from Hungary, through Siebenburgen, and documentation of them, including restrictions on their activities, is as early as the 1500's.  Was it the rest stations that they initiated that blossomed into the cabana system today?

Vatra Dornei:  This town stems from Roman times, see http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/bukowinabook/buk2_084a.html/ but features more tragically as the site of decimation of Jews of Bukovina in World War II. 

Culture. Romania Invented Baseball

Who invented Baseball? The Romanians.  Can it be so? Yes! Great!

Global roots.

The inventor of baseball was not Abner Doubleday, despite the Cooperstown, NY Baseball Hall of Fame, see http://www.whoinventedbaseball.com/.

Play Ball!

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The modern field came about in 1845, thanks to Alexander Joy Cartwright, see ://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blbaseball.htm/. But, despite continuing claims that the game was invented in America also in 1845, the British had been playing "Rounders" since the 1600's, and then the American colonists played their version, called "Town Ball", see ://www.schools.pinellas.k12.fl.us/educators/tec/Mutert2/begbb.html/

Play Oina! It is the Romanians who invented the game closest to baseball - or its group equivalents before the name came about.  They have been playing "Oina" since 1364, during the reign of Vlaicu Voda, and Oina is the "godfather" of our baseball, see ://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_invented_baseball/  It remains the national sport.  There are back-and-forth lanes (not our diamond), and the game lasts 30 minutes, and read there of the many similarities.

This Inventorship:  other sources agree.  The idea is supported by this article in the Seattle Times - see ://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19900422&slug=1067700/   Transylvanians introduced it here, according to  Romanian sports writer Cristian Costescu.  They emigrated from Alba Iulia. They joined the US Army, taught the game to their fellows, and one of those was - you guessed it - Abner Doubleday, who added a twist or two.  See also the Romanian baseball origins at ://www.buzzle.com/articles/origin-and-history-of-baseball.html

Oina:  11 on a side. One team bats, the other team takes the field.  The pitcher, however, is from the batting team and lobs over an easy slow one.  Whack!  Batter runs 120 yards.  There are 9 bases.  If the batter gets tagged, that earns the fielding team points, so you can rack up your score by tagging the runners - not just by hitting and getting home.  Bat looks like a cricket bat, and nobody wears gloves.   Each side gets an "at-bat" - and all 11 get a chance.

Famous player, like Babe Ruth: Eugen Cocut.  All that still from ://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19900422&slug=1067700/

Basarab I (not Vlaicu Voda)

Vlaicu Voda - see the monastery he founded, at ://alexisphoenix.org/vodita.php/.  Do an Images search in Bing, and see a statue that we had thought, when we were there, to be Basarab I, and that is the name on the pedestal.  Here is our Basarab, the same statue that shows up at Bing's Images Vlaicu Voda.

Basarab does sound more like baseball.  That clinches it.

No, wrong.  Basarab reigned 1310-1352;  Vlaicu Voda reigned 1364-1377. See ://www.fact-index.com/w/wa/wallachia.html/  Separate people.

Safe!

Politics. EU Membership Romania - What it Means (European Union)

European Union Issues - Romania

Romania has been in the news lately, as hosting the big NATO conference April 2008.

1. The site of the conference:

Parliament stands alone.

A large area was demolished for this purpose, cleared of traditional Bucharest neighborhoods, by Former President Nicolae Ceaucescu, see http://www.ceausescu.org/.  He was later executed by firing squad 12/25/1989. There are many sites with negative coverage as to Ceaucescu at http://www.dictatorofthemonth.com/Ceaucescu/May2007CeaucescuEN.htm.  However, we noted special shrines to him at his grave at Ghenciu Military Cemetery; and in the lower floors of the Peasants' Museum.  That one is like a shrine.

In an effort to look more European, Ceaucescu modeled Bucharest according to Parisian style -- an Arch of Triumph and radiating roadways, and broad boulevards lead to isolated huge Parliamentary buildings. That Parliamentary area is where the conference was held.

The urban clearance area is still largely vacant. Acre after acre.

2. Feral dogs dogs dogs.

People forced from their homes could not take their pets into the new housing offered.

In clearing the old city neighborhoods, and moving people to government housing, we understand that the people could take no pets - thus the thousands upon thousands (by now) of stray dogs, including cockers, pekingese, shelties, beagles and poodles, as well as the large yellow mixes, many Heinz 57 by now, but still many identifiable as essentially specific breeds. Foraging.

Dogs, dogs. Even up in the mountains now. Chasing cars, looking for food.

They tell you never to put your hand down to pet, offer no kind words, even to the cute. Is there no solution here, no humane help to be given without slaughter.

3. European Union.  Separatist interests.

We like the Financial Times for balanced, neutral accounts of our world, so this is from that UK publication's March 7, 2008, Special Report: Find it at  http://www.ft.com/intl/reports/romania2008

Romania joined the EU in January 2007, after our visit, and when the horsecarts were still a norm. With EU membership, Romania qualifies for, but is not guaranteed unless it shows it can draw up and execute enough projects to qualify:

• infrastructure (roads and what else?),
  
• social and environmental purposes (what is that? horrible industrial smog south of Cluj Napoca,
• farm sector "taking them on" whatever that means. The peasants? a living wage? or assimilation of The Roma or Gypsies -- but their tradition is non-assimilation, working in a transient way. Is there a future in merely offering self-employment, having been cast off regular work for so long, see Gypsies, Roma .
  

The economy apparently is soaring, nonetheless.

Yet, political factions are warring - as is expected when cash is around. As in the US, with our ubiquitous political pork. No claim of superiority here.

In Romania, as perhaps here if there is no clear direction after the 2008 election, paralysis politically is around the bend, with warring groups squaring off. Like here. Lack of experience in "project design and management," coping with new conditions - sounds like us, here, all parties, all candidates - the world is marching on despite our misinterpretations and corruptions. Is there any real difference between east and west..

4.  Separatism.  Romania on Kosovo: 
Unilateralism in separatism.

Teodor Melescanu, defense minister, see http://untreaty.un.org/unts/144078_158780/5/8/1317.pdf is dismayed about Kosovo as departing from the tried-and-true process of changing borders through negotiation; and turning instead to unilateralism, and with approval from the United States, much as President Bush used unilateralism as a tool to get what he wanted.

Romania also has other reason for concern if groups succeed in separation out unilaterally - separatist interests - there is a large Hungarian population in Romania. What if they want to reunite with Hungary? See a review of the Hungarian minority, also known as the Magyar, in Romania at http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/mar/assessment.asp?groupId=36002.

Positives for Romania: It has indeed weathered Communism, Fascism,

Maramures: Traditional Costume.

. Maramures, near Ieud. Traditional men's costume, Romania.














Romanian traditional clothing is not seen as much as before, I understand. We saw people dressed traditionally on feast days mostly. These are from the Maramures area, off the main roads. See www.romaniatourism.com/villages. On this holiday, great numbers of people were going to church, or returning, or socializing.


The wooden churches are World Heritage Sites. See www.geocities.com/MadisonAvenue/7569/mypage., This has music, so you may want to reduce the volume. I increase it, myself. Maramures, near Ieud, rural residents, east of Rosia Montana.



 Romania, Maramures traditional costume, near Ieud

Moisei, Maramures; WWII, Roadside Memorial, Jews in Romania

Moisei, Romania. Maramures. Memorial to Jews killed here.







Maramures is a northwestern region with strong traditions and rural villages. See Ieud at http://www.puzzleworld.org/Maramures/ieud01.

We were never far from reminders of WWII tragedies in Romania. See the discussions of why Romania joined the Axis.  See http://www.city-data.com/forum/history/935436-why-did-romania-join-axis-wwii.html

Jews in Romania:

• Moisei:  At Moisei, a little village on the way to Signetu Marmetje in northwestern Maramures, there is a particularly moving memorial comprised of a circle of standing stones on a hill. . I understand that this had been a largely Jewish community, but numbers are not clear. See http://cja.huji.ac.il/NL14-Romania.

There were about 125 families. Villagers had fled to the forests to escape the Nazis, who followed and captured up to three dozen people, and after terrible things, shot them through the windows in the locked little farmhouse where they had been imprisoned. We found a standing-stone type of memorial here. www.puzzleworld.org/Maramures/moise01. Only the farmhouse itself was left standing. The rest of the town was burned to the ground and the inhabitants left to forage in the deep winter in the forests. It is now a small, industrial, dark town.

We are isolated here in the US, without daily reminders of what people are capable of in war.

• Pilgrimage:  There is a pilgrimage festival at Moisei on August 15 every year, not connected to the war. We missed it, but here it is for you: www.leafpile.com/TravelLog/Romania/Ceremonies/Moisei/Moisei.

Sapinta, Sapanta - The Merry Cemetery

Sapanta, The Merry Cemetery, Romania

At Sapanta, or Sapinta, past Sighetu Marmetje, you will find the Merry Cemetery where a carver years ago began carving wooden markers with the customary little roof shapes above. He showed in the carving and in words how the person died, or his or her place in the community. See Sapanta at http://www.puzzleworld.org/Maramures/sapin01.



Carved are lives at beginning, or middle, or end.

Here there is a butcher's life carved on the marker, with the sheep and calf, a housewife, people doing the ordinary things of life.

Death by Firing Squad, Sapinta, Merry Cemetery, Romania

Thenlook more closely, as in this picture, and there is someone being shot by a firing squad.

Elsewhere is a child about to be hit by a car. See Paul's Blog at http://neptunerising.blogspot.com/2006/11/romania-bucharest-transylvania-and.html.  There is a fine closeup of one of the wooden markers, the child and the car. How she died is part of her life for the rest of us and any who see, forever.

On another marker, someone translated for me the last words of one fallen body:  The person now dead had just been trying to get home across the river, when some soldiers came along and shot him, for no reason. Another marker is of the wife, mourning.

Sapinta is in the north east, past Sighetu Marmetje. The original carver died in 1977, and the work is being carried on.

Sighetu Marmetiei: Elie Wiesel; Museum of Arrested Thought Political Prison, Traditional dress; festival of the cows

Sighetu Marmetij, or Sighetu Marmetiei.
Festival; Elie Wiesel;
Museum of Arrested Thought

1.  Festival of the Cows

This northern town holds vast contrasts.  We were there for the Festival of the Cows, when the cows are brought down from summer pastures in the mountains, to the lower lands.  Traditional dress is usually not seen in the cities, but performers are a common sight.

Dancer, Festival of the Cows, Sighetu Marmetij, Sighetu Marketiei, Maramures, Romania
















The Festival of the Cows brings out musicians and musical troupes. There was a large banquet for officials, and music and dancing, to celebrate the bringing down of the cattle from the high pastures for the winter.



Musicians, Festival of the Cows, Sighetu Marmeteie

The skirts are heavy felted wool connected aprons front and back.














2.  Elie Wiesel.  Sighetu Marmetiei, the town in northwestern Romania where Elie Wiesel was born, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, and who now is working with George Clooney (9/06) to promote action to stop genocide in Darfur. For the work and life of Elie Wiesel, see http://www.pbs.org/eliewiesel/photo/index for Elie Wiesel's "Sighet" - a nickname for the town -  1920-1939.

He was Chairman of the International Commission for the Holocaust in Romania. Read his speech regarding the holocaust at http://www1.yadvashem.org/about_yad/what_new/data_whats_new/pdf/english/004_Message_from_Elie_Wiesel.pdf. Read the full report at http://www1.yadvashem.org/about_yad/what_new/index_whats_new-report.html.

Yad Vashem is the Jewish national museum in Jerusalem.

3.  The Museum of Arrested Thought is here -- one of the chain of political prisons, perhaps one of the black prisons used by the United Statets or others to conduct their "questioning" of prisoners free of on-ground restrictions in the United States itself.  This prison is now open as a museum to visitors. It  is open but guides are guarded in what they say. Guides are not open in responding to questions. Our guide looked over his shoulder and shook his head many times when we asked. But most is self-explanatory.  See prior post on Maramures and WWII.

For more on the prison, and its torture, and a map of where the political prisons are, see Paul's Blog at Map of Russian prisons in Romania/  Enough is visible, however, to put together a great deal. The tools of torture are there, great iron rings in sunken concrete floors, or on the walls, and so on. For its history, see http://www.www.memorialsighet.ro/en/istoric_cladire_sighet.asp. In use?

Here intellectuals and government dissenters and others were kept, tortured and died, and we don't seem to be above it after all. See also "Prison of the Ministers," at http://www.beyondtheforest.com/Pages/RSR6.


How many of those have been used as US black prisons.

4.  Sighetu Jewish Cemetery.  This is locked, and there was no indication that we could be granted entry across the street, see http://www.leafpile.com/TravelLog/Romania/JewishTraces/JewishTraces.htm.

The Jewish population here once was sizable.  The town is the birthplace of Elie Wiesel's home, see http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1986/wiesel-bio.html. The Jewish population was decimated, and the cemetery is kept locked. For background on Jewish history in Romania: see http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/romania. They undertook a strong resistance to the Nazis, I understand.