Galya and Teo's trip to Romania, Part 2

Sept 26

It is evening in Jasi (pronounced as Yash) the capitol of Moldova.
WE strolled the city entire day, and pretty tired now for another report :).
I will try to be short.
WE left Bucharest and drove through the side of Carpathian mountains with gorgeous views, visiting picturesque ski and hiking resorts which I believe are not any worse than other Europeans (probably, not much cheaper either looking at the villas and mansions around. But hiking... must be spectacular.
Then entered Transylvania and spent some time in Brashov, built by Saxon's in the mideaval times, and the old town clearly has German architecture, clean and very beautiful, old town still retaining the old wall . After Chaushesky fell 90% of Saxonians fled back to Germany, and Hungarians became a majority.New part of the city are mostly Moldavians brought here to build the industry, to work on the factories during communist time. Looks like typical industrial town of communistic times. But.. again, the old town is very very charming.
Yesterday was a long drive through Moldova towards Iasi -which is about 10 km from the Russian Moldavians border.
It was pretty drive through the villages, and interesting to watch how the character of the villages was changing by the distance from Transilvania towards Moldova. From reacher to less reacher. However, all are clean and well maintained with orchards. All the way we saw horses pulling the carts loaded with potatoes, cabbage, or hay, or wood.... Sometimes carts were pulled by cows. I could not stop filming them. YOU know... so strange to see two - three horses pulling the cart, galloping, in front of slowing down cars. Also sacs of potatoes and cabbage were on sale in front of many villager's houses. So... sweet, peaceful, and somewhat nostalgic
The highlight of yesterday's trip was detour to the little town of Comaneste where Theo's Dad was born 104 years ago.
In the little wooden hut named City Hall in the so called archive room with NO computer the woman was able to produce within 5 min the folder named 1903 from which she read all the details of Theo's father birth. Unfortunately, no address... And under NO conditions she let Theo to take a picture of any other copy of this document. As Theo speculated that they afraid people coming and claiming inheritance... Though... now it is allowed. In any way, she did not even wanted to show the document until Theo convinced her that he does have any inheritance claims, just came here to take a picture of the dad's place of birth.

Next stop was in town of Roman where Anca's (Oliver's Mom) grandfather was a Rabbi in the Synagogue. We managed to find a Synagogue, dilapidated building squished between huge, dirty apartment building and open peasant's market (looks as Gomel's bazar in 1950th.
Interestingly enough we found an old person who "maintains or guards the synagogue, and as he said, it was his life time job.
So, Theo recorded the interview with him where he acknowledged memories of Anca's grandfather, Father, and even Anca as a little girl (well, he and Anca are about the same age.

So, it was pretty emotional day of discoveries.

Today was Jasi... In Russia it is Yassy...
THE town where the first University was built (I do not overwhelm you with the names of all the kings and Boyars, and years of their reign, and who united Transylvania, Wallachia and Moldova, etc).
IN general, in the old times Jasi considered to be a romantic, cultural sophisticated town where famous poets and writes lived and created while Bucharest still was a merchant village.
So, Jasi - is very different from Bucharest and other cities we've seen so far. thanks God, it does not really have this blatant into your face communistic influence..
Very green, beautiful with majority of the buildings build in late 19th - early to mid 20th century architectural stile.
City of young people, I guess, influenced by University, BTW - huge, beautiful campus.
Lots and lots and lots of churches, beautifully painted, well maintained, constantly visited with people for a pray. We also visited the pilgrim place of Romanian saint Parascheva.
YOU should see how many young people were staying in line to kiss the coffin with his bones and touch and kiss his robe.
IN general, Romanian people are very religious, I would say extremely religious.
As Theo joked :" See, Russians had Tciolkovsky, adn Romanians - Parascheva. Russians went to Space and Romanians fell on their knees, praying".
in the afternoon we visited art Museum with Romanian painters (old and contemporary). Some of them are pretty good.
Then we made a long walk on the streets far from the center, and we were amused what a rich villas are built recently, adn still building. So, apparently, business is booming and one can see that money are pouring in Romania.

Tomorrow we are going to visit Theo's Mom's birth place, and drive deep into Moldova to see the famous monasteries.

THE weather is gorgeous.


Galina Ermolin

Galia and Teo's trip to Romania, Bucharest

Sept. 23, 2007
Bucharest

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We strolled Bucharest streets for 2 says.

Theo was telling the stories: here I lived, here I [played, here I walked to school, here my aunt lived, etc, etc.
But funny thing is :we saw the signs on the streets, as Theo's friend said, may be someone paid money to put these signs:
So, signs: "On this street I walked to school", Om this street I ran after Ana, on this street I kissed Mimi", On this street my grandma lived".

Old town is charming, though not well kept, but one can imagine how it was. narrow streets, usually two stories brick or stone buildings with apparent Turkish influence in style.

Part of the city built in later time, before Chaushesku, also nice, though has big apartment buildings but still caring some character. Big beautiful parks, with lakes inside, even now one can rent a rowing boat.
Today is Sunday, and it was a gorgeous sunny autumn day. So, park was full of people... People of my generation still dresses on old facion: suits (skirts and jackets), stockings, nice shoes, scarfs... Felt a little nostalgic.

The central part of the City - painfully reminds communistic monumental style. I believe such squares one still can find in any Russian city and town.
But what is worse in Bucharest is the mixture of the old buildings with "new", well... huge "khrushevki" build during communist times. here is old beautifully ornate building and right behind it is 11 stories bare concrete "ship" with no character. very sad.
Many many churches.

There is a lot of business going on around, so there is hope that the country eventually will ... as Theo and his friend say return it's old glory it had in 1938. It is obvious that there is much pf Western investments done: nice modern stores, restaurants, clubs designed with style and "shick". The only contrast - are people around: I guess, it will take generations to change expression on their faces.

Food.... Good soups.. so far.

Tomorrow we start our trip around the country. As every guide book says: "Romanian charm is in it's country side. We shall see.