Scoutmaster Europe Journal 2002
Report # 5
7/21/2002
Hi Everyone,
For the past few days, I have been driving further into Transylvania. After leaving the ancestral town of Carei, I went to a place called Cluj-Napoc, another really good looking city. There are flowers everywhere, and many of the buildings are multi-colored in pastel shades with lots of skilled concrete work and ornamentation. This not what I thought Transylvania would look like; I had imagined dark, old run-down places, but it's not so. There are huge churches, and other public buildings as well as wide streets with great parks, water fountains and statues in the medians.
It's hard for me to get oriented when first entering a new city. Here, many streets are one way, and the street names are written on small plates on the sides of buildings. These usually exist at intersections, but not always. I try to have a map whenever possible, and that helps a lot. So with my trusty map of Cluj (short name), I found a place to stay: Hotel Piccolo. It would not qualify as a hotel back home. It was more like a very small guest house. I think there are only three rooms to let. As you might have guessed, the owners are Italian, an lovely elderly couple that could not speak Hungarian! We spoke German, and the old lady treated me like her grandson. Most importantly, she explained exactly how everything worked: the keys, the parking, and of course, where to eat. I think as I go farther south, fewer people are going to be able to speak Hungarian.
I visited the National Museum of Art in Cluj. Evidently, an important Romanian artist is a fellow named Auriel Popp. I had never heard of him, and I didn't particularly like his work, but his self portrait seemed to be important. The best thing about the city is the architecture; I walked around for several hours just looking at and photographing the buildings.
The next stop on my way to Dracula's birthplace was the town of Turda. For all my scouts, it's pronounced "toord-ah." While wandering around the town, I stumbled into the open air market. It's unlike the neat open air markets of western European cities that I've seen, but not quite like the oriental markets of the middle east. It's a cross between the two. Little old men and women sell live chickens, ducks and geese; some will kill and clean the birds for their customers on the spot. While others just give the birds to their customers who walk around carrying live chickens and ducks by their legs. The market has something for everyone, for example, spare scythe blades for those who need them. Later I saw people "mowing" the grass with scythes.
I am staying here a couple of days to see things in and around the town. The first place I visited was Cheile-Turzii, the Turda Gorge. Getting there is quite a trip along a very rocky gravel road. The road wound through the most picturesque countryside you could imagine. The scenery reminded me of the highlands on the south island of New Zealand. High rolling and sweeping grassy hills. Flocks of sheep graze in clumps off in the distance and sometimes up close. Their shepherds were often napping while the dogs kept a close eye on the sheep. I passed through a story book village. It had only one gravel road, and chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys wandered around freely. People in traditional Romanian dress sat in front of their houses or worked by their fences. By the way, traditional dress for women seems to be made of blue finely printed material, with lots of detail, small designs in the fabric.
The gorge is at the end of a 15 km long gravel road. After that you have to hike. So I put on my boots, and went into the dark, wooded ravine. Finally, Transylvania showed it's true face. It was an easy hike. The river that runs along the trail has about four suspension bridges over it as the trail switches sides. The limestone cliffs in the gorge rise 500 feet on both sides. A group of hikers told me that this gorge was originally a cave with and underground river going through it. Over the years, as the limestone dissolved, the roof of the cave disintegrated and fell into the river. Then eroding forces of the river and weather took their course to make the gorge that exists today. Even though the vegetation is different, this gorge reminds me of the one on Kauai, Hawaii. While I hiked, I expected the minihuni (little people, leprechauns) to pop out of the woods and do something mischievous and evil.
Another very interesting place that I visited was the salt mines of Turda. They have been around since Roman times, and they made Turda a fairly prosperous community during the mid 1800's. I had a guide take me through the mines and tell me their history. While the Romans dug down from the surface to extract salt, the 19th century versions are true mines. There are two types, the first is called a bell mine because as the miners dug deeper into the earth they formed a bell shaped cavern. These mines were started around 1850 and are at least 120 meters deep. There are lakes at the bottom of them. Miners would be lowered by rope into the cavern through one shaft, and blocks of salt would be hoisted to the surface through another shaft. Most of the people who worked the mines were peasants tied to the landed gentry in the area. This was still the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Later, toward the end of the 19th century, they started digging square tunnels that were much safer. These tunnels connected up with the bell caverns. The miners used horses to pull blocks of salt up from the deeper shafts. The built an interesting mill like apparatus that four or eight horses turned. The ropes went over pulleys. It worked like a dumb waiter, as one end of the rope went up, the other end went down.
Needless to say, horses are not comfortable in dark underground mines. In fact, the animals had bags over their eyes to keep them from panicking. They used old and even blind horses to do this work. When an animal died, they threw its corpse over the edge of the bell into the lake below. Today, the carcasses are preserved in the brine, and they are encrusted with salt crystals. I don't think animal rights activists would have approved of the way these horses were treated. However, the peasants who worked in the salt mines didn't fare much better. There after the peasant revolution things improved somewhat. Peasants won the right to be paid for their work, and they won the right to sell their services as opposed to working where they were told to by their masters.
The mines shut down around the First World War, and the price of salt was too low to make them practical thereafter. During WWII, people took shelter in the salt mines from bombing. My guide, Claudia, has a ninety year old neighbor who told her about living in the mines during the war. Evidently, it was not a pleasant experience. However, today, people come to the mines for asthma treatments. Evidently, the cool (10-12 degree centigrade) and salty air works wonders.
The last thing to tell about is my day trip to Ramit, a place high up in the Carpathian mountains. Ramit is at the end of the world, and the end of another gravel road, longer and much rougher than the one to the Turda Gorge. This drive reminded me of the Colorado, Alpine Loop trail we did in four wheel drive vehicles back in 1998, on our trip to Philmont. I was in first and second gear for three hours! The Carpathian's are high and rugged. Rimet is on an Alpine meadow, and the drive to it goes through dense mixed deciduous and evergreen forests. Romania is almost 30% forested and another 30% farmland. People live high up in the alpine meadows. Their houses are small wooded boxes topped with steep thatched grass roofs. The roofs are twice as high as the wooden boxes are tall. I have never seen such structures before in my life. The people also don't look like the Romanians in the lowlands/towns. They appear more to have more Asiatic facial features. Romania has a long history as a crossroads. People from the middle east came up from the south through Turkey, Asians and Russians came across the steppes through what is now Ukraine, and Germans, Austrian and Hungarians came from the north and west. Many of these cultures maintained there ethnic identities. The mountain vistas are incredible. There are immense outcroppings of rocky ridges that jut up into the sky, dividing the meadows into a huge jigsaw puzzle. The rolling hills below are forest covered, and are a very dark green that contrasts sharply with the meadows' light green. It's the height of the growing season, and the meadows are ablaze with wild flowers and buzzing with insects.
Philip Sternberg