Radio România Internațional

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  • The cultural-tourist route of open-air museums in Romania

    The cultural-tourist route of open-air museums in Romania

    The cultural-tourist route of open-air museums in Romania, developed at the national level and recognized by the Ministry of Entrepreneurship and Tourism, has been launched in Romania considering the large number of tourists who showed interest in these objectives. Developed at the initiative of the County Museum of Ethnography and Folk Art in Baia Mare, the tourist program offers tourists a foray into traditions, in 11 tourist and cultural sites in Romania’s ethnographic heritage.

     

    Monica Mare, the manager of the Maramureș County Museum of Ethnography and Folk Art from Baia Mare says that the idea was born out of the need to promote museums, being a good opportunity to capitalize on the heritage of traditional Romanian architecture:  “The idea of ​​the project initially started with eight museums. We have also created several leaflets on which one can find a map with these museums. If you are in Bucharest, you can start the route from there, from the Dimitrie Gusti Village Museum in Bucharest, which is probably the most visited among the ethnographic museums in Romania, and after that, you can head towards the center of Romania. Tourists can go through the Golești Museum, after that they can reach Brașov, then Sibiu, where they can go to the ASTRA Museum, then travel to Transylvania, to the museum in Cluj and get closer to Maramureș, where they will find two ethnographic museums included in the route, the Village Museum from Baia Mare and the Maramureș Village Museum from Sighetu Marmației, respectively. Also here, in our area, in Oraș Country, in the vicinity of Maramureș, we have the Negrești Oaş Museum, and if we cross the mountains, to Bukovina, we find the Bukovina Village Museum. It depends on how much time the tourist has to visit and we thought that this route can be fully covered or the visitor can choose, in a first phase, a few museums in the area of ​​interest and after that we can arouse their curiosity to reach other areas of the country.”

     

    All open-air museums develop projects throughout the year, but especially in the warm season, which is the high season for visiting. You will be able to see folk craftsmen at work and you will be able to buy items they have created. Moreover, you’ll even be able to participate in the crafting art of the artisans:  “The Baia Mare Village Museum also has such programs. Throughout the year, we organize fairs, and we also have a souvenir shop, where we try to capitalize on the work of the Maramureș craftsmen. The other museums in the country also have such stores. Craftsmen need to be promoted. For the traditions to be passed on to future generations, the craftsmen must understand, especially the younger craftsmen who take over the crafts, that one can live from one’s craft and it is our duty, as ethnographic museums, to support the craftsmen, to make them known. Together with the centers of traditional culture, which have records of these craftsmen, we try to promote them at the travel fairs we participate in, and in the activities carried out by the museum.”

     

    As soon as you enter the Maramureş-style gate of the Baia Mare Village Museum, you are transposed into a world of the authentic Maramureş village, says Monica Mare, manager of the Maramureș County Museum of Ethnography and Folk Art:  “If the Museum in Sighet only preserves objects of traditional architecture from Maramureș Voivodeship, the Village Museum in Baia Mare takes you to the Maramureş villages from all four ethnographic areas. We call them countries: Codru, Chioar, Lăpuș and Maramureș Voivodeship. You can visit a house in Lăpuș, with its thatched roof. You can go inside and see how people used to live, where the fire was made, you can see the oven, or how the baby was rocked in the cradle, or what the guest room looked like, where the most beautiful textiles and the dowry chest were kept and where people met at major life events. The oldest monument we have is our little church, a monument from 1630, which is placed on the hill, as are most of the churches in the Maramureş villages, and practically the museum was formed around it. It was the first monument brought here to the Village Museum. It makes our village alive. The village on the hill, as we call it, is alive, because services are still held in the church on the big holidays and on Sundays. There is a whole community that comes here to worship.”

     

    Another tourist asset promoted at Baia Mare’s Village Museum is the oldest house as part of the museum’s heritage, dated 1758.

    Monica Mare: “The team I coordinate for the time being can boast the fact that, although the years are complicated and the budget is tight, as usual, last year we succeeded to open, for the public, a new traditional architecture asset we transferred to our museum. A house from Chioar Country, a very beautiful one, typical for the Chioar Country style, which we placed in the vicinity of the church, is also from Chioar Country. The blue of the house is so very specific for Maramures, it can be visited by tourists. Also, from Maramures Country we boast the Petrova House, where the founder of the Romanian School of Stomatology, Gheorghe Bilașcu, was born, and these are but a few of the landmarks we offer so you can pay us a visit. I am just saying, “Come on, come to Maramures !” Visit the Village Museum in Baia Mare and all the museums included in the Romanian open-air museum’s ethnographic route! ”

     

    We found out from the manager of the Baia Mare-based Maramures County Ethnography and Traditional Art Museum, Monica Mare, that the available prospectuses are in Romanian and English. At the main assets as part of the visiting circuit there are plaques with a QR code for additional info, which direct you to the site of the institution, where translations are available in the most widely-spoken languages. In another move, children and youngsters can participate in a treasure hunt. They will be dared to cut themselves off from their own cell phones and visit the musem in a different manner. Also, the bigger museums lying along the cultural-tourist route of open-air museums in Romania have a wide range of promotion materials. The Museum in Sibiu, for instance, has Astra App, an application offering guidance, audio guidance included, in several of the most widely-spoken languages. (LS, EN)

  • October 5, 2022

    October 5, 2022

    FIREWOOD The prices of firewood and
    wood derivatives used for heating will be capped in Romania until the end of
    March 2023. A draft emergency order in this respect is being discussed by the
    Cabinet today. Beneficiaries will include individuals, public and private
    education institutions, social service providers, local authorities and places
    of worship. The measure is intended to help Romanians cope this winter with the
    skyrocketing fuel, energy and natural gas prices. Also today the government is
    scheduled to endorse the 2030 National Forest Strategy.


    ENERGY A Pact for Clean Energy
    Resilience was launched in Romania on Tuesday. The initiative came from Smart
    Energy Association and is an invitation to the authorities and private sector
    to implement programmes and awareness raising campaigns regarding the need to
    cut energy consumption and to use clean energy sources. The president of the
    Association, Dumitru Chisăliţă, says cutting consumption should be achieved not
    through restrictive measures, but rather by improving efficiency. The
    Association also released a guideline for authorities, comprising energy saving
    solutions.


    SCHENGEN The European Parliament discusses in Strasbourg today
    Romania’s and Bulgaria’s Schengen accession. MEPs are expected to call for
    the Schengen passport-free travel area to be completed swiftly by extending it
    to all EU member states who wish to participate, with a resolution in this
    respect to be voted on in the next plenary session. Another topic on the
    European Parliament’s agenda concerns the mobilisation of Russian reserve
    troops, the illegal referendums in Ukrainian occupied regions and the nuclear
    threats voiced by the president of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin. MEPs
    will request firm responses from member states to Russia’s preparations to
    annex Ukrainian territories and to step up military actions.


    CEREMONY The Royal House of Romania last night hosted a ceremony
    devoted to the Romanian-British partnership and the rule of Charles III. In her
    address, the Custodian of the Crown of Romania, Margareta, sent a message of
    hope and confidence to Britain’s new sovereign, King Charles III. In turn, the
    British Ambassador to Bucharest, Andrew Noble, pointed out that the British
    nationals who live in and love Romania are blessed to have a monarch who knows
    Romania so well.


    UKRAINE The president of Ukraine
    Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced fast and powerful progress for his army in the
    south of the country, where scores of localities have been reclaimed this week
    from the Russian troops. According to AFP, in his daily address
    posted on social networks, Zelenskyy promised that the Ukrainian troops would
    not stop and that it was only a matter of time until the Russians would be
    driven out of the entire Ukrainian territory. On the other hand, the Ukrainian
    president welcomed India’s support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity
    of Ukraine, voiced during a telephone call with PM Narendra Modi. Previously, Kyiv
    had criticised New Delhi over its neutrality. Meanwhile, in Brussels, EU
    countries Wednesday reached a political agreement on the implementation of an
    8th package of sanctions against Russia, this one in response to the illegal
    annexation of 4 Ukrainian regions.


    IAEA The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),
    Rafael Grossi, will travel to Kyiv and then to Moscow this week to discuss a
    protection zone around the Ukrainian nuclear plant at Zaporizhzhya. Rafael
    Grossi will carry on consultations to have the mechanism in place as soon as
    possible, the Agency said in a news release. The nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhya,
    the largest in Europe, is occupied by Russian forces, but is still operated by
    Ukrainian personnel. Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of shelling the
    plant area. (AMP)

  • The Village Museum Days

    The Village Museum Days

    The week of May 10, a sanctuary of quiet, nature, tradition and culture, the “Dimitrie Gusti National Village Museum in Bucharest, hosted events, exhibitions and fairs to mark the Village Museum Days, 85 years since the institution was established.



    The museum was opened on 10 May 1936, in the presence of King Carol II, and since then it has been one of the citys major tourist attractions. The motivation for setting up an outdoor museum was the importance of the village, of rural traditions and craftsmanship in Romanian culture.



    On the banks of Herăstrău lake in Bucharest, many genuine households and installations, the oldest one built in the 17th century, have been reassembled here, after having been brought to the city by train, cart or boat—an extraordinary effort that gave birth to the museum. We talked to the museum manager Paulina Popoiu, Ph.D., about the anniversary:



    Paulina Popoiu: “We organised these “museum days activities, and devoted about one week in May to the Village Museum, precisely in order to mark this anniversary and to celebrate its founders. Obviously, because of the pandemic the celebration is a little smaller in scale than the events we organised on the 80th anniversary, but this is natural given the circumstances. Even so, I should say there was plenty to see and do, and there were a lot of surprises. For the first time, we introduced the official title of “honorary ambassador of the Village Museum, to reward those who, one way or another, have contributed either to the development of the museum, or to promoting it in the country or abroad. I hope we will continue to give this title until the museums 100th anniversary.



    Mrs. Paulina Popoiu gave us a few details about the beginnings of the museum and about the exhibitions focusing on that period:



    Paulina Popoiu: “Perhaps what I should begin with is that all these events were held under the motto “The Museum and the Royal House. Why? Because the founding and existence of the Village Museum is closely connected to the Royal House, which at the time of the establishment of the museum provided both financial and moral support to the research conducted by Dimitrie Gusti and the Bucharest sociology school in the over 600 villages of Romania, and the “Prince Carol Foundations contributed significantly to the birth of the museum. So we think of the museum as a royal establishment, and it was only natural to remind the people that we also celebrate 100 years since the birth of King Michael, who was a great friend of the museum in his later years and whom we would meet in the morning on the alleys here. There was an exhibition opened on 10 of May, a symbolic day because it is the day of the Romanian Royal House and because it follows the celebration of Romanias independence and Europe Day on 9 May. This series of events are beautifully connected, and the Village Museum is an important character in this story. This exhibition called “The Museum and the Royal House presents the life of King Michael and the life of the museum. We worked with the National Archives and the Royal House and we included archive photos and several items that belonged to King Michael. To recreate the atmosphere of 1936, we brought here vintage cars, really outstanding and well worth seeing cars. Also, for 7 days we had ladies and gentlemen wearing period costumes borrowed from the National Theatre in Bucharest, in an attempt to recreate the urban atmosphere in which the Village Museum was set up. I think it is very interesting that this museum of the village and of traditional civilisation is located at the heart of the capital city, Bucharest. In a way, the Village Museum is the beating heart of this great city, because it showcases identity values, the values created over the centuries by Romanian peasants, and the houses here are a present for us from generations and generations of peasants.



    At the end of our dialogue, the manager of the “Dimitrie Gusti Village Museum, Paulina Popoiu, was proud to tell us about the interest shown by tourists for this special place in Bucharest:



    Paulina Popoiu: “It is worth noting that before the pandemic the museum had 910,000 visitors a year, many of them foreigners. There even was a year when we had more than half a million of foreign tourists coming here. So I would call the Village Museum the ambassador of Romania worldwide, and I hope after this difficult period is over we will pick up where we left off. (tr. A.M. Popescu)

  • The domestic universe of poet George Bacovia

    The domestic universe of poet George Bacovia

    On one of Bucharests interwar outskirts, to this day a rather modest neighbourhood of Romanias capital city, lies the small, seemingly insignificant, yet welcoming home of early 20th Century poet George Bacovia.



    Labelled by literary critics a symbolist poet, only to be included in a movement, Bacovia still charms his readers with his simple, sad poems that reflect and grant beauty to despondency. In fact, the sadness in his poetry was a reflection of his fragile and depressive nature.



    Bacovias survival depended mostly on his wife, Agatha, whom we also owe the existence of the small “George and Agatha Bacovia Memorial House. Curator Lelia Spirescu with the National Museum of Romanian Literature in Bucharest told us more about this house and its location on the outskirts of the capital city.



    Lelia Spirescu: “This was a ‘democratic area or neighbourhood, as the poet liked to call it. It was part of the underprivileged, proletarian world, rather than a wealthy suburb. Obviously, it matched his soul perfectly. Well, George Bacovia confessed at some point that most of his memories, both as a child and as a grownup, were tied to the town of Bacău. But it was in this house that he came to live together with and due to his wife, Agatha Grigorescu. She took a loan from the Teachers Association and managed to have this house built in record time, about one month. And she also oversaw the construction works. As I was saying, this place seemed tailored to his soul. George Bacovia was an introvert, a man who kept to himself, prone to sickness, fragile in both physical and psychological terms. He suffered from depression as well. Agatha on the other hand was an optimist, a fighter, all her life. Its true, she had no choice but to be one. She was his pillar of strength, both during his lifetime and after he died. She wanted his literary legacy to last forever, so she donated the house to the state, and it became a museum as early as in 1958, one year after the poet died.



    Although he spent most of his life in Bucharest, George Bacovia was deeply marked by his hometown of Bacău, in the east of the country.



    Lelia Spirescu: “Poet George Bacovia was born in Bacău on September 17, 1881, into a merchant family with a lot of children. Gheorghe Andone Vasiliu, known under his penname of George Bacovia, had 10 siblings. His first contact with Bucharest was in fact in 1903, when he came here to attend Law School, but he quit after the first 3 years. In 1907 he joined the Law School in Iaşi, where he graduated in 1911. He would move back and forth between Bucharest, Bacău and Iași. His wife was born in Mizil, Prahova County, in the south, on March 8, 1895 and her childhood was by no means easy. She lost her mother just days after she was born, and her father died when she was 15. She had 2 sisters, and she was raised by her family. She met the poet George Bacovia in 1916. She graduated from the School of Literature and Philosophy and she taught Romanian language and literature. She would also work as a substitute French teacher. She was a poet, too. She made her debut in 1923 with a poetry volume entitled “Twilight harmonies.



    Agatha provided George with the material and psychological support that he needed so much, and designed the house in Bucharest as a shelter for him and as a home that would reflect her personality as well, as Lelia Spirescu told us:



    Lelia Spirescu: “This house is quite modest, quiet, combining energies that were defining both for Agatha, and for George. The light and brightness of the house makes us think of her optimism, whereas the modesty and the dark tones of the furniture represent George Bacovia. These energies are present in the house to this day. You can feel both of them here when you visit the place.



    With only 3 rooms and a few small utilities rooms, the George and Agatha Bacovia Memorial House is filled with the couples personal items: furniture, books, radio sets, paintings, the violin that the poet used to play.



    Lelia Spirescu: “He loved drawing and music to the same extent. It was actually for drawing that he won his first prize ever, in 1899. That year was a landmark for him in 2 respects, because in 1899 he made his debut with the “Literatorul magazine run by poet Alexandru Macedonski, and also he won a top national place in a still nature drawing competition. He was also keen on music, which was actually his first love. He found music in his middle school years, when he played in the school orchestra and even got to conduct this orchestra with such talent that his music teacher advised him to go to the Music Conservatory. He didnt, he eventually chose poetry, but he remained loyal to music as well. His favourite instrument was the violin, and I think no other instrument could have resonated better with his emotions.



    After Bacovias death, the building and items in it were declared a “public utility collection managed by the poets wife and son, and in 1966, when the house was donated to the government, it was turned into a memorial museum. (tr. A.M. Popescu)

  • A new presidential mandate begins at the White House

    A new presidential mandate begins at the White House

    Against the background of special
    security measures, the US outgoing president, Republican Donald Trump, has
    ended his mandate in Washington and has been succeeded by Democrat Joe Biden,
    who pledges that during his administration America will again be ready to
    assume the role of a world leader.






    Pundits believe the new president
    will have to focus on the internal affairs as millions of Americans have been
    convinced by the outgoing president that the latest election was rigged.
    Although never proved, this allegation, repeatedly made by the one whose
    administration was characterized by a series of controversial statements and
    decisions, was the main cause for the violent events of January 6th,
    when five people were killed.






    The riot, which took place at the
    very heart of the world’s democracy, at the United States Congress, stirred
    heated debates. In the wake of the Capitol riot the editor-in-chief of Radio
    France Internationale Romania, Ovidiu Nahoi, told Radio Romania that ‘Donald
    Trump pledged to make America great again, but instead he has been making it
    smaller and smaller’. But what is the outcome of the aforementioned events and
    what we should expect from now on?




    Ovidiu Nahoi: First
    and foremost the new administration will need more time to reconcile America
    with itself – a very divided society. And America will not have the energy and
    time to get involved in major global issues, where the American values are
    needed. It will not have the time and the energy to get involved in these
    issues because America will get busy with domestic problems for a year or two, needing
    half of president Biden’s mandate to say the least, to heal these internal
    wounds and reconcile with itself. So the country’s influence at global level is
    going to shrink, that America, president Trump pledged to make great. And that
    influence and power started to wane right during the mandate of the outgoing
    president. So, that means a less powerful America whose commitment to getting
    involved in the world’s major issues has diminished.




    According to Kenneth Roth, director
    of New York-based Human Rights Watch, President Biden must restore his
    country’s credibility on human rights at home and abroad, after what he said
    were four years of abuse of democratic principles. Speaking to Reuters before
    the release of the activist group’s annual report, Kenneth Roth said that outgoing
    president Donald Trump had flouted human rights at home and been inconsistent
    in criticizing other countries’ rights records. The outgoing president denied
    responsibility for the Capitol riot as well as the allegations on human rights
    abuse saying that the election was rigged to block two of his strategies known
    as ‘Make America Great Again’ and ‘America First’.




    The House of Representatives has
    accused Donald Trump of encouraging violence with his false claims of election
    fraud, thus becoming the first president in US history to be impeached twice. Roth
    has also called for Biden to re-engage with the United Nations’ Human Rights
    Council, a Geneva forum which Trump quit in June 2018.




    Focusing on several types of crisis -
    epidemiological, economic, climate or racial – several decisions of the new
    White House leader have been made and announced beforehand by the new
    administration in the first days of its mandate aimed at cancelling some of
    Trump’s most controversial policies. These policies run on a wide spectrum ranging
    from denying some Muslim citizens access to the USA to the country’s withdrawal
    from the Paris Agreement on climate change.




    Before his investiture Biden had
    presented a 1.9 trillion economic rescue package aimed at boosting the economy
    and stepping up the US response to the Covid-19 pandemic.


    Besides economic and health issues,
    the new US president must deal with the country’s society gaps, pundits believe.
    According to professor Iulian Chifu, director of the Centre for Conflict
    Prevention, social cohesion in the US is at an all-time low, although we are
    speaking about a state, which along its history has seen slavery, segregation
    and racism.




    Iulian Chifu: We are in the situation when these gaps have to be bridged, social cohesion must be
    restored while citizens must regain their confidence in institutions,
    democracy, justice and this can be done not only through political moves but
    through social surveys on the deeply-rooted causes of these gaps, by avoiding
    extremes – including from the other viewpoint of progressivism and the far-left
    – taking action while using a set of very important psychological instruments,
    at the same time providing support to all those who have been alienated by the
    excessive use of technology and by being kept away from the real society and
    public debates.




    The beauty of democracy, the force of
    the democratic system resides in the ability to recompose itself, to relaunch
    itself and heal its own wounds, professor Chifu went on to say.




    (bill)