Category: Inside Romania

Michelin Romania made possible the publication of the Green Guide for the entire country. The anniversary edition called Romania, 500 Destinations and Experiences, is a special publication to showcase the beauty of Romania in matters of architecture, culture, ethnography, and cuisine. This 20th anniversary edition for Michelin Romania brings to our attention a large number of cultural institutions in the country. For instance, the ASTRA Museum of Sibiu has been in the guide since 2019, getting three Michelin stars for the second time in a row. Also here we see two Romanian museums with the highest number of stars in this edition, the National Art Museum of Romania and the Peasant Museum.

Two more destinations in Cluj, the Ethnography Museum of Transylvania, and the Art Museum, have been in the guide for a few years now, and this year, in the anniversary edition, got two stars.

Tudor Salagean, manager of the Ethnography Museum of Transylvania in Cluj, explained:

“We are honored by this acknowledgment, the three stars that the museum got honors us. I am saying three stars because I am talking about the two stars for the permanent exhibition Museum Downtown, and another star for the outdoors exhibition of our museum, which is for the Romulus Vuia National Ethnography Park. We are even happier since, in the last few years, we have made several investments, which have been finalized, or are about to. There was the project to restore the environs of the Reduta Palace, which hosts the central headquarters of the museum, and a larger project to expand the Ethnography Park. For this reason, we hope that in the upcoming editions of the guide we will get an even better grade, and the three stars shared by the two sections of our museum to become at least three full stars for one of our institutions, just like the most beautiful museums of Romania.”

Tudor Salagean came back with a few details:

“I think that the main attractions are our main exhibitions, the permanent exhibition, structured according to the classic principles of ethnography, which we have kept to for the 99 years that this exhibition has existed. To wit, our permanent exhibition has not yielded completely in the face of artistic temptation, and kept a structure that can educate the visitor, at the same time delighting with its visual aspects. Among our collections, perhaps the most impressive is that of traditional garments, very much appreciated by our visitors. There are many more exhibits in the temporary exhibitions, presented by rotation. In addition, we have a schedule of cultural manifestations. Also, I would like to mention that the Ethnography Museum of Cluj is the first in Romania with a permanent tactile exhibition, aimed at the visually impaired, and not only. We believe that this exhibition played a part in the grade we got in the guide, and in many others. I should not forget the Romulus Vuia Ethnography Park, with its over 50 traditional architecture monuments, some of very high value, such as the church built by Horea, initially in Ciser, in Salaj County, which has been in our museum since 1968.”

Lucian Nastasa-Kovacs, historian with the Romanian Academy, director of the Cluj Art Museum, spoke to us with pride about this affirmation:

“First of all, let me specify that we have been in the Michelin Guide for three years now. It is updated constantly, including more and more institutions. It is hard to get this kind of status, but it is also easy to lose it. Which is why every time you are put once again in the Michelin Guide is special. At the same time, our entire activity in the last six to eight years confirms why we are in the guide. There are many criteria taken into consideration, such as the edifice housing your institution, and, as you know, the Banffy Palace is a pure Baroque building in the Central European style, which speaks for itself, it has a long history. At the same time, the Cluj Art Museum is not old, historically speaking, it has been around for 70 years, but at the same time it boasts an exceptional collection, renown around the world.”

With a collection of over 15,000 items, mostly heritage, the Cluj Art Museum is very dynamic. Here is Lucian Nastasa-Kovacs:

“Weve always held events. These pandemic times are the biggest headache for us, because the museum is supposed to be a living organism, we have many temporary exhibitions, from book launches to conferences to small concerts. This palace in Cluj is precisely the kind of place where to hold a Classical or Baroque music concert. It has exceptional acoustics, it is a point of pride to play in such a place, where Liszt played a few times, as well as Friedemann Bach. Many of our attractions have been off limits, but we hope that starting next year we will not have a problem holding these events again.”

This affirmation is a cause for celebration, a harbinger of good things to come in the future, when culture comes back to life in its entirety across the country.

There is a system that has been working in Denmark since 1970, which has been spreading in the last few years in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and elsewhere, which is catching on in Romania too. It is the initiative of two architects, namely co-housing, creating a building for a group of friends adapted to each of their needs. The architects pick the location, design the building, set the individual and common areas, then get the authorizations and the builder, with constant feedback between the associates, with step by step monitoring.

Architect Lucian Luta told us about the origins of the project which he started with his associate, Liviu Fabian:

“The idea came from a practical need we had, my friends and I, that of living in a better place than what the real estate market has to offer right now. What we wanted was to find an apartment to satisfy our needs for an affordable price. What we thought was to get together a group of five or six friends and colleagues in order to buy a central or semi-central neighborhood of Bucharest, where to build our own apartments, according to each one’s needs.

Lucian Luta then helped us understand what it’s like to pick the place where to live, selecting your neighbors, having a choice for every detail:

“This system is not new, we didn’t invent it, it comes from Europe, called co-housing. A group of people get together, buy a plot of land, then make a design, and built their own apartments. Ideally it is a group of several people who build a small apartment building. This building is a community, but each one has their own apartment in this communal block of flats. The advantages of this system are that you have access to a central or semi-central plot of land which a single person cannot afford, you can customize your own flat, and in the end the costs of buying such a place are only construction expenses, getting around developer costs. Of course, there are costs related to design and licenses, which would exist in any case when you buy from a developer. At the same time, you have much more freedom to configure you apartment.

Architect Lucian Luta told us that the costs are definitely smaller, similar to building your own house, as opposed to buying a ready made apartment:

“We are about to build the first co-housing unit, a small block of five apartments, we went through all the stages, and saw that each associate wanted their own small details, depending on their needs. One wanted a closed kitchen, another one wanted an open kitchen, another wanted to have a small reading desk in their kid’s bedroom, so the windows had to be configured depending on their neighbors’ windows. There are a lot of advantages that improve life quality. Also, there is the option, as in this co-housing unit, of having common spaces in addition to the apartment you live in. This building we work on now has a 30 sqm common area, used as a co-working space, as a living room where you can leave the children under supervision. This common space opens towards a common yard, about 100 sqm, a common garden. The group can create a lot of facilities.

The only disadvantage may be the time it takes to create the association and finalize the construction, but the advantages are worth it. Since the system is new, there are still no agreements with banks for mortgages for such projects, as in Western countries, but there are attempts underway to do so.

The project dubbed the Museum of Abandonment is a campaign, conducted in the public space, a call for people to explore their own traumas of abandonment. A series of 21 short films, on the theme of abandonment, and the manner in which this phenomenon marked and shaped us as a society, have been produced as part of the project.

Simina Bădică, a curator and historian, told us more about it: “The Museum of Abandonment is a recent initiative, put into practice this year, a project funded by Association of the National Cultural Fund, an idea which we want to take to a whole new level. It is a difficult and painful part of our history. In our personal lives we often choose not to get close to difficult and painful topics, but they continue to be there, to haunt us. Although it is a virtual museum, the Museum of Abandonment is based on a very real building. What we did was to digitally scan the Hospital for Irrecoverable Children in Sighetu Marmatiei. This was the official title of this institution in 1989. The hospital was closed down in 2003 and it is now a kind of time capsule. This digital scan means that we can see in a virtual space, that visitors from anywhere in the world will be able to walk through the building, just like we did in the summer of 2021, and will be able to discover this building as we discovered it, with all its stories and dramas. It is a virtual museum in a very real building, but which we give back to virtual visitors and where we stage, just like in any museum, exhibitions. It is not a simple walk through an empty and haunted building, it is a walk through a building which we tell the story of. A story of abandonment and institutionalization of children. Basically, we try to answer the question: how did it come to those images in 1989, in the 90s, that made headlines around the world, images from the Romanian orphanages. ”

A museum that talks about the history of institutionalized children in communist and post communist Romania, a history that we have chosen to ignore for many years. Simina Badica guided us through the museum telling us what we will see if we choose to visit it virtually: “We will see a lot of things. We will see many objects that children there used every day. The hospital was closed in 2003, but a lot of things remained there, pieces of furniture, toys, desks, drawings and decorations on the walls, the names of the children on some cots, the names of the hospital units and a sad atmosphere that we will try to also transmit virtually. In each of the rooms you will find an object, a story or a testimony. This is our curatorial part, a piece of the puzzle we are trying to build, starting from the story of the children committed here, children who were not only abandoned by their parents, but also by the Romanian state, by the whole society that should have protected them. In each room we tell a story built around an object. It can be a piece of clothing, a toy, a contorted spoon that the children were fed with, or a stainless steel plate. ”

We asked Simina Bădică to tell us one of the stories she discovered and she found it hard to pick an example: “One of the reasons for choosing the museum project is that these stories are very difficult to hear. One of the documents found here included what it seemed to be a most common report, on what 30 linear meters of cloth had been used for, that is, to make three categories of straitjackets: small, medium and oversized. We thought that if they had been produced, they should still be in the hospital, because, of course, its not something that one would take home. We later found the medium sized ones. “

I asked Simina Bădică if she knows what happened to these children, if we can trace them: “We know what happened to most of them and we will also have the happy cases mentioned in the museum. We call them survivors, people we can talk to today about their life in that hospital, survivors of this so-called child protection system. Those who were adopted or integrated into family-type homes at a younger age, managed to overcome their traumas. We will also have in the museum the testimony of Robi, who was adopted at the age of 5-6, taken in foster care by a woman who became his mother and who is now over twenty, has a job, and can tell a little bit about what he went through. Very little, because he was very young. But you cannot help wondering how he had been committed to a place called hospital for irrecoverable minors. ” (EE)

Late last year, in the town of Sfantu Gheorghe, the Pedibus project was launched, dedicated to children who go to school on foot, starting at the beginning of the current school year. This is a project under which primary school kids are accompanied to school by two adults, forming organized groups. This project is meant to promote exercise, health, and fun.

Székely Kincső, a local council member with Sf. Gheorghe Town Hall, and the program coordinator, told us where the idea came from:

“This program is a Town Hall initiative, which motivates pupils in town to walk to school, because walking is the best way, and healthiest way, to start the day. This program is an initiative of a Canadian ecologist, and has been working really well in Europe. This program started in our town on May 17 of this year, and ended on June 27.”

Between September 20 and 24 this year, once the school year started, over 30 physicians, nurses, and orderlies from almost all the major departments in the Sf. Gheorghe Hospital have become the drivers of the Pedibus. The local community is proud that all these people are taking the time to do this kind of volunteering, as Székely Kincső told us:

“On the first day, we had 60 kids involved, and this week we had as many as 80. The number grows every day. We have volunteers, and we are trying to organize every day of the week. When we started the program, it began with gym teachers in town. We also had some of our colleagues from the press. This is great for parents, who can know that their children are safe. When we started this school year, we had physicians and nurses from the hospital, then we had actors, another week we had local council members and politicians. We are trying to group them by themes, but any volunteer may join in, because this is a great program for everyone!”.

Council member Székely Kincső told us that the kids have really taken to this program:

“Kids are delighted and happy. We have a lot of feedback from schools, because when they get to school, the children are happy, and you can tell that they get to school with a clear mind. Regular exercise helps them learn, and develop social skills, but also increases emotional control and self-confidence. Over the last few years, more and more children are being driven to school in cars, and that affects their sense of independence, but also crowds traffic and increases pollution around schools. This was one of the main motivation for starting this program, reducing crowding and traffic. The Pedibus program is an alternative for taking pupils to school, and providing a means to exercise.”

Pedibus is pollution free, and increases socialization. Another advantage is that it is always on time, as our interlocutor was happy to tell us:

“Each morning we have five gathering points, marked with our logo on the pavement, and each parent and child knows where to wait for the Pedibus. Each morning, whether it shows or rains, we are there. When we ourselves were kids, we walked to school. And, as a bonus, if it rains when we walk to school, it looks great, because the streets are filled with colorful umbrellas. In this school year, we tried to motivate the children, we made albums with stickers, and we started each and everyone of them with a smiley face sticker. Now, kids can have the possibility to collect these stickers throughout the year, and at the end we hand out prizes, such as a mug, or roller skate backpacks, we really make it worth it for them.”

Although this is a program in its early days, it is definitely fail safe.

Late last year, in the town of Sfantu Gheorghe, the Pedibus project was launched, dedicated to children who go to school on foot, starting at the beginning of the current school year. This is a project under which primary school kids are accompanied to school by two adults, forming organized groups. This project is meant to promote exercise, health, and fun.

Székely Kincső, a local council member with Sf. Gheorghe Town Hall, and the program coordinator, told us where the idea came from:

“This program is a Town Hall initiative, which motivates pupils in town to walk to school, because walking is the best way, and healthiest way, to start the day. This program is an initiative of a Canadian ecologist, and has been working really well in Europe. This program started in our town on May 17 of this year, and ended on June 27.”

Between September 20 and 24 this year, once the school year started, over 30 physicians, nurses, and orderlies from almost all the major departments in the Sf. Gheorghe Hospital have become the drivers of the Pedibus. The local community is proud that all these people are taking the time to do this kind of volunteering, as Székely Kincső told us:

“On the first day, we had 60 kids involved, and this week we had as many as 80. The number grows every day. We have volunteers, and we are trying to organize every day of the week. When we started the program, it began with gym teachers in town. We also had some of our colleagues from the press. This is great for parents, who can know that their children are safe. When we started this school year, we had physicians and nurses from the hospital, then we had actors, another week we had local council members and politicians. We are trying to group them by themes, but any volunteer may join in, because this is a great program for everyone!”.

Council member Székely Kincső told us that the kids have really taken to this program:

“Kids are delighted and happy. We have a lot of feedback from schools, because when they get to school, the children are happy, and you can tell that they get to school with a clear mind. Regular exercise helps them learn, and develop social skills, but also increases emotional control and self-confidence. Over the last few years, more and more children are being driven to school in cars, and that affects their sense of independence, but also crowds traffic and increases pollution around schools. This was one of the main motivation for starting this program, reducing crowding and traffic. The Pedibus program is an alternative for taking pupils to school, and providing a means to exercise.”

Pedibus is pollution free, and increases socialization. Another advantage is that it is always on time, as our interlocutor was happy to tell us:

“Each morning we have five gathering points, marked with our logo on the pavement, and each parent and child knows where to wait for the Pedibus. Each morning, whether it shows or rains, we are there. When we ourselves were kids, we walked to school. And, as a bonus, if it rains when we walk to school, it looks great, because the streets are filled with colorful umbrellas. In this school year, we tried to motivate the children, we made albums with stickers, and we started each and everyone of them with a smiley face sticker. Now, kids can have the possibility to collect these stickers throughout the year, and at the end we hand out prizes, such as a mug, or roller skate backpacks, we really make it worth it for them.”

Although this is a program in its early days, it is definitely fail safe.

AREAL is a creative choreography space open to all dance lovers, in an unconventional space in the heart of Bucharest. It has recently become the 46th official member of the European Dance Network. We spoke with one of the choreographers who leads it, Cosmin Manolescu, about AREAL and another intriguing workshop in early June:

“The AREAL workshop, a place for choreography development, is a form of meeting, dialog, and a space for creativity, it is about dreaming, about contemporary dance, because my workshops are atypical. The AREAL space is a new space in Bucharest, led by four choreographers, myself, Cristina Lilenfeld, Alexandra Bălăşoiu şi Valentina De Pliante, who also hold dance workshops in various formats. They follow a contemporary dance retreat in the Greek islands, in Gavdos and Crete, and in early August we will dance in Techirghiol and at the Black Sea.”

We asked Cosmin Manolescu what is challenging about this workshop:

“First of all I think that the themes proposed by the participants are challenging, I think we need to move and experience emotions in various formats, I think it is important to get out of the state in which the pandemic has put us, a languishing state, staying alone at home, far from people, from cultural activities. I think that this format, in addition to putting us in touch with emotions, with our body, as a form of working with yourself, gets us in touch with people, awakens our bodies and souls.”

In this workshop, the participants talked about trauma and the effect on the body, about dreaming, they explored, dancing in a circle, movements with their eyes closed. Sometimes they danced at sunrise in the middle of town, to the delight, amazement, and even dismay of passers by.

We asked Cosmin Manolescu who takes part in his special workshops:

“It is a variety of people, from culture journalists to former students, to people who have their first encounter with contemporary dance, and this is what I like the most, when new people discover a new universe, which I think is really free and creative. In essence, they are beautiful and free people in search of themselves.”

We also asked a basic question: What is, in fact, contemporary dance?

“This is a question that we keep asking, what contemporary dance is. For me, contemporary dance is a form of freedom, a form of courage, of taking on things for yourself, to meet yourself, with your body and emotions, of opening up to people, to the city, and to nature. These are the elements that I have been working with for a while now. I think that contemporary dance changes our lives for the better, brings people closer, and makes us better, at least a little.”

We invited Cosmin Manolescu to answer a question he wishes we had asked him, but didnt:

“For instance, there is a question I have: why is contemporary dance not developing? There are some factors, some objective, others subjective. First of all, dance is seen everywhere as a Cinderella, although as far as Im concerned, it is an art that develops the soul, the mind, and the body. It is a complex art, that uses the body above all, and I think that if we danced more from childhood to adulthood, if it would be an optional class in school, we would all have to gain.”

One thing we noticed is that the workshops are mostly attended by women, so we asked Cosmin Manolescu what he thinks about too few men attending his workshops:

“I have been asking myself that a lot. I think that men are not attracted by this fragile, special, and emotional discipline. They generally prefer sports, which is their way of putting themselves on display, to build up muscles, to train their physique. I think it boils down to education, the education system does not favor this art when it comes to boys, and I think that many men got to my class only because they were pushed by their wives or partners. I think that if there was more education about it, it would show up more often on TV screens, we would talk more about it, and contemporary dance would have more success with men. I have to say I am glad that ballroom dancing is attracting more men of late, we see more opening towards certain styles of dancing, which is about putting in time and work, and I hope that soon we would see equal numbers of men and women in my contemporary dance workshops.”

AREAL continues to hold courses in their own workshop or outdoors, conducted by Valentina De Piante Niculae, Alexandra Bălăşoiu, and Cristina Lilienfeld. (CC)

Today you are invited to accompany us to a museum that opened in 2018, the Bucharest Museum of Recent Art. In May this year, an original exhibition was inaugurated here, and we talked about it with art historian Erwin Kessler, founder and director of the museum. The exhibition is entitled The Romanian Art Sports Club (Sport in Romanian Art from 1900 to Our Days).

The exhibition charts the extremely diverse landscape of interest in visual arts towards sports and fitness in Romania. It has 53 works of art, painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, video, and installations. They are made by 48 Romanian artists, and they come from 12 Romanian museums, nine private collections, and four art galleries, as we were told by Erwin Kessler:

“This is the most ample collaboration we’ve had so far. Among the works we exhibit are patrimony, even treasury pieces, and bringing them to the museum was a considerable effort for us. It is an exhibition that covers an ample period, from 1900 to 2021. We prepared this exhibition for 14 months, and we realized that this year there will be an overlap between two major sports events, the Olympics, and the European soccer championship. We thought that, even if we are no longer a powerhouse in sports, we can showcase the successes that Romanian sports had in the previous century.

Erwin Kessler told us that he is aware that an association being made between art and sports is unusual: “That’s right. Everyone was surprised. It seems a contradiction in terms, dealing with sports when you deal with art. Well, art has been concerned with sports, and this is visible for anyone, even without ever stepping foot in an exhibition. We made a catalog, very special in aspect, a stadium, which has not only photos, but also introductions to Romanian art dealing with sports. This is exemplary of an entire process that started sometime in late 19th century, early 20th century, when, in addition to art, an essential element in the rise of Romanian society, sports clubs started being visible socially. Art and sports share the same boat of modernization. They are both virtues.

Among the artists that have depicted elite sports, Erwin Kessler recalled Luchian and Grigorescu, in terms of horse riding, but also Brauner and Mattis-Tuetsch referring to boxing. The exhibition also illustrates the second half of the 19th century, in which artists depict sports in art that reflects mostly Communist propaganda. And then we get back to the present.

Here is Erwin Kessler: “After 1989, younger artists mostly, critical artists, see sports with very different eyes, as our exhibition shows. This view turns sports from a virtue to a vice, a vice in the Communist period, which manipulated sports heavily, and everything that has to do with physical education and conscience. This criticism becomes a lever in the hands of young artists in terms of dismantling the positive associations of sports. The second wing of our exhibition, the post-1989 wing, is representative of this attitude: tough works, which expose everything that the commercialization of sports entails.

We asked Erwin Kessler to describe for us the most provocative exhibits they have on display: “Among the most provocative works I could present, I would mention a truly exceptional collection, not really seen so far, presented in a glass case, with all Gheroghe Dinu’s club IDs. His real name was Stephan Roll, and he was a left wing athlete, starting in the interwar period. We can see the trail of his avantgarde life in his club IDs, from so-called bourgeois registration cards to the Communist ones. This shows a certain ideological continuity: the sports promoted by the avantgarde is a type of sports that prepares the athlete artist for the real confrontation, that with security forces, in order to pursue the revolution. This is the essential aspect of the avantgarde physical preparation: developing the capacity to resist repression, to train a body fit for the proletarian revolution. It is an important element which cannot be ignored.

Erwin Kessler added: “In contemporary art, I would say that one of the strongest pieces we have is the 1977 movie by Ion Grigorescu, called simply Boxing, an art film, a film made with equipment largely made by the artist, a very edgy movie in which the artist is soundly beaten by his own shadow. Even before 1977, this idea of fearing one’s own shadow was widely encountered in Communist society. In contemporary art, I think it is worth paying attention to some very interesting paintings we have, Stefan Constantinescu, The Gymnastics Hall. It is based on a photo found in the ’80s, a typical Communist gymnastics hall, and the painting was made in the ’90s. It depicts a call as a cathedral dedicated to quasi-religious activities, in which young people are lined up in detachments. I would also mention an extraordinary work, from a private collection, a painting of a boxer by Hans Mattis-Tetsch, an extraordinary work from the 1950s, in which the artist tries to show the elitist character of sports between the wars, painting a boxer with perfectly ironed trunks.

The exhibition will be open until September 19.

As a journalist, writer, and nature lover, Janneke Vos de Groot is from the Netherlands, and she settled in Romania 15 years ago. She and her husband had a passion for Icelandic horses from back home, and the two actually met at an equestrian competition. They settled in Romania in a village called Oarba de Mures, and they started developing the local rural tourism.

Janneke Vos de Groot told us how she and her husband got the idea of becoming farmers. Because in the Netherlands a piece of land is so expensive, they looked around Europe and picked Romania. It wasnt so easy after all, so we asked them what the biggest difficulty was:

“The language, of course! We had a teacher in the Netherlands, of course, a very good one, who speaks the language. We were very happy moving to a very small village, but no one speaks either English or German there, so we had to handle things in Romania from day one. At first, the language was very hard, but after that came another culture and the bureaucracy. Those are the biggest problems.”

Janneke told us about her passion for horses:

“This was our hobby back in the Netherlands, Icelandic horses. My husband and I ride a lot, and breeding Icelandic horses has always been a passion for us. We came here with 9, and now have 23. We have 3 or 4 that we ride, but most of them we have for visitors. Riding an Icelandic horse is different, because the have a different style of walking. A regular horse has a step, a trot, and gallop, but Icelandic horses have just two ways of ambling, which you have to know, otherwise you cant ride them.”

Icelandic horses are the only ones in the world the a so-called tölt, which means that at a given time the horse has three hooves on the ground. Because of this, the horses have a light movement, very stable for the rider, and they also can speed up from a trot to a gallop very easily.

Janneke told us that she has found a very good place for the horses, and also for people:

“Back home we always worked in cities, but lived in the country. We are used to wide open spaces. It was more for the horses that we looked for wide open spaces here in Romania, a place for farming. The horses are always outside, they have a lot of room to move, even in winter, its very healthy for them. Everyone says that here in Oarba de Mures we have plenty of clean air. I dont know if it is more so than in other places, but this is a small village, the scenery is beautiful, we have lots of wildlife. Not in the village as such, but in the area we have bears, wolves, jackals, foxes, deer, it is beautiful! Mostly for the guests from Holland, I always tell them how beautiful it is.”

Janneke is deeply involved in the development of the area, so she talked to us about things that bother her, and she plans on changing:

“The one thing that bothers me is the littering out of cars, trash getting thrown everywhere. This is something that we have to sort out this year in Oarba de Mures: to run a campaign to clean up. There is no forest without deadwood, but in the Netherlands we are just used to cleaning up garbage, taking it to special places and not leaving it lying around, but here it is a bit different, and there are a lot of people that just throw stuff out of their car window. Most of it is plastic bottles, which stay around for about 100 years. It is a pity, I always tell people around here that I wont be inheriting this village, neither will my children, but it is their children that will, and that is why they have to gather up refuse and throw it in the proper place. We have to set an example in this sense.”

Janneke Vos de Groot has written six books about Romania, especially about the area they have settled in, tempting many tourists to visit. As she said, when they arrive to the area, she takes people everywhere:

“I usually go with them to Brasov, or Cluj, which are great cities, but then I ask them what they liked best. They always tell me it is the village, Oarba de Mures, where they saw simple folk working and living. Usually, the villagers just prepare some simple Romanian food for the guests, and that makes for a very special atmosphere. Not even the Parliament Palace in Bucharest makes for such popularity as a good lunch in Oarba de Mures.”

We also found out that Janneke loves traditional Romanian food, such as aspic, tripe soup, stuffed cabbage, and meatballs. She does still cook Dutch food at home, as she let us know.

The biggest manufacturer of instruments made of wood in Europe is the HORA factory, in Reghin, which this year celebrates 70 years of activity. Although the pandemic produced changes in terms of musical instrument orders, the factory managed to put on the market during the pandemic three new products.

No matter which sector you work in, you have to adapt to the market economy, said Dorin Man, technical manager, explaining how the production of musical instruments works here:

“Our factory has developed three big production lines: a guitar line, everything guitar, a very big variety — sizes of 1 to 4, up to 4 to 4, in a great variety, meaning the types of wood, quality, structure, in all registers. Another line is bowed instruments: violins, violas, cellos, double basses, and even other instruments. This line produces a wide range of bowed instruments, and when I say range I am referring to all wood types, structure, color, and quality. We have different qualities for all instruments, from beginners, to advanced, to professionals, to masters. A third line was created to increase diversity because of the international market context, the ethno instrument line. Here we are talking about the balalaika for Russia, also the domra, the psalter for Germany, the bouzouki, Irish instruments, mandolins, Romanian panpipes, Peruvian panpipes, musical instruments for people with disabilities. In this context, considering that the pandemic reduced sales of musical instruments such as guitars and violins, where we have a strong competition in Asia, we tried to develop the ethno line. As such we developed three more products, such as the cajon, a percussion instrument, then the bugle violin, specific to the Bihor area, and we also improved electric guitars. We also put on the market two new types of solo electric guitars.”

We invited Dorin Man to tell us about each of these niche products:

“The bugle violin has a special history. It was a combination of Mr. Strohs invention, which paired the strings vibration with the vibration of a special device, amplifying it through a bugle, not a resonating box, as a normal violin. With a violin, the string vibrates, produces a sound, which has amplification, adds timbre and volume to that vibration. It is a product that not many people in the world make in volume.”

Then we found out the story of the cajon, a Latino percussion instrument, which is used in various concert halls. It is a solid instrument, at a reasonable price for any percussion lover, as Dorin Man, technical manager, told us:

“The cajon is a percussion instrument, with a wooden box, the size of a stool, that the person who plays sits on, and beats in a certain way on the sides of the cajon. It has a six sided body, but you only beat on one side, which on the inside has six strings with a certain structure, meant to produce a certain sound. It is not simply a wood vibration, but a combination between the vibration of the wood touched by the strings. This way, you can get a wide combination of sounds.”

HORA also produces six string electric guitars, with very special finishes, which few have seen so far, and they are bringing new nuances and fashions in the world of guitarists. Thanks to the electrical circuitry used, and the more and more complex forms, created by digital machines of great mobility, made according to the requests of great guitarists, which brings added value to the factory.

This is a story about and with music, and about how an old factory can turn 70 years young.