Radio România Internațional

Category: Inside Romania

  • Anybody home?

    Anybody home?

    He studied documentary photography in London. Upon his
    return to Romania, he was set to rediscover the world he left behind using the
    camera, whether he was taking pictures or filming. This is the trigger point for
    the Working Site in the time of the pandemic, a project that took off thanks
    to the fortnightly lockdown Ionut Teoredascu had been under, in his flat in an
    apartment house. Ionut immortalized construction works for the neighboring
    block of flats. Then the Pandemic in the countryside followed, it was another
    project consisting of snapshots of village life which had remained unchanged,
    save for the ear-loop mask people living there had to wear. But what compelled
    our attention as regards Ionut Teoderascu was a project for which Ionut
    Teoderascu scooped the golden award in the People/Family category as part of
    the 2020 Budapest International Photo Awards, titled Nobody’s home.


    Ionuţ Teoderascu introduced himself as a documentary photographer.
    He told us how the project took off.


    Ionut Teoderascu:

    The short-reel documentary titled
    There’s nobody home was released in April 2019. So it was then that my idea
    took shape. I called in at my grandmother’s house. It had been uninhabited in
    the last ten years and it was more like a curiosity for me, to take a look
    inside. Once I entered the house, I noticed all my grandmother’s stuff was
    there, things were almost untouched. It was like a capsule of time. Then I
    returned there with my father, since I asked him to tell the story of their childhood,
    what parents had been like when they were still alive, since I, for one, did
    not meet the grandpa on my father’s side, he died at the age of 44. Then I got
    back again, this time with my aunties, I asked them to tell me more and that’s
    how I discovered a part of my grandmother’s past and I said to myself the best
    thing is to tell the whole story in a documentary short-reel, so that I may
    blend the image with the sounds of the house as I made recordings when I went,
    with my parents or my aunties, to my grandmother’s house. I made the
    documentary short-reel late last year.


    The film was received better than he expected. Or at
    least that is what Ionut Teoderascu told us.


    The first time I launched it in Romania it was part of a Takeover, it was posted on the Instagram page of the magazine titled
    It is only a magazine and it was there that I laid out the story for the
    first time ever, but it had been released in Great Britain before, it was
    posted on a platform dedicated to documentary photography. It was launched
    there. With this project, I also participated in a competition before the year
    ended; a photo album featuring students was posted there, one of the first
    albums Canon has made, and it was there that the project took off, then I
    participated in a contest in Budapest where I won the Gold Vibe, the golden
    award, with this project. Subsequently it was also posted on other channels,
    here, in Romania.


    Ionut Teoderascu taking
    us through the story of the film.


    The sensation you get is that you’re
    stepping in another time. As soon as you step into the house, you feel those
    images that affect you a lot, emotionally, you see crumbling walls or
    spiderwebs, very big. It is that kind of image you wouldn’t want to see,
    especially if you have a personal connection to the family who lived there yet
    it is an area where the history of a family has been very well-preserved, since
    the place we live in, after all defines us and the whole time granny lived
    there, she used to live there on a permanent basis for the last 20 years, she
    collected all the things she needed, she arranged them, she somehow got ready
    for her death as well, she had prepared everything for that already. And you
    could see they were still there. I found pills, I found letters granny had kept
    there. And all that stuff speaks volumes about the person who used to live there.


    The film takes us to the village of Craiesti, Galati
    county, the village of the filmmaker’s childhood, where we’re about to visit a
    special house.


    Ionut Teoderascu:

    The house is atypical for that area,
    where the houses are sort of smaller, there are two-room houses, but the
    granny’s house does have a history of its own. It was purpose-built, it was supposed to house the administration, the
    prefecture or the town hall and was afterwards sold to my grandfather. It has
    tall doors, the materials are very good, they are made of solid wood and was
    built on top of a hill, the view of the village is very picturesque it is old
    enough, it is a hundred years old, or sort of.


    Ionut Teoderascu once again, this time
    extending an invitation to all of us.


    I encourage everybody to watch the
    documentary short-reel, you can access it on my website, at teoderascu.com
    or on YouTube or on the Facebook page as I think this documentary somehow tells
    the story of several families, guiding us as to how we should look at a
    family’s past, in a bid to get everybody understanding the idea that a family’s
    past is here and there and it is romanticized by those who are still alive.
    Because we want to know that our parents lived a good life. And, perhaps, that
    is exactly why, after they die, we try to reconstruct the past, rendering it
    more romanticized. And that’s what I speak about in my documentary short-reel,
    apart from the whole story about my grandparents that I tell there.


    For those who are interested, in Zalau, the
    photographs made by Ionut Teoderascu are brought together in the exhibition
    titled the The faces of the pandemic.




  • Labyrinth – Halfway. Flowers Were Here

    Labyrinth – Halfway. Flowers Were Here

    A laborious work, Labyrinth – Halfway is the result of research and
    community art experiments conducted by visual artist Roxana Donaldson, visual
    arts researcher Cristina Irian and Cristina Bodnărescu, who was in charge of putting
    the footage and ideas of the two artists into a film that went on to be shown
    at a film and video festival called VKRS Bucharest. Cristina Irian tells us
    more about the whole project:


    This is both an artistic and a civic project because
    it aims to provide an active response to the need to keep a community together
    in times of crisis and symbolically salvage discarded flowers and turn them
    into art objects. I worked directly with bouquets of flowers Roxana got me from
    the market, from which I made eight dolls which I named the Matache dolls and
    which appear to be dancing. In the second part of the project I used the dolls
    and their shapes and added what I called poems in flowers. I kept a video record
    of the entire transformation of a bouquet of flowers.



    A performance was also created, and here’s Roxana
    Donaldson telling us more about it:


    We intended this project as an encounter
    between people and plants in an urban environment. We wanted to speak about the
    lives of people and that of flowers in these times of isolation and anxiety
    generated by the Covid pandemic. We wanted to see how people live and survive together
    in cities. The performance was inspired by the flowers discarded by the small
    local producers in markets last November. This was the starting point and we
    ended up making a film and then turning the dried flowers into works of art. I’m
    an interdisciplinary visual artist and I’ve always been interested in eco-art
    and plant-art and I wanted to create interdisciplinary and conceptual art with
    and about plants. The performance involved our meeting at the half way point between
    her market and mine, where we each bought ten flowers on the last day before
    the markets were closed. And so, when we met at this halfway point, which happened to be on a street called Labyrinth, we exchanged flowers. We basically gave
    each other flowers in the middle of the pandemic, during lockdown, at a time
    when the city was cold, empty and shut down. We filmed everything, including
    the sounds of the city, because we wanted to create a record of our urban
    performance.



    The life of the flowers continued in their adoptive
    homes, the artists’ homes, and after drying out, they underwent a process of reinvention.
    Roxana Donaldson:


    I painted their story on canvas, writing in
    pen ‘rescued abandoned flowers’ and these words blended into each other
    becoming patches of colour and over these patches of colour I sewed flowers and
    thus created a work of art which I exhibited in the street as part of the
    second performance. I called it Flowers Were Here, because the flowers had
    returned to a place they’d been to before. We each left a work: mine was a wall
    covering made from canvas with flowers and hers was a doll made out of dried
    flowers. They remained on the wall where we exhibited them as part of this
    free-art performance, which is all about putting your whole heart into the creation
    of pure art, art that is not regimented, and gifting it to the city, to the
    community, for free and unconditionally.


    Cristina Irian added:


    The first part of the project took place
    in the morning, the second in the afternoon and the next thing is for us to meet
    for a third time on the same street, but this time in the evening, to use the objects
    we created in a different way. I will focus on the shape of the doll and the
    shadows it casts in an endeavour to reactivate the space.



    The third part of the project will have different
    components: a showing of a film on the life of the flowers which were transformed
    into works of art, an exhibition of new works into which the dried flowers are
    integrated, and a new urban performance.

  • Light for the Soul

    Light for the Soul

    A number of urban, geometric projects have appeared out of a wish for a sustainable brand, based on the circular economy, to satisfy the most important present trends in taste and style. As part of this process, a young team wanted to develop a high impact local economic chain, using recycled wood materials (with help from a Romanian furniture factory), more to the point, wooden dowels and strips treated with oil or a water based varnish, as well as 3D printed plastic joints.




    Cristina Cerga, co-founder of Wooba Deco, told us about the origins of the project:


    “The idea came when I saw the products made by Adrian, I met him in 2019 at the Startarium Crowdfounding Megatlon, where Adrian came to present modular objects, among them some of the lamps that are today part of the Wooba Dark collection.”




    Stars, recycling, play, light. These would be the basic ideas of the project, as presented one weekend in January. Once again, Cristina Cerga told us about how many beautiful ideas come out of playing:


    “The idea started with play. Adrian composed some geometrical forms for his daughter, Lara, and then carried this passion a bit further. He started making regular polyhedrons with a multitude of new shapes, then came the products with lights, because we wanted it to be a beam of light in this dark period, because we launched the brand in early 2020. The five objects also got a tagline, to bring people moments of reverie. And we called them lights for the soul. These are design bodies 100% made in Romania, composed by Adrian and marketed by us, and together we brought out a new reverie. This was what we wanted to do with these light objects. We wanted them to bring in some reverie to Romania, and not only.”




    Adrian Bursuc, creator of the objects, described the collection for us:


    “This is a collection called Dark, composed of five light objects, made from wooden dowels and 3D printers. People are delighted, thanks to the innovation and the new shapes. My girl was delighted, and every time I go into the workshop she wants to help me, and take part in the creation, with drawing and assembly. All illumination objects hint at the stars.”




    In a world of isolation, Wooba Deco urges us to dream, according to Cristina Cerga:


    “In our logo we placed a constellation, to take people to the stars in their daydreaming. We also tried to find in our objects stories that people can identify with, choosing the light that suits them. If they go on our website, they will see that for the five starts that we named we have an individual story, they are good and evil characters, and we called this collection Dark because darkness is defined by light. When we dream, when we create or project or are happy, a light is sparked within each of us. We hope this light keeps on shining.”




    The lighting objects have the names of stars. Practically, they can be suspended or set on a surface, thanks to their geometrically regular shapes. The light comes out from within directly, unfettered, and the geometric structures produce pleasant shadows. More details came in from Cristina Cerga:


    “We chose to put in the collection a main star, Bennett Star, which we called, due to its complexity, the star for restless souls. We have a natural star, which is an angel of the natural, that is Ariel Star, and we have Aaron Star, Uriel, and Luna, which are smaller stars, but full of complexity, and there we afford people a moment of individual creation. In addition, our collection comes with some customized boxes, and anyone can give the box their own destination. We left the tops of the boxes unpainted, so that each can give each box its own destination. They can use the boxes for storage, or for keeping souvenirs. A Wooba product is automatically made up of two pieces, allowing the customers to be creative alongside us.”




    The artists hope that people will join them in dreaming, helping this brand grows in the country and abroad.

  • Traditional milling in rural area

    Traditional milling in rural area

    100 years ago, there were 367 traditional hydraulic installations in the upper basin of Mures River alone, with only three left at present, that form part of museum collections in Reghin and Sibiu. Scientific researcher Dorel Marc, with the Ethnography and Folk Art Section of the Mures County Museum, has found not only mills, but also many other devices made by peasants, which he included in a study entitled The traditional technical civilization and the peasant industries. Hydraulic installations in Mures area in the mid-20th century. The role of the miller in the life of the village is described in detail in the study.



    Dorel Marc: This craft that became, in time, a genuine folk industry, can be found today only in the large open-air museums in Romania, such as Astra Museum of Sibiu, Dimitrie Gusti Museum in Bucharest and the Museum in Sighetu Marmatiei. These tools are still remembered by our grandparents, as some highly ingenious technical devices. They can still serve as inspiration for contemporary engineers.



    First, there were the small hand mills, then, by using the force of waters, these mills developed a lot in the Middle Ages, first in the boyars’ households. In time, the peasants also earned the right to build mills in their own households. In the area of research, that is, the Mureş area, but also on Târnave, Dorel Marc found a number of particularities: “In 1956, when the Council of Waters made an inventory of the mills that were still functional, there were 400 mills in this area, of which 236 with a hydraulic wheel, 55 with two wheels and 5 with 3 wheels. But beyond these statistics, we must see milling as a phenomenon not only in economic terms, but also in social terms, since the role of the miller was very important in the rural community of the past. Many households became centers of traditional technical installations, in the sense that the same gutter, which brought water to the mills wheel, was also used to activate timber cutting, needed for constructions, or whirlwinds and oil presses. So in addition to the fact that the mill provided bread and polenta for the family, this complex system of installations served the entire household.



    The grinding mechanism consisted in two millstones, one fixed and one mobile, the latter having the role of rotating and crushing the grains. With the same mill, with the help of a separator, wheat and corn were ground, because with the help of that separator or screw, the moving stone was lifted from the fixed stone and, depending on the height, it gave the required granulation. The force of water, which pushed the large wooden wheel from the outside, was transmitted to the mechanism that guided the moving stone with the help of large belts, initially made of leather and later of rubber.



    The destiny of the miller families was sad, during the communist period, as they were declared ‘privileged, were persecuted, and their children banned from attending high schools. So the tradition remained a story. Dorel Marc plans to extend his research in the future: “I would like to continue this research related to the destinies of these millers, of these true owners, who were spread all over Romania.



    The researcher wants to make traditional values a genuine attraction for tourists: It would be nice if tourists could see how wheat flour and corn flour are obtained with the traditional mills, how seeds are crushed to obtain oil, how wool is washed only with the help of this centrifugal force, without detergents, without polluting the environment. Who knows? Maybe, in the future, ethnologists will be more involved in these actions aimed at reviving some crafts, because there are such initiatives from people who still adhere to traditions, who want to reconstitute some crafts. It is good to keep in mind that this should be done scientifically, so as to preserve their authenticity.



    In time, the mills and the milling activity have changed, so that after 1990, in some rural localities, mechanized, electric mills started to be used, particularly in agricultural production cooperatives. But just as homemade bread is less and less popular, village households are using mills less for grinding flour or corn and more for feeding the farm animals.



  • FOCUS, a project for children

    FOCUS, a project for children

    Many Romanian rural communities have been in the attention of NGOs lately, that tried to ease the access of children to education. Thus, teachers have been sent to areas where they were needed the most. This gave the PATRUPETREI team the idea to hold a number of short film workshops for the children in Calarasi county, as part of a project dubbed FOCUS.



    Andrei Dudea, the leader of the PATRUPETREI team, has given us details: ”The FOCUS project consists in fact in several documentary film workshops, for children aged 10 to 14. We hold theory workshops, because we want to develop their critical spirit. This means that we get together, watch films or other media products children usually like, such as music videos. Children particularly like vlogging and mainstream music. When we watch documentaries, we try to analyse them, discuss the lead roles, the topic approached and the way the film was made. We discuss general staff and not get into technical details given that most children participating in these workshops are aged 11 or 12. We try to show them that editing, and music can influence a lot a media product. We are trying to make them understand this, because an important part of this project is to develop their critical spirit. ”




    After the theoretical approach, the practical part follows. Andrei Dudea: “We hold some practical workshops, which means that we go to them with the camera and teach them to film, to pick a theme for their project. As an example, the most frequent themes are about football. All boys wanted to make films about football in the communities we visited. After we help them pick a theme, we teach them how to work with a camera and let them take cameras home and work independently. So, they work with the mentor first to learn the basics and then do it by themselves or in small teams. This is important, because this also helps them become more responsible.”



    Andrei Dudea has said the idea is mostly to develop children’s self-confidence: ”Our main interest is to make them learn about responsibility. In this case, participants in the workshop learn about building a project and how it can be carried out. I believe it is important for the project to be completed, no matter how interesting or uninteresting it may be. We also work on building their confidence. We have held three workshops so far and the fourth one follows. We have found two very talented children among the ones we worked with. ”



    The second edition of the FOCUS — film workshop for adolescents was held during the pandemic, which prompted some changes in how the project unfolded, part of it being held online. A mini-documentary was made on this topic, about how the young people delt with the changes around them and the challenges they faced when schools were closed and they started online classes. Children learned how to tell their own story by means of cinema, with the support of their mentors, Andrei Dudea and Ruxandra Gubernat.



    According to Andrei Dudea, children know more than we would expect about films: “Children are today much more exposed to the media, they have mobile phones, they make videos, go on TikTok, Instagram and they know how to express their ideas. ”



    The short films made by children were turned into a documentary that also shows glimpses of rural life during the pandemic and the reaction of villagers to lockdown.The project will continue this year in a Rroma community in Calarasi.

  • Bărăgan 3D

    Bărăgan 3D

    A new virtual project was launched in
    November in Romania: the first travel guide dedicated exclusively to Bărăgan, a
    region in the south-eastern part of the country. The guide is called Itinerama -
    Explorer in Bărăgan and provides visitors with a comprehensive list of material
    and intangible heritage sites from the area. The platform also contains the
    first audio guide of the region, the first 3D museum of Bărăgan and special
    sections dedicated to the music conductor Ionel Perlea and the sculptor Nicăpetre,
    who hail from this area.




    Cristian Curuș, who is the manager of
    the project, said 100 different sites with tourist potential were identified in
    the first stage:




    Some of these sites are already used
    as tourist attractions, such as the museums and the archaeological sites that
    can be visited for a very modest fee. There are, however, many other places
    that are not on the tourist map. Some of these places are considered heritage
    and are on the list of protected monuments, but are not open to visitors, such
    as manor houses, churches and even archaeological sites to which visitors don’t
    have access. For example, tourists haven’t had access to the site in Popina Bordușani, in Ialomița county, for
    the last two years, but thanks to this project, we’re trying to organise together
    with the Ialomița County Museum a series of guided tours for visitors. The Bărăganguide
    proposes four itineraries: the upper Bărăgan region, with the most important
    sites in Călărași and Ialomița counties; Bărăgan from south to north, with a series
    of potential tourist sites along Danube river on the stretch between Călărași and
    Brăila, a tour of manor houses and a tour of the churches. Visitors can organise
    these trips on their own. The project’s website, itinerama.ro, will be providing
    interactive maps showing the distance in km between various sites, the time it
    takes to get there, etc, so tourists can create their own itinerary.




    Adriana
    Lucaciu is one of the photographers who worked on the project to create an
    online tourist guide of Bărăgan. She told us what the experience was like for
    her:




    We took
    photos of many manor houses which are unfortunately abandoned and not in very good
    shape from a conservation point of view, we also took photos of the Popina
    Bordușani protected area, which is very little known despite being a beautiful
    place. We also took photos of many road side crosses from the 1800s, some of which
    are located where you might least expect them, in the middle of fields, and decorated
    with all kinds of carved symbols about which visitors can find out more from
    the Agriculture Museum in Slobozia.




    Adriana
    Lucaciu now tells us more about the Agriculture Museum in Slobozia, which she
    says is a very nice place to visit:




    The Agriculture
    Museum in Slobozia is very pleasantly built. It has an area with workshops as
    they used to look like in the old time. Visitors can walk down the corridor and,
    on either side, see rooms recreating different workshops, an ironsmith’s or a
    baker’s, as well as an old school classroom with wooden benches and old
    manuals, and an old kitchen. The museum also has a collection of stone crosses from
    the village of Poiana, which were brought over after the local cemetery was dismantled.
    The crosses date back from the 1800s. There are explanations for visitors
    containing translations of their inscriptions and the interpretation of the
    symbols.




    Photographer
    Adriana Lucaciu says there are a lot of unusual sites in the region:




    Looking
    at a list of heritage sites, we came across a mention about a so-called cursed
    cemetery in Lehliu. So, we started to look for it, but no precise location was
    mentioned. When we arrived on Lehliu, we started to ask the locals about the
    cemetery but all we got in response were funny looks. Eventually, we met a
    young man who remembered that there was an abandoned cemetery in the village
    but didn’t know exactly where, only pointed in the direction of a street. We walked
    up and down that street and then a nice old man came out of his house and we
    asked him about the cemetery he said it had been abandoned before he was born. He
    pointed at some trees in the distance and said that if we go past those trees and
    venture into the wasteland behind, we’d be sure to find the crosses. That’s exactly
    what happened and I can’t tell you how we felt when we saw the stone crosses,
    some still standing, some fallen to the ground, taken over by the vegetation on
    the bank of the river.




    Itinerama – Explorer in Bărăgan, the
    project to map out the tourist attractions in this south-eastern Romanian
    region, is carried out with the support of the Administration of the National
    Cultural Fund, the National Institute for Heritage and the museums in the Bărăgan
    area.

  • The Museum of Collectivization

    The Museum of Collectivization

    Forced collectivization in Romania meant that between 1949 and 1962, peasants had their land and cattle confiscated, and were pushed to sign up for the new collective farms. In 1951, 80,000 peasants were incarcerated, or sent to the infamous Danube- Black Sea Canal for opposing collective farms. In total, 800,000 peasants were thrown into communist prisons for not voluntarily giving up their land. After 13 years of forced collectivization, when propaganda and terror went hand in hand, the Communist Party could report successfully the collectivization of agriculture in Romania. The event to celebrate was a special session of the Grand National Assembly held between April 27 and 30 1962, with 11,000 peasants attending. The Communist leaders of the time said that Socialism had prevailed definitively in the People’s Republic of Romania,




    In the village of Tamaseni, in Neamt County, a museum has opened to remember these events. It exhibits objects typical of peasant households from the 1950s, and Iulian Bulai, the project manager, told Radio Romania about them:


    “Today we are opening the first three rooms of the Museum of Collectivization. For ages we have been asking ourselves why agriculture in Romania is in chaos, why people don’t take care of public spaces as they do in other countries, whey there is such a development gap between rural and urban areas in Romania, and why there is such a difference between rural areas in Romania and the West. I tried to answer these questions. One answer that I found was collectivization. As a social and political phenomenon, it irreversibly affected the Romanian village, in the sense that the confiscation of private property led to what we see now in the countryside, a huge amount of underdevelopment, which you do not find in Western countries. In trying to answer these questions, relating to my family history, which was wracked by collectivization, I realized that understanding better the countryside in Romania, and collectivization as a phenomenon, we have to ask ourselves questions in order to know ourselves better, to visualize the drama that affected millions of Romanians during collectivization in Romania in the 1950s. I had to build this museum to reflect the social and anthropological reality of the present moment.




    Iulian Bulai had his grandparents’ household to turn into a museum. We asked him what there was to see for the moment being:


    “We have two houses and an annex. This is a typical Moldavian household, with a continuity of a century, which stands witness as a victim of collectivization. This is the home of my ancestors, that went through the process in the 1950s. They had their land, their tools, their mills, confiscated. This home is witness to the story of a family that resembles millions of Romanians, whose lives were hijacked by the Communist Party, whose homes were confiscated, some of them turned into village stores, as happened here between 1950 and 1992, when it went back to the family. That is a symbol that a lot of Romanians can still recognize.




    Iulian Bulai went on to describe the museum:


    “This museum will be based less on objects, which used to belong to my grandfather, and which show where we are as a rural society, almost motionless since the 1950s, about 70 years now. The museum is rather based on installations that tell stories, and provide a scientific view of this phenomenon. However, we also have a few objects that tell a story, farming tools that have been left here since I inherited the household, and which I will be exhibiting in the 17 or 18 exhibition spaces the museum will have.




    Iulian Bulai started this initiative out of confidence that things may change:


    “We will be able to understand ourselves as a people in contemporary Romania only if we can face the past with sincerity, telling our true stories, and in this way we will be able to get over some sad moments in our history. This far we have been unable to provide ourselves with healing stories related to the Communist period. As many venues of culture shut down, we open another one. I believe this is a good starting point for a general attitude that we can pass on from one to another in these difficult times.




    This is a museum that will grow by expanding visiting spots, and through events held here that will make it possible for people to get in touch with a little known past.

  • Egregora

    Egregora

    Today we’re going to talk about an
    upcoming three-part mystery and adventure TV series called Egregora, from
    Romanian director Andrei Chiriac. The film begins as nine children with a
    passion for history and archaeology come across the secret archives of an order
    called The Dragons, in which coded references are made to the hidden treasure of
    the Dacians, which are the ancestors of the Romanian people. Director Andrei
    Chiriac says the film is a combination of mystery, history and myth:




    I first thought about making this
    film 13 years ago, when I went with a friend to visit Sarmisegetuza, the
    capital of the Dacians. That’s when I heard all kinds of stories from the locals
    about the treasures of the Dacians and about ancient myths and I thought about
    doing a documentary film about these legends, but ended up doing a TV series. I
    signed a sponsorship contract with an advertising firm two years ago and got
    some funding, not a lot, which I used to film the historical part for the first
    season. This is set at the time of Vlad the Impaler, and also deals with the
    scheming that went on at the court of Vlad Dracul, his father, and with Vlad’s
    relationship with ruler Radu the Handsome, and some other elements of historical
    background that help us understand the story of the nine children who, in 2020,
    find the diary of Vlad the Impaler and some of the secret archive of the Order
    of the Dragons, the order responsible for the ruler’s protection. The diary
    refers in allegorical terms to this fabulous treasure of the Dacians and the secrets
    the latter are believed to have inherited from the Atlants, the inhabitants of
    the Citadel of Atlantis. So, this is the starting point for our journey.




    This secret treasure of the Dacians
    is not so much material, but spiritual, and consists of the secrets hidden
    here, says film director Andrei Chiriac:




    We will be filming at some of the
    most beautiful locations across Romania. The whole of Romania is very
    beautiful, so we’ll have plenty to choose from. So far, we’ve done some
    shooting in the Danube Gorges, the Ponicova cave, Veterani cave and a mountain
    peak in the area, in the Lotrului mountains, as well as in the Bucegi mountains,
    in the Obârşiei valley, on the Transfăgărăşan
    road, in Sarmisegetuza, and in tourist attractions which are less-known by the
    public, such as Bolii cave and Şura Mare cave. Many people who have seen the
    footage filmed so far have in fact asked me if we’ve filmed in Romania. Someone
    told me, for example, that the images filmed in Bolii cave look like they have
    been filmed in Jordan. These are truly sensational places which few people know
    about and which we’re going to show in the film. We’ll be filming everywhere,
    in Romania’s most important citadels, in fortified churches, in Moldavia, in the
    Ceahlău mountains, in the Retezat and in the Măcinului mountains, in Dobruja.
    We’ll also be filming in southern Romania, in the cave of St Andrew, and travel
    from Satu Mare to Constanţa and Sighişoara. All of it will be in the film.




    Egregora has already invited comparisons with Game
    of Thrones and The Da Vinci Code. The director Andrei Chiriac hopes
    his film will improve Romania’s image internationally. We asked him to send a
    message to our listeners from abroad:


    I think this series will be a
    nice surprise for them and I’m sure that if they ever visit Romania, perhaps to
    see something unusual, perhaps thinking of Romania as the land of Dracula the
    vampire, they will go back feeling happy. And maybe they’ll decide to stay here,
    which wouldn’t be unusual as there are many people from abroad who came here
    and then fell in love with Romania and ended up staying. They realised it’s a piece
    of heaven where it’s really worth living!




    After 20 years of living in the United
    States, Andrei Chiriac says Romania has a special vibe and that people from abroad
    who visit the country can feel this vibe. His series Egregora is meant
    as a tribute to Romanian culture, with a focus on the Dacian heritage and the time
    of Vlad the Impaler. The treasure found at the end of the series is the Dacian
    treasure consisting of the extraordinary spiritual wealth of this region.
    Andrei Chiriac:




    Thank you for supporting Egregora
    and I can’t wait for it to be ready and to come before the public with a
    beautiful product that will dare you to find the material and spiritual treasure
    that probably lies in each and every one of us.




    If funding is provided, Egregora
    can be ready in one year a half.



  • Ecological Mural Paintings

    Ecological Mural Paintings

    The first mural painting in Romania that purifies the air was inaugurated in Bacau last year in September. It is a painting made with a special paint, which turns the polluting substances in the air, such as nitrogen and sulfur oxides, into harmless nitrates, which gather on the painted surface, until washed away by rain or humidity. The paint reduces the costs and consumption for air conditioners, and reduces greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Also, the paint can be very efficient in preventing dirt accumulating on walls. It fights dirt in two ways. The air decomposes the oily substances on those surfaces, preventing dust from sticking to walls. In combination with the paint, a thin film of water is created, which prevents dust and particulates from sticking, so that they simply fall off.




    Lucian Popa, project manager, told us how it all started:


    “First of all, it came out of the wish to give new meaning to public spaces in Bacau, but also out of love for street art. The ecological aspect came out of a discovery in Rome, Italy, where an artist painted a wall that purified the air around it, and we wanted to do the same in Bacau. Which happened for two years in a row, and now we are the city with the most air purifying paintings.”




    Within two years, Bacau also became the city with the most such paintings in the world. Here is Lucian Popa:


    “Right now we have over 20 paintings, made with this air purifying paint, and, according to the technical specifications, the paint is like a sponge that absorbs pollution in the area. We have mural paintings from 60 to 70 sqm to 330 sqm worth of painted wall. We have a total of over 3,000 sqm meters of painted wall all over the city. Each year we set a theme, and we challenge the artists to create paintings that we believe should send a message to the community. Last year the theme was social inclusion, where artists referred to underprivileged groups, the hearing impaired, the visually impaired, children with autism, inclusion of the Rroma. This was last year, we really wanted to bring to the fore the challenges that these disadvantaged groups face.”



    A debut painting, called Intuition, was made as part of the ZidART project by Romanian artist Obie Platon. It stretches over around 250 sqm of wall, and is able to filter as much air as a forest that stretches over 250 sqm as well. It is painted on a building standing near Entertainment Island in Bacau, and is the first in the world dedicated to the visually impaired, and is captioned in Braille. It is the portrait of a blind person who imagines his universe in spite of his disability, and the purpose is to draw attention to the issue of social inclusion of people with disabilities. Lucian Popa also talked about other paintings for people in disadvantaged groups.


    “For instance, last year we started with a painting about the visually impaired that shows the way that these people live, based on intuition. The painting is also described in Braille for these people, who came to the inauguration, and were able to read the description of the painting, element by element, color by color, shape by shape. Another was made, together with the Hearing Impaired Association of Bacau, by artist Monk Ink, representing the word Love in sign language. Then we have the painting dedicated to the inclusion of the Rroma, on a wall of the National Bank, made by Kaps Cre, two artists from Iasi, which depicts a girl clad in the best tradition of the Rroma community.”




    For 2020, artists received a new challenge, with a new theme. Here is Lucian Popa:


    This years theme is social responsibility, and the way in which humanity deals with this planet that has a harder and harder time supporting us. Each painting that was painted had a very clear message to send to the community in Bacau, and the entire country. Our project went pretty much viral, so the message is sure to reach a lot of people.”




    Lucian Popa would like for this project to expand at the national level:


    “We very much want to continue this project. Now we are looking for partners, for sponsors, and want to multiply this experience at the national level. We are looking for people who want us to come to their city too, but for that we need resources, which we are seeking now, and next year we hope to reach as many cities as we can.”



    We also support this initiative to bring cleaner air and beauty to our cities.

  • A Season With iuBine

    A Season With iuBine

    For quite a few years now, a young woman has been pursuing her passion: she seeks, discovers, and gifts beauty. At first she was the fairy of wonders, as she liked to call herself, on the Minuni.ro platform, that wanted to promote good people and their good deeds. Then she was joined by a larger community on Facebook. And, though there are many people who dont believe online relationships are genuine, Veronica Soare, our guest today, did wonders in gathering around her good people, who are ready to get into her game. For instance, under the aegis of Minuni.ro, whose complete name is minuni.ro, a kaleidoscope of good deeds, Veronica promotes through events her great love, kaleidoscopes, which she has been loving since childhood. It is an optical toy, a cylinder with mirrors inside and colored pieces of glass that create optical effects when looked into and rotated. Therefore Veronica Soares purpose was to teach children and adults how to build them, because the image inside the cylinder is never the same, and always wonderful. Veronica Soare was our guest years ago, when she told us about the story that changed her life, the story of these lovingly built objects that she has been building for the last ten years, as she recalled recently:


    “I continue to build kaleidoscopes. I will be doing this my entire life, in one way or another, because these are the objects that charmed my childhood. And I continue to believe that it is the most beautiful object ever invented, and that it teaches us about people and the world, it teaches us to really look at beautiful shapes, because that is the meaning of the word: to watch beautiful shapes. And I believe that, especially in the chaos that we are in, we need them, and what they teach us. So I continue to build kaleidoscopes and the kits that allow others to build them.”



    And because for Veronica stories are magic, and nothing is as it seems, she had the spark of an idea, as she told us:


    “In isolation, I had an epiphany one evening, around dusk, when the setting sun was shining into my room. That is when I saw a word in front of me, which I embraced with joy. The word was iuBine, a play on words in Romanian between good and love. Now I am working on launching the website iuBine.ro, where I sell things that have this word on them, things to give or to wear, such as T-shirts, mugs, notebooks, etc. Im just playing. We also make Christmas globes, even out of chocolate, inscribed with these words. After I got the idea of this word, in a few weeks I started a podcast with the Stories of iuBine, as a grain of beauty in the world, about things that I believe in. In a way, love and good are my fundamental values, and it seems incredible to me that I now have this word of my own, and I can give it forward. Therefore, everything I have become in the last few years will be in this podcast, which I want to be an oasis of tranquility for others. This is how I play, I dance on several dance floors. And I think this is a reason for which this has been a very good year.”



    We saw on Veronicas website Christmas globes with the inscription iuBine. We asked her to tell us about a iuBine Christmas:


    “Now that you are asking, I am looking at these painted wooden globes. I want to bring this iuBine in peoples homes. And Christmas is the time to be with others, but this year it will be difficult. In the next few weeks, up until Christmas, I will be alone, so I need to bring a lot of it in my life1. For Christmas, when we generally get together, but this time we cannot, I think everyone needs more of this in our lives. It is my wish, in everything I am and I do, for people to not forget that, although we live in tough times, we have in ourselves a spring of beauty, joy, and good. I think that is my purpose, to tell people that there is a lot of beauty in the world, and it starts with all of us.”



    This is the reason for which Veronica Soare puts her soul in the objects she makes and marks with iuBine:


    “Today Im in my workshop, I am photographing the globes. You can find the pictures on the website, iuBine.ro. You will also find T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, and nice heart-shaped notebooks. There will be more kinds of things next year with lots of other nice things to wear and to gift.”


  • Romania’s exotic fruits

    Romania’s exotic fruits

    Rich
    in vitamins, above the usual standard of the local fruits, resistant to
    variations in temperature and suitable for ecological cultivation since they
    have no pests, the exotic fruits have been gaining ground on Romanian
    territory.


    I found out the story of several such sorts
    from Florin Stanica, a teacher of pomiculture with the Horticulture Faculty as
    part of the University of Agronomical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine in
    Bucharest. The story begins in 1992, when a university team went to the University
    of Perugia in Italy, via a Tempus program, where they studied the kiwi,
    noticing its has development conditions which are similar to the peach tree.
    And that is how the idea occurred to pilot the cultivation in Ostrov, on the
    banks of the river Danube, where conditions are perfect for the peach tree, but
    also for vine growing.


    Florin
    Stanica:

    Easier said than done. In 1993, in spring, we had a cultivation, with the
    support of Ostrov IAS, of two kiwi hectares. Concurrently, from Italy, we
    brought more than hybrids of Actinidia Arguta, which is the Kiwi berry or baby
    kiwi, a species of kiwi which is much more resistant to freezing than the peach
    tree, so it can be cultivated even in the areas of the plumtree cultivation.
    Since 1993, practically, with the Faculty of Horticulture in Bucharest, among
    other activities, we have carried a survey on the possibility of
    acclimatization of the kiwi species. Because there are three species we are interested
    in, food-wise, the kiwi with trichome, familiar to everybody on the market,
    kiwi with yellow pulp and the kiwi which is frost-resistant. All along we have
    succeeded to see how to multiply the kiwi plants, to see what the cultivation
    technologies are and, through selection works, we succeeded to certify two
    Romanian sorts, the result of the Romanian-Italian cooperation, which were
    registered with the EU under the name of Vip Green and Vip Red, two sorts of
    frost-resistant kiwi, with green and red fruits..


    We found
    out that for almost 10 years now, selection works have been conducted as
    regards the hybrids between the kiwi with yellow pulp and the kiwi with green
    pulp, with four very interesting selections existing already, with big fruit,
    with special tasty qualities, with a great preservation capacity, likely to be
    homologated in the near future. Professor Florin Stanica once again.


    Kiwi can be cultivated in Romania. There is a rather limited area
    suitable for the cultivation of big-fruit kiwi, I ‘m speaking about the areas
    favoring the cultivation of the peach tree, the southern and the western part
    of the county, but we also have quite generous possibilities for the
    cultivation of the resistant species, that is the baby kiwi or kiwi berry,
    which can be cultivated in almost all Romanian orchard areas. It takes a little
    bit of courage on the part of the cultivators.


    « Simina »
    is another species recommended by professor Florin Stanica, for which
    homologation is in progress. It can be cultivated with no problem, there where
    winter temperature readings do not exceed 25 degrees below zero, with no
    special treatment needed.


    As I was in Italy, of course I found out about another cultivation, known
    as Asimina Triloba. In the year 2000 I also brought to Romania the first sorts
    of northern banana or pawpaw, a plant originating from the eastern side of
    North America, so it s frost-resistant, it can resist to temperature readings
    of minus 25 degrees which yields some
    extraordinary fruit, of about the size of a mango, it just that they have brown
    seeds on the inside, double-filed. The pulp of the fruit is creamy, it can be
    served with the teaspoon, it has the taste of vanilla cream when the fruit is
    ripe, it has a specific scent and a specific flavor when the fruit has been
    freshly plucked. After that, the taste evolves to caramel cream if it is kept
    in the fridge for about ten days. And after three weeks, the taste evolves to
    coffee cream. So here we have a special fruit. No phytosanitary treatment is needed in this case, the plant is very resistant and very beautiful,
    decoratively, it has big leaves, the flowers are beautiful.


    We
    found out these fruits have a very high percentage of minerals. In terms of potassium
    percentage, the fruit I second only to the Guava fruit. In fact, on Romanian
    territory, the species was brought to Pianu Nou, Alba County, in 1926, by the
    family of Suciu Ioan, Transylvanian
    migrants who returned from Ohio. Another special species Florin Stanica
    mentioned was the jujuba or the Dobrogea date tree.


    It can be found in Dobrogea, in Ostrov, nearby the former fortress of
    Durostorum, lying in Silistra in Bulgaria, but we also found plant species of
    Dobrogea date in Jurilovca, nearby the fortress of Argamum or in Mahmudia, near
    the fortress of Salsovia. These plant species are always found nearby former
    Roman or Greek settlements. But we know they were rough to Europe some time
    during emperor Octavianus Augustus’s reign. The plants on our territory yield
    smaller fruit, the size of a grape, with no special taste qualities.


    About
    them, we found out they have a special ecological adaptability, being resistant
    to temperature readings ranging from 40 degrees below zero to 40 degrees
    Celsius, they prefer areas in southern Romania being very resistant to drought.





  • Rediscovering Femininity

    Rediscovering Femininity

    They all have kids, and have a variety of jobs, such as teacher, secretary, architect, with a variety of hobbies, but what they have in common is a passion that brings them together twice a week in a dance school in Bucharest, in order to stay in shape, but also to get in touch better with their femininity. Their passion is burlesque.



    We talked to Camelia Maxim, former school teacher and dance instructor for this group:

    “We went through various dance styles, but we settled on the sensual kind, because I felt that I found myself more in it, and it is where I feel more inspired, and can offer more to other women, and help them rediscover this side, and even amplify it. I didnt know about burlesque, I found it on YouTube, clips from festivals, and I was fascinated, because I think it is the most sensual dance form, and the most complete, because it blends sensuality and humor.




    Camelia Maxim told us that it was just a single step from discovering the style to starting to teach it:

    “At some point, a group of my women students asked me how they could discover their femininity. I took the spiritual road. As a dance instructor, I was asked to teach them dancing. Women need to discover their sensuality because many of them, in their everyday life, forget to be women, to be sensual.”




    We then asked Camelia to tell us about her students:

    “They are women from between 22 or 25 to even 50 years of age. Some come here because they feel masculine, they want to be more feminine. At some point I had students come here because they were sent by their therapist, because they had blockages about this. Others came simply to surprise their husbands or boyfriends.”




    We got to speak to one of the students, Monica, who is a 38 year-old mother, and has been passionate about this style for two years now. We asked her how she discovered it:

    “I was looking for a dance style that would take me out of my comfort zone. I was looking for something that would give me self-confidence, where I could feel more feminine, explore my sensuality, and accept myself as I am, and evolve from a feminine point of view. In fact, the idea of burlesque had been on my mind for a few years, after seeing a movie. I looked for details about this style of dance, and I saw how it is seen by others, and I realized I had found what I was looking for.”




    Monica went on to tell us that this has been a unique experience:

    “I remember that at first I was prepared to come here as I would to a gym, with a track suit, a big T-shirt, and I found myself in a world in which the other women wore a corset, garter stockings, and elbow length gloves. I told myself that I could never dress like that. They were very daring, they are beautiful and sensual, and I thought I could never be like that. At that time I was weighing 13 kg more than now. I had an inferiority complex. I admired them, and wanted to be like them. But then I went back to my teenage style, I started to trust myself with wearing miniskirts, with wearing tight shirts, with dressing for style. I gained more confidence, I started trusting myself to get into new projects, to evolve.”




    This was an evolution guided by dance instructor Camelia Maxim, as Monica told us:

    “Camelia works with us not only on technical side, she works very much on the psychological side, she works to make us more feminine. At first she told us to look in the mirror all the time, to admire ourselves. I did not know how to admire myself in the mirror. But she guided us to become more self-confident, more feminine and sensual, more in charge of ourselves. She taught us how to walk, how to sit in a chair to look feminine and elegant. Its not about sitting down, its about what you convey when you do so. That is what burlesque means to me, it is more than just a dance style.”




    Monica told us that it is all about accepting oneself, about behavior and evolution:

    “Each dance class starts with a good warm-up. We cannot use cabaret elements without a good workout. We cannot do dance moves on a chair without working hard our back muscles and abs. We cannot have a straight stance that is beautiful and elegant without our muscles being well toned. I noticed that in two years I lost weight, I sculpted my body, with a feminine musculature. I noticed that it is easier to work out for two hours or more without getting tired or having cramps. It is not just about dancing, it is about toning our entire bodies.”




    The group of burlesque ladies have been putting on two shows a year to popularize their school, and last summer even came out with a show of their own making.

  • The Amber Museum

    The Amber Museum

    More than 40 years since its opening, on June 14, 1980, the Amber Museum in Colti, Buzau County, reopened on August 21 this year. So far, it had over 6,000 visitors. The local amber is between 40 and 60 million years old. This black amber became a symbol for Romania after it was on display at the Paris Universal Exhibition 1867. The only other place in the world where black amber is found is Sakhalin Island, between Russia and Japan.

    Visiting the museum, you can admire about 300 beautiful pieces of amber, in shades going from translucent gold to deep black. The crown jewel is the second largest piece of amber in the world, a little under 2 kg. The only larger piece than that is a piece 3.45 kg, which is also in Buzau County, at the main museum. The exhibits in the museum are of a great variety, in the form of jewelry mostly, but you can also see tools to extract amber and work with it, such as lathes, hammers, picks, and more. The museum you can visit now has been rearranged, and has been added exhibits such as mine crystals, as well as fossils found in the area, such as the femur of a woolly mammoth that lived over 2.5 million years ago.


    Daniel Costache, manager of the museum, added some detail for us:

    “The amber museum in Colti is the only museum in Romania that houses a collection of black amber. When you get here, you may think that all you will see is amber, but in fact we have a number of collections. We have an entire room dedicated to a grotto that was inhabited in the Bronze Age, deep inside a cave. Also, there is another room that dedicated to the grotto inside the cave, a unique monument of pre-history in Romania, which has traces of human habitation from the Bronze Age. There is one other room which houses a small portion of the collection of prehistoric fauna of Buzau’s County Museum, including mammoth mandibles and femora. The upper floor of the museum has three separate rooms. One has a unique collection of crystals harvested from mines. Then there is the central room that houses most of the collection of amber, and another room that showcases tools used in harvesting, transporting, and processing amber.


    The museum has been preparing for the pandemic. There are distancing rules, visitors are provided with disinfectants, as well as disposable shoe covers. Daniel Costache, the manager of the museum, also told us that the objects in the museum collection are the result of their own research, as well as donations:

    “I have to point out that, as recently as last year, the museum in Colti was housed in a building that had no toilets, no running water, no central heating, and the exhibition was outdated. Nowadays, even though the museum is high in the mountains, it is an ultra-modern museum, worthy of the year 2020, a museum that is uniquely equipped to showcase its exhibits. We have also put up a souvenir shop for the first time. This museum is well worth the 6 km detour from National Road 10, linking Buzau and Brasov.


    Daniel Costache also told us why this museum is unique:

    “The amber museum in Colti has several unique aspects. First of all, it is the only amber museum in Romania. We tried to confer it a unique aspect, first of all in terms of how we arranged the exhibition, the first thing that the visitor notices. Then we set up an interactive exhibit case, made up of several elements. It was made to tell it own story, rotating on automated pivots. The visitor can rotate the objects in the case by using a touchscreen, turn them any way they want, and zoom in using a 4K camera. A screen in the background provides information that used to be put on labels. This is a first for Romanian museums. We also have a room that simulates the interior of a cave, that features a 3D LG Live screen, a novelty as well. Bear in mind that we are talking about a museum at the top of a mountain.

  • A hybrid way of life

    A hybrid way of life

    Octavian Viorel decided to move from the city to his grandparents’ village during the pandemic. For a while, he enjoyed the peace and quiet there and the somehow patriarchal way of living, but then he felt the need to socialize with people like him, who lived in the city. After a while, he came up with the idea to lure more people from towns and cities into the rural way of living. Here he is, talking about his project:



    “I came up with the idea of the project right here, in the village. I used to live in the city but decided to escape the pandemic by moving to my grandparents’ village, Slatioara, in Valcea county. One here, I realized that apart from all the advantages that life at the countryside has to offer, there was also a downside to it, and that was the community. I felt I needed people from the urban area, like myself, to communicate and spend my free time with. So together with a friend, who also moved from the city to the village, decided to go to the mayor to see if they are interested in promoting the village and supporting the relocation of city people to Slatioara. Then we looked for financing and we found it. We set up a research group and we analyzed the village from the viewpoint of a person who wants to move here from the town.”



    Most people who come to the village complain about the bad infrastructure they find here. This is not the case in Slatioara, as Octavian Viorel tells us: “I have discovered people’s huge need for living in the middle of nature, without so many restrictions. Unlike most villages, Slatioara has modern infrastructure, running water, high speed internet and locals who are happy to have new neighbors. At present I can only see the bright side of living in a village. The downside would be the aged population here.”



    Given that the pandemic has forced us to stay indoors, crammed in small apartments, more and more people have started to dream about living in the middle of nature, at the countryside. Octavian Viorel: “This is a general tendency and we only drew the conclusions. More and more people come to the village and ask us about houses for sale or land on which they could build a home. We have discussed with the mayor about the next steps we should take, so that we can provide those interested with all the information they need about available houses and land.”



    Octavian Viorel also tells us more about the goals of the people involved in the project and about the advantages that it brings to the village in general: “The village will prosper due to the newcomers. The average age bracket will decrease, which means that there will be more active people here. This category of people that come from towns and cities, with new projects and ideas, will open small businesses by capitalizing on local resources, which will help the village as a whole. So these newcomers will be the engine of the village for the following years.”



    The project is not an attempt to convince people move from the urban to the rural area, but it is rather a message that, if they plan to do it, they are welcome. Octavian Viorel lives in Slatioara with his family, and have a hybrid village-town way of life: “School unfolds in a hybrid system. My kids go to school in Bucharest for one week, then they have online classes the next week. We, the parents, work in the same manner. For the moment we share our time between town and village, something that we also recommend others to do. Living in a village is very different from living in a town or city. It involves more physical work, it involves a schedule, perhaps less dependent on certain hours but dependent on nature and the time of the year. So we advice those who want to relocate, to give themselves an adjustment period of one or two months first. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve been coming here often since I was a child, spent most of my holidays here so I’m used to it, I know what is like to live here. My father, who is a pensioner now, also lives this hybrid village town life and he still offers me advice on how to do it better.”


    Moving to the rural area does seem a good idea, for this autumn at least.




  • Float therapy

    Float therapy

    Today we’ll be looking at some of the best ways to relax. In these times, when everybody seems to be in a hurry and is running out of time, we would like to make you an unequalled suggestion for relaxation: float therapy. Float therapy can be an unforgettable experience. It involves floating in lukewarm water in which magnesium sulfate also known as Epsom salt was mixed. The idea behind is that it helps you free your mind and body, it helps your body enter a deep state of relaxation, so your brain can enter a place of rest and mediation.



    The magnesium sulfate is useful for joint repair and is anti-inflammatory, and floating in it allows the minerals to enter the body through the skin, which thus becomes cleansed and invigorated, and it helps your muscles relax.



    Flavia Cioceanu is the representative of such a float therapy center from Bucharest and will tell us more about how the business was set up: “The founder of the float therapy center was looking for ways to relax, found articles online about these float pods that offer a relaxation experience, letting one dive into oneself, which is good for the body. After a quick Internet search, the business founder saw there are more such centers around the world, in America and Japan. So, he wanted to have a first float therapy experience and realized he would like to set up a business in the field, as he had some experience in the technical domain.”



    The business started in 2016 with two float pods bought from America, and it is more challenging than a simple business story. Because floating makes people succumb to themselves, while letting themselves float in the pod.



    Flavia Cioceanu explains how this way of relaxation was discovered: “It all started from an older experience from the 1970s, when researchers were studying neuronal behaviors stimulated or not by outside stimuli. At the time, these basins were called ‘isolation tanks’ which allowed for sensory deprivation, cutting off the sense of hearing, of touch, through floating on water, and of sight, as it was dark in the tanks. Why did people wanted to make this test? Simply to see what happens with the human being, with the mind, the thoughts and the emotions when no stimuli from the senses are received. This experience, of total sensory deprivation, was transformed to suit the modern times and adapted to also benefit people who are not necessarily looking for unusual, intense experiences.”



    Float therapy is relaxing, amusing and innovative. Body temperature water and one hour with no gravity is a magic combination for relaxation. Flavia Cioceanu has more details: “You practically float in a tank or pod with a top, filled with water with tons of Epsom salt mixed in it. The mixture contains 50% salt and 50% water, which makes the water very dense. One simply gets in the pod, an egg-shaped tank, closes the top using a handle inside and tries to loosen up with or without stimuli, with or without light or music. They let themselves float. In the absence of any contact forces upon the human body, one gets a sense of weightlessness, and the relaxation experience is much more pleasant. Let alone that Epsom salt is good for the bones and body.”



    Epsom salt also acts as a scrub on the body, being good for the skin, nails and hair. It easies joint pain and stress, prevents muscle and joint inflammation, helps treat sprains and relieves muscle fever.



    We asked Flavia Cioceanu who comes to the float therapy center: “First of all, those who are curious and want to experience something new, to see what it feels like to float in the dark. And these people really enjoy the experience. Also, there are people who come for relaxation, and they come frequently, because they have realized that only through float therapy they can reach a deep relaxation state, which is different from sleeping. Other people come for meditation, they want to dive into themselves and find answers which they cannot find during the turmoil of daily routine.” (tr. L. Simion)