Category: Inside Romania

Like so many Chinese lamps, huge in size, the hot air balloons float with the wind, taking their passengers up as high as 1,000 meters. Seen from above, the surrounding Maramures landscape is as beautiful as seen from ground level. However, up in the air, the sight is made even more beautiful by the sensation of freedom. Ion Istrate is the creator of the festival called Maramures International Balloon Fiesta. He was not inspired by a book by Jules Verne, he just loves to fly, and misses no opportunity to talk about it:

“It’s not about the adrenaline, like people expect from flying in general. This is just floating at high altitude. What is unique about this kind of flight is that the person getting in the basket and reaching 300, 500, or even 1,000 meters altitude is all the time aware that he or she is in fact floating on the wind. They are not in a sort of saddle girth, there is no need for that. They have the freedom of walking around the basket, they have 360 degrees visibility. When the balloon comes down, it can go very low, down to 50 or even 30 meters, and the passenger can even interact with people on the ground, he or she can talk with them. It is a range of sensations that is simply unattainable with any other kind of flying device. On top of that, the speed is very low, because we usually fly when the wind is moderate. Everything occurs slowly, you have time to enjoy what is going on, and live those instants to the maximum. At higher altitudes, all the noise on the ground dampens, it comes from very far away, it’s like sitting in your house with the windows shut, and outside a dog is barking or a car horn is honking.”

Ion Istrate brought his first hot air balloon to Romania in 1997. He worked for an event management company, and they were looking for a hot air balloon for advertising purposes. Back then it was not that easy finding anything, like it is today, he recalls:

“My research involved mainly libraries, and I sent a lot of faxes and made a lot of phone calls to companies abroad. From one contact to the next, going through the UK and New Zealand, I found one right next door, in Hungary. This is how the history of hot air ballooning started in Romania. It had to be tested, it needed documents showing the performance of the aircraft, they had to be filed with the Aeronautic Authority, which, after running checks, issued a registration and flight certificate. When I purchased this balloon, the manufacturer offered training for the license exam, and I took that exam in Hungary. After that the procedures were adapted to the Romanian legislation, and now you can get a license in this country as well. By June 1998, the first balloon was registered, and the first two pilots had already graduated from the flight school and were ready to take off.”

Right now, hot air balloons are no longer such a rarity in Romania. People are delighted to see them, and try to fly a balloon. For people in Baia Mare, Balloon Fiesta is something they got used to and expect. Ion Istrate told us how the festival had come about:

“In 2011, when the festival started, we had 23 crews from 11 countries, both from the west and the east of the continent, from the UK, Belgium, Holland, France to Ukraine, Moldova, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia. In the morning we have free flights, on Saturday and Sunday we have tethered flights for the public. A tethered flight means that the balloon is anchored with ropes, and goes up to 20 or 30 meters. This allows the public at large to experience the sensation of flying a balloon without going to high altitude, even small children and people afraid of flying can enjoy a few minutes of it. Also, this allows a large number of people to enjoy this experience. It is a colourful event, visually it is grandiose. The balloons are so brightly coloured, they move around slowly, it is spectacular, these are huge contraptions which you may think rigid, but which you see floating like Chinese lamps. It is worth seeing, if not trying out.”

This year, 20 crews from 9 countries came to Baia Mare. Also, starting with the second festival, the organisers included a social component:

“Using the earnings from tethered flights, we sponsored a little girl from Baia Mare who lived and studied in very poor conditions. With the funds, we managed to find her a decent place to stay and to move her to another school. We will continue helping her.”

There is something majestic in the sight of balloons in the skies of Maramures, or anywhere else, for that matter. The greatest danger is landing in improper places, or being left stranded in dead calm. For Ion Istrate, however, the greatest danger is falling in love with the sensation of floating:

“If 15 years ago someone had told me ‘In 15 years you’ll be a balloon pilot and you’ll be flying balloons’, I would have said they were confusing me with someone else. I would have said I never wanted anything like that and I would never do it. Well, I don’t only do that, but now I cannot imagine life without balloons. To be honest, I don’t think I would be able to start all over again, to do anything else, knowing I have this option. Once you catch flight fever, you never get rid of it.”

They say that once you have tried flying, you will always walk on the ground with your eyes raised to the sky, and once you’ve been up there, you will always want to get back. If you want to experience that feeling, Baia Mare would be a good place to start.

Two years ago, the local branch of an international foundation brought to Romania a few Irish Holstein Friza cows, well known for their high milk yield and adaptability to various climates. The cows arrived in Romania by air, to the delight of the press, which produced endless headlines based on less than inspired puns. However, the story of the Irish cows is much older and deserves closer scrutiny, especially now, when we can see the results of this unusual airdrop. The cows, now in a village in Cluj county called Râşca, were donated by Irish farmers, who make this gesture as a matter of course. They were given to a few families that were not that well to do, who got them along with all the feed needed while the animals got used to their new environment. Ovidiu Spanu, director of the Heifer Foundation, told us that this donation is based on the ‘gift that keeps on giving’ principle.

Ovidiu Spanu: “This was the first cow airdrop; some went to the Felix Orphanage in Santandrei near Oradea, as part of the ‘Milk for Orphans’ project. Felix is an orphanage with 270 children living there, and has a farm with around 150 cows. Many of the residents, upon reaching the age of 18, start working on the farm, or in the wood shop, or driving a tractor, or feeding the animals. The children get milk and dairy from the farm. The rest were taken to Rasca village. As part of the agreement with the farmers in Rasca, they have to give away the first born calf to another family, and we collect 300 liters of milk, which we give to orphanages and needy children in Cluj county. We have a few orphanages on our list, and almost every Tuesday, a refrigeration truck takes milk to a place called Patarât, a Rroma community living next to a city dump near Cluj which has about 350 children who would not otherwise get milk. At some point we took them some fruit, oranges and bananas, but they didn’t know they had to be peeled, took a bite, and didn’t like them very much. They were used only with candy and Coca-Cola, they don’t have milk. About once a week, on Tuesdays, depending on how much milk we can collect, we take it and donate it to the children in this community.”

This autumn, 20 heifers born here out of the first cows brought over from Ireland, perfectly acclimatized, were donated to other families, in much poorer areas. It was not an isolated action. Such projects have been running in Romania for over 20 years, with support from donors in the US and Western Europe, but also with local funds from multinational corporations. The same foundation brought in Angora goats and milk goats, which they have donated to poor communities. Things did not stop here. In time, word got around, and people started coming and asking for cows, trying to lift themselves out of poverty. However, things don’t work by the simple rule of supply and demand:

“The communities where we work are islands of normality. We approach them on several levels, we educate, we provide them with the animals and the training they need, and we especially try to connect them to the market. We don’t start projects in areas if our analysis indicates clearly that this is not a cow-friendly area. There’s no point in having a cow in an area where the terrain, the climate, the life and traditions are not propitious for this species. We have a lot of projects, with chickens, with bees, with trout and pigs, but where you grow pigs, you have to have grain. Therefore we first run an analysis of needs and potential, and we don’t turn people down, but we provide them with the right animals for their area, and more importantly, with animals that have a market, as it was the case with goats and the Rroma.’

Even though at first sight Heifer may be seen as an organization working with animals, Ovidiu Spanu told us that his foundation’s main area of activity is not animal husbandry:

Ovidiu Spanu: “In fact, we are a people organization, and we don’t do animal husbandry, we do development. After people start getting together and going through our programs, they start to aspire to a better life, a richer life, and raise their standards. They eat better, they get income, start thinking more in economic terms, they start acting better towards each other, and little by little their health improves. In a community where children have problems with their teeth, they start going to the dentist, we start seeing children wearing glasses appearing, which didn’t use to happen. It is a general progress, we lift up the community to better standards across the board”.

After 22 years of getting funding from the US and Western Europe for animals to donate to poor families in Romania, Heifer organization has a new plan. They want to raise more funds from local donors. This was decided because of the present economic context, and also because international donors are more interested now in even poorer areas, with worse political and social problems. European funds continue to be an important source of financing for this foundation, which doesn’t give fish to the poor, but teaches them how to fish.

Agapia is one of Northern Moldavia’s most beautiful monasteries. The site came to be known thanks to the paintings made there by the famous Romanian painter Nicolae Grigorescu, who set up a painting school in the monastery, as well as for its embroidery workshops, Agapia is a destination well worth visiting, at least once in a lifetime.

Lying along the valley of Agapia brook, located at the foothills of the Magura Montain, near Targu Neamt, Agapia is surrounded by mountains and centuries-old forests. It is Romania’s only monastic settlement bearing the name of ‘Christian love’, since the name of the place comes form the Greek word agapi, which means love. The monastery took the name of a hermit, Agapie, of whom legend says that in the 14th century he built for himself a little wooden church, only 2 kilometers away from today’s settlement. The name of the monk was then given to the mountains surrounding the monastery, as well as to the brook and the settlement down the valley. Today, nearly 100 nuns live on the premises, while 240 other nuns live in the monastic village. One of the houses in the village, said to have been built in the 7th century, is the venue for Romania’s first living museum.

Tourists can have their first peek here at what life is like in a monastery. For three days running, pilgrims can visit a monastic house, which is also inhabited. Sister Maria Giosanu tells us why they opened the museum, which is unique in Romania.

Maria Giosanu:” We intend to give people the chance to get to know something about monastic life. Opening the door to one of the monastic houses, we give those people the opportunity to see that life, to feel its pulse. People are very curious about that, and we have opened the house for visitors at the suggestion of some of our guests.”

The living museum has four rooms on the ground floor and two cells in the basement. In time, the upper part of the house was changed, yet the basement remained the same. Four nuns live in the museum/ house. With details on that, here is Sister Maria again.

Maria Giosanu: ”Actually it is a museum compound, consisting of a two-storied monastic house and living workshops, weaving and embroidery workshops, as well as workshops for bakery and pottery. There are four nuns who tend to the place, they manufacture all sorts of objects which are typical for our monastery, they do their monastic duty, their daily duty, and are available to visitors, answering any question people ask, such as about the holy communion, or about prayers, about monastic life, and I am sure people can thus have the opportunity to understand what monastic life is, just the way it is. “

Therefore tourists can learn how to make pottery and bake pies alongside the nuns. Actually the pottery workshop is something very special. The old workshop, which was operational until 1960, had been created under the supervision of renowned pottery masters from Iasi and Botosani. However, the last kiln was put out of use 53 years ago, and for the workshop to be inaugurated a second time around, the nuns learned the craft from younger masters. Also invited at the ceremony were their teachers today, but also those who revealed the secrets of pottery to the nuns of the 20th century. Guests of honor were 90 year-old Master Gheorghe Smerica and Vasile Andrei. More than half a century ago, the two used to work at the famous pottery workshop in Agapia. What tourists had to say about the unusual living museum, we find out from Sister Maria.

Sister Maria: “Apparently, most of them are a bit confused, given the name of the museum, that of living museum. It is a relatively new notion. First they don’t understand it, but those who step inside, especially foreigners, are delighted with what they see, since it is unique in its kind, a museum opened on the premises of a monastery. The museum compound also has an ethnographic component, there are lots of old items, typical of a traditional Romanian household. People discover those objects, they travel back in time and get to cherish more the spiritual and material heritage which was handed down to us by our ancestors. We are happy that people discover the beauty of monastic life, which can be easily seen in its material aspect, in the very place, the cells the nuns live in. “

All items on display in the rooms of the living museum are legacy objects, inherited from the nuns who used to live there, or collected from the households of villagers living around the monastery. Those people gladly donated carpets, wall rugs, other old, yet valuable objects, while the weaving loom was brought from Suceava County. Loom weaving is a craft for which the nuns in Agapia have become famous throughout the country. It is also here that exquisitely fine embroideries are made. The most beautiful pieces of embroidery the nuns have made are on display at the Sacred Art Museum. The admission fee is around one Euro, while a 50 per cent discount is in place for pupils, students, retired and disabled people.

For the second year running, the InnerSound International New Arts Festival grabbed the attention of Bucharest’s cultural life with the effervescence of the international contemporary artistic stage. In late August, the most talented young Romanian composers, instrumentalists, directors, photographers and visual artists offered modern art lovers a string of events, which are impossible to forget. In the following minutes we’ll be spinning the yarn of all that. The director of the festival, composer Sabina Ulubeanu tells us how the festival came into being.

Sabina Ulubeanu: “The InnerSound idea stemmed from my close work with composer Diana Rotaru, who was on a creative scholarship in Switzerland, in April 2011. She came up with the idea that we had to do something extra for Bucharest’s cultural life, so much so that around us, we had to bring youngsters from all arts, who could be happy they could create and share what they were doing. We thought about starting up a contemporary music festival, where music would be at the core of a performance lasting a couple of days and having on offer photography, film, multimedia shows, syncretic performances, in other words we had music revolving around image and image revolving around music. This mix has brought a lot of success to us so far”.

InnerSound is a festival which has a message to convey to the world. The message, says Sabina Ulubeanu, lies at the core of the festival’s name as well.

Sabina Ulubeanu: “The sound of that generation is very strong, it is a conspicuous yet very refined sound. We thought the inner world of the young artists from Romania deserved to be known and heard: InnerSound, the inner sound was perhaps the title that best worked for us. “

The first edition of InnerSound was held in 2012.It lasted three days and enjoyed the participation of guests from Canada, Ireland and Switzerland. It was venued by the Romanian Peasant Museum and the National Music University. The inaugural edition saw the outline of the festival’s noteworthy events: the concert series entitled “Encounters in time and space”, which offered music from all ages, from medieval to contemporary music, as well as a silent movie evening, with live music. That was a rather new concept in Romania, as Sabina Ulubeanu told us:

Sabina Ulubeanu: ” We asked young directors to make short- reels as well as silent movies. At the same time, we asked young composers to write music for an ensemble. The first such ensemble was made of flute, bassoon, violin and cello. The conductor was Gabriel Bebeselea, the only conductor who took responsibility for that very difficult part, that of conducting an ensemble while the film is screened in the background. It’s no easy job, but the film evening was so successful, the Romanian Peasant Museum was packed with people, they were sitting in the grass as well as on the stairs, which prompted us to carry on with the festival the following year. During the last concert, people were giving standing ovations for a contemporary music concert of composer Henri Vega jointly with the vocalist Anat Spiegel. It was a contemporary music concert which compelled 3-4 encores, that was fascinating for the audience and for us as well, something like that hadn’t happened to us before “.

In 2013, the festival extended from 3 to 6 days and had a greater number of venues for its events. The opening concert was held on the premises at the Lowendal Foundation, which also hosted a photo exhibition. The second edition ran under the heading” Mysterium”. Why Mysterium? Here is Sabina Ulubeanu again.

Sabina Ulubeanu: ”We believe that’s what us, artists, do. We try to unravel the deep, mysterious meanings inside everyone, to bring the joy of introspection as well as the joy of self-discovery and self-recovery.”

And also bringing sheer joy was the laser show from the Romanian Peasant Museum’s courtyard, as well as the performance put up by the Romanian artists who were invited at the festival, as well as the experiential composition seminar given by composer Irinel Anghel, which enjoyed a tremendous success with the audience and came out as a surprise even for the organizers.

Sabina Ulubeanu: “We had the surprise to discover many participants from other arts. There were fine artists who wanted to express themselves through music, as well as people who had noting to do with music whatsoever. Usually you don’t see many unknown faces at specialized symposia and workshops. At that symposium, on the very day Roger Waters was giving a concert in Bucharest, there were fifty people in the room, which is a great number of people for a fringe festival like ours. We have to admit that contemporary arts represent a niche phenomenon.”

The InnerSound festival is unique in the Romanian cultural landscape. Even if it is sometimes held in between other special events, such as Roger Water’s first concert in Bucharest and the George Enescu Festival, Sabina Ulubeanu tells us InnerSound has successfully provided the transition from one event to the other.

Sabina Ulubeanu: “We began before Roger Waters, with chamber music concerts and a photo exhibition, and after Roger Water’s concert ended, there were three very eventful evenings. Those three evenings provided a very interesting link between those who wanted to go to Roger Water’s concert and the music fans who go to the Enescu Festival on a regular basis, as those evenings provided a fine blend of music of all times and I somehow think we found ourselves a fine place in Romanian music. There’s no such festival as the InnerSound. There is also the Sonoro festival, centered on chamber music. There is the Enescu festival, where the world’s greatest orchestras are brought over, and where contemporary music is being played extensively, yet not necessarily the youth music. And there’s InnerSound, where artists from all fields try to get together around that idea, whereby art means joint work and an exchange of ideas and feelings.”

For the organizers of the festival, which basically has been self-founded, it is very important that fine artists, filmmakers and photographers are happy to merge with the new musical phenomenon.

That provided the driving force of the festival’s forthcoming editions. And in 2014, in late August, you’re invited to InnerSound as well.

At the Bookfest International Book Fair held in Bucharest, among the stands of classical publishers, filled with colourful and attractive books, one was standing out. It only had a few chairs, several framed images on the walls and a round table with four tablets on it. Every one displayed something different: an application, an animated story, a famous novel in an improved electronic version with exceptional graphic elements, and an interactive textbook on environmental studies, called “The Green Lesson.” The stand belonged to Read Forward publishing house, which specialises in culture digitisation. Cristian Dinu, one of the founders of the publishing house, explains why such an institution was needed:

“Technology as a whole has advanced tremendously these past few years, and culture was somehow left behind. There are new means for us to express humanist ideas, culture in general, and we set up this company in order to be able to fully devote our time to this mission. It’s not only the classical cultural areas of theatre, literature and film, but also an area that is very important for us: education. Education, in general, is still tied to a system that was put together some 200 years ago and addressed a new type of society, the industrial society. Unfortunately, this means of presenting information to students is no longer in line with today’s world. We no longer need people able to carry out a set of operations on a machine. What we need today is inventiveness and creativity, in a society that no longer relies on industry, but on knowledge and information. In today’s knowledge-based society, those who succeed are the ones who find new means to solve problems, and not those who have the strongest muscles.”

Cristian Dinu and his business partner Paul Balogh started by adapting books to Android and iOs-compatible formats, for smart phones and tablets. Dinu says the existing technology already allows the transfer of books to more formats than classical paper:

: “We started with children’s books. We sought to separate books from their physical support. There are certain types of books that have found their most appropriate form, and it is not paper. An encyclopaedia or a dictionary is very well suited for the Internet. I don’t believe anyone can publish a paper-based dictionary nowadays that can be as popular as an online dictionary. I don’t think any encyclopaedia could rival Wikipedia. These are two types of works that have found a better place for themselves in the digital world. Travel guides are also better in a digital format. A paper travel guide can offer you a map for the place you want to visit. But you cannot add new texts on it, if, for instance, there’s a new restaurant in Paris or Geneva. You can do this, however, in an application. Our goal is not simply to replace a book with an audiobook or a .pdf file. We try to bring literary characters to life, we try to do a lot of wonderful things with our applications.”

The step from children’s books to primary school textbooks came naturally. The “Green Lesson” is the first digital textbook endorsed by the Romanian Education Ministry, says Cristian Dinu:

“We released it in late March, and the textbook has been downloaded several thousand times since then, according to our statistics. It is free of charge on all platforms, and it can be browsed online, too.”

Last autumn the National Education Ministry announced plans to replace classical textbooks with digital ones, to be accessed on e-book readers or tablets purchased on European money. Some parents expressed concerns that tablets may not be safe for children, and that Internet access has its dangers. Cristian Dinu argues that there are no reasons for concern:

“Tablets may be helpful or harmful, it all depends on how they are used. Too much of any good thing may harm you, so this is true for tablets as well. The good thing is that tablets provide controlled content. It’s like an enclosed garden where children are quite safe. All operating systems have these options, and we use them as well. Some applications are safe for children use, especially when supervised by parents. There are strict parental controls on tablets, which can restrict web surfing and the access to inappropriate content.”

The first compulsory digital textbooks should reach Romanian classrooms next autumn.

At the Bookfest International Book Fair held in Bucharest, among the stands of classical publishers, filled with colourful and attractive books, one was standing out. It only had a few chairs, several framed images on the walls and a round table with four tablets on it. Every one displayed something different: an application, an animated story, a famous novel in an improved electronic version with exceptional graphic elements, and an interactive textbook on environmental studies, called “The Green Lesson.” The stand belonged to Read Forward publishing house, which specialises in culture digitisation. Cristian Dinu, one of the founders of the publishing house, explains why such an institution was needed:

“Technology as a whole has advanced tremendously these past few years, and culture was somehow left behind. There are new means for us to express humanist ideas, culture in general, and we set up this company in order to be able to fully devote our time to this mission. It’s not only the classical cultural areas of theatre, literature and film, but also an area that is very important for us: education. Education, in general, is still tied to a system that was put together some 200 years ago and addressed a new type of society, the industrial society. Unfortunately, this means of presenting information to students is no longer in line with today’s world. We no longer need people able to carry out a set of operations on a machine. What we need today is inventiveness and creativity, in a society that no longer relies on industry, but on knowledge and information. In today’s knowledge-based society, those who succeed are the ones who find new means to solve problems, and not those who have the strongest muscles.”

Cristian Dinu and his business partner Paul Balogh started by adapting books to Android and iOs-compatible formats, for smart phones and tablets. Dinu says the existing technology already allows the transfer of books to more formats than classical paper:

: “We started with children’s books. We sought to separate books from their physical support. There are certain types of books that have found their most appropriate form, and it is not paper. An encyclopaedia or a dictionary is very well suited for the Internet. I don’t believe anyone can publish a paper-based dictionary nowadays that can be as popular as an online dictionary. I don’t think any encyclopaedia could rival Wikipedia. These are two types of works that have found a better place for themselves in the digital world. Travel guides are also better in a digital format. A paper travel guide can offer you a map for the place you want to visit. But you cannot add new texts on it, if, for instance, there’s a new restaurant in Paris or Geneva. You can do this, however, in an application. Our goal is not simply to replace a book with an audiobook or a .pdf file. We try to bring literary characters to life, we try to do a lot of wonderful things with our applications.”

The step from children’s books to primary school textbooks came naturally. The “Green Lesson” is the first digital textbook endorsed by the Romanian Education Ministry, says Cristian Dinu:

“We released it in late March, and the textbook has been downloaded several thousand times since then, according to our statistics. It is free of charge on all platforms, and it can be browsed online, too.”

Last autumn the National Education Ministry announced plans to replace classical textbooks with digital ones, to be accessed on e-book readers or tablets purchased on European money. Some parents expressed concerns that tablets may not be safe for children, and that Internet access has its dangers. Cristian Dinu argues that there are no reasons for concern:

“Tablets may be helpful or harmful, it all depends on how they are used. Too much of any good thing may harm you, so this is true for tablets as well. The good thing is that tablets provide controlled content. It’s like an enclosed garden where children are quite safe. All operating systems have these options, and we use them as well. Some applications are safe for children use, especially when supervised by parents. There are strict parental controls on tablets, which can restrict web surfing and the access to inappropriate content.”

The first compulsory digital textbooks should reach Romanian classrooms next autumn.

In a small lab in the western city of Cluj Napoca, which very much resembles an old pharmacy, Anda Calinici keeps in small bottles and envelopes lots of wonders that she turns in delicious sweets. Poppy, Valrhorna chocolate, guanaja and the passion fruit, violets, lavender, rose petals, white truffles, raspberry, matcha green tea, Earl Grey, coffee, pink grapefruit jelly, all combined in colours difficult to describe in words. The result carried a French name: macarons. Anda Calinici makes other sweets as well, but it’s the macarons, coloured meringues with creamy and flavoured filling, that have won clients all across the country. It doesn’t even matter that shipping the sweets by courier costs a lot. Anda Calinici definitely does not have time to get bored. We asked her how she decided to give up a safe job to pursue her dream.

Anda Calinici: “As a child I used to love sweets and when I realised I could make them myself, there was only one step left to take. I’m the kind of person who prefers to have no regrets in life. So there came a moment when I said to myself it was the right time I tried and saw if a sweets and pastry business would work. Otherwise I would have wondered my whole life: what if? I was lucky to have around me people that supported me, from my husband to my boss, who promised me he would take me back had the business not worked. When we eventually moved to our own home I could start doing that seriously, because I had enough space, I could by the tools I needed….and this is how it all started.”

Macarons, says Anda Calinici, are like toys for bakers: “You can play with them the way you like. From flavours to shapes, the sky is the limit. They are not difficult to make, but you must be extra careful how you mix the ingredients and keep the right temperature in the room. Otherwise, they are pretty easy to make. “

Anda Calinici brings the ingredients from France and Belgium, although there are some suppliers in Romania as well: “The ingredients I use can be found in Romania as well, but prices are much higher and I prefer to bring them from abroad, to be able to keep my prices low. But as I said there are suppliers in Romania, too, and when people want to make their own macarons at home, I suggest they resort to them. When you just make them once, it doesn’t make sense to import the ingredients.”

Two years ago, Anda Calinici participated in the World Chocolate Masters Championship, where she came in fourth: “I participated in the South and Eastern Europe semifinals alongside competitors from Poland, Slovakia and Turkey. I came in forth among master chocolatiers, people with 10-20 years experience in the field, who studied and trained into the art of chocolate making. The Romanian Registrar of Trades does not even include the trade of chocolatier. I’ve done no training whatsoever. I collaborated with a workshop in Cisnadie, and I believe it is the only workshop in Romania that makes traditional chocolate. I stayed with them from December to February, and I learnt on my own. It’s true that I could use the chocolate melting machines and I could ask people when I did not know what to do.”

Even if she has no formal training, the fourth place at the World Championship has brought her to the attention of Romanian media.

Despite her experience, she is still nervous every time she gets a new client: “Every time I want to know what they liked and what they didn’t like, in order to improve the recipe. I ask for feedback from the people that taste my products. The words they use range from ‘divine’, ‘I didn’t know something like this existed’ to ‘just like in France’. And these words bring me a lot of joy.”

Anda has another dream: to open a small shop where she can welcome her clients herself. We asked her what the shop looks like in her mind: “It’s tiny and smells like freshly baked butter croissants and of good coffee, with macarons in the window, with fresh and new cakes every week. There would only be a few tables covered in chequered cloths. It’s actually a teeny-tiny corner of France.”

If you could taste Anda’s sweets, you would know her dream is not far from turning into reality, because Anda is one of those people who make things happen.

In a national park 30 km south of Bucharest, you can find what is called the Hill of the Mill. Here, two residents of Bucharest, the Georgescu family, founded a museum called the Paper Mill. Ion Georgescu told us how this idea occurred to him in 2009.

Ion Georgescu: “Tired of my office work and what I was doing on a regular basis, I was looking for something new, something different, to occupy my spare time. I was looking for a new hobby. I discovered bookbinding; from that I discovered making paper by hand, then movable type relief printing, as they did it in olden times, in Johannes Gutenberg’s times, up until almost 20 years ago, in Romania. The paper mill is a place I created to bring joy for people who are interested in activities that are about to disappear, beautiful and creative activities around the idea of books: hand made paper, manual printing, and bookbinding.”

The Paper Mill museum workshop opened to the public in August 2011. People can go there to work themselves at some paper objects they would like to have, and to learn the secrets of bookbinding.

Ion Georgescu: “We gather office paper, it has to be fairly good quality paper, either written or printed, and we also get from printers their excess paper, or waste. We have a piece of equipment that is unique in Romania, a Hollander beater, turning normal paper into paper pulp. We grind it into a paste, which then, in a vat of water, gets turned back into paper with a frame and screen mould. This paper is very interesting, you can never get two identical pieces of paper. We like to put lots of things into it. We made paper out of green grass, which we love, because the grass stays green in paper even years on end, we have paper made in 2009 which is still green. We made paper with flowers, with garden flowers, silk strands, we used even clay, which gives it a very interesting shade, a light pinkish brown. It is a special paper, it is much harder to print, we don’t use it in our workshops.”

Most people who made paper here say they plan to come back. The paper is printed with mechanical presses.

Ion Georgescu: “The press we use the most is a press used to make corrections, used to print newspaper, which we bought from an army printing house which was closing down. We went to the tender, we bid for it, and we won. We haven’t found very old presses, so we decided we have to reconstruct one. We have one of the very few replicas of Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press in Romania and the world. We have it here in Comana, we built it this year as part of a project with EU financing, the Youth in Action program. We print it with relief movable print made of typographic alloy. The letters leave an imprint on the paper. We regulate the pressure so that you can distinguish the printing on the flip side. We have to make it more visible, because we print in a very simple manner, in a single color. The characters, the way in which the substance takes to the paper give it a special aspect, which you no longer find nowadays, in a world of multicolor printers, where everything is glossy, perfect, with huge resolution. Basically we went back to the way paper was printed around 1540.”

Ion Georgescu says that many of the people who come to the Paper Mill in Comana are book lovers, bibliophiles, passionate about paper in all its forms. Another type of visitor is the local student. Many children from the school nearby go there, interested to see how paper is made and printed. It is a great opportunity for them to realize that their hands can work wonders.

Ion Georgescu: “We were forced to run an interesting experiment at some workshops this year. Since Comana is rural, and electrical systems are not exactly the most reliable, there was a blackout during some paper and printing workshops. In spite of that, we were able to print, and I emphasize that: we were able to print with no electricity whatsoever. While it was true that it was fairly dark in the room, we still did our job, because none of our equipments uses electricity. We were able to make a book without the most commonplace thing nowadays, electricity.”

The project enjoys a lot of success and has attracted a lot of volunteers. Four of them managed to obtain European financing for a project to teach youth the art of relief printing, a project called “Youth Rediscover the European Art of Printing”. 150 students took part in the project. The organizers hope that this type of event will bring children closer to books, offering them an alternative to the Internet.

A social enterprise launched in 2011 wanted to draw attention to city dwellers to an alternative way of life. ‘Village Life’ was set up by a Romanian economist and an American working in IT. Their conclusion was that they no longer want to live in Vancouver, Canada, they want to raise their children in Romania. Alexandra Vasiliu and Greg Bugyis founded Village Life with a double purpose. Alexandra told us what that double purpose is:

Alexandra Vasiliu: “Village Life wants to help the development of rural communities in a rather innovative way, by bringing together two very different social and economic environments, the rural and the urban. In this way, people in the countryside can, in a very natural way, start to take better advantage of their own resources, while city dwellers, if they come to the countryside and appreciate certain things, may understand their value and maybe have an idea of what they could do in support of them. Our organization brings closer these two social environments, so that village dwellers may get inspiration from city dwellers who go there and appreciate what they have, while people from the city may get some distance from the semi-virtual environment they live in. Besides the fact that city people get to relax, they also have the opportunity to remind themselves where their food comes from, how animals are cared for, activities in which they can get involved when they visit the families we have in villages. We don’t want to do things for people, we only want to urge people to do things for themselves.’

Alexandra and Greg hold workshops in which visitors learn how to graft trees, milk the animals, they learn various kinds of leaves in the forest, their coloring and shape, also how to make cheese, they also see how a lamb or a goat kid are born, and they take part in village events and traditions. The other kind of activity they organize involves larger groups, no bigger than 20 to 30 people, involving larger events. It may be a collective activity, or sheep shearing, for visitors to get involved in. Both activities have a participation fee, of which 25% goes to the social enterprise, the rest goes to the villagers for the resources consumed. Accommodation is in traditional peasant homes. The third type of activity is volunteering, participating in community projects needing expertise or additional labor. An expert may participate, or someone who wants to do some physical labor, and then the fee goes down. Groups may not stay less than 10 days. Village Life’s profit is reinvested in its activities, as the rule goes for social enterprises.

Visitors are both foreign and Romanian, most of them with average incomes. They are delighted, especially those Romanians who still nurture the nostalgia of spending their childhood summers in their grandparents’ village homes. As for the villagers who get into this game with the city people, things have changed as far as they are concerned, and not necessarily for the better, Alexandra says:

Alexandra Vasiliu: “People are very suspicious in the beginning. That is not how the Romanian village used to be, Romanians are well known for their hospitality. Since people started owning TVs, with all the negative information they get through it, they are more and more frightened, they are afraid to bring strangers into their home, and no matter how much they would like that, or realize what help it brings, they are initially reticent. They get over it, and if someone gains confidence in us as an organization, they take people in, they see the kind of people we work with, and they are delighted afterwards. Somehow, this state of delight spreads across the community very fast, and then more and more want to get involved in the program.”

So far, Village Life brought guests in three villages in the counties of Arges, Dolj and Prahova, but it wants to expand in communities in Valcea and Sibiu. One of the aims of the project is to encourage small entrepreneurship in rural areas. The villagers are encouraged to receive guests with local product fairs, held especially for them, and in this way they have the opportunity to see what sells better.

On the Village Life website, Alexandra writes: ‘Before going to Canada, the Romanian village, which was right at my fingertips, was not a preferred travel destination for me. Its peace, harmony between people, animals and nature, seemed to me natural and I took them for granted. However, living in the West and traveling around the world, I understood, and started to appreciate it at its true value. Therefore I came back to Romania trying to reconcile two needs. One was the serious need of the Romanian village to develop socially and economically, the second was my own need for simplicity and authenticity in a crazy world.’. This need for the simple and authentic seems to be felt by more and more people. Alexandra and Greg are not the only ones to rediscover life in the countryside, there are plenty of Romanians born here who choose to return for this reason.

A social enterprise launched in 2011 wanted to draw attention to city dwellers to an alternative way of life. ‘Village Life’ was set up by a Romanian economist and an American working in IT. Their conclusion was that they no longer want to live in Vancouver, Canada, they want to raise their children in Romania. Alexandra Vasiliu and Greg Bugyis founded Village Life with a double purpose. Alexandra told us what that double purpose is:

Alexandra Vasiliu: “Village Life wants to help the development of rural communities in a rather innovative way, by bringing together two very different social and economic environments, the rural and the urban. In this way, people in the countryside can, in a very natural way, start to take better advantage of their own resources, while city dwellers, if they come to the countryside and appreciate certain things, may understand their value and maybe have an idea of what they could do in support of them. Our organization brings closer these two social environments, so that village dwellers may get inspiration from city dwellers who go there and appreciate what they have, while people from the city may get some distance from the semi-virtual environment they live in. Besides the fact that city people get to relax, they also have the opportunity to remind themselves where their food comes from, how animals are cared for, activities in which they can get involved when they visit the families we have in villages. We don’t want to do things for people, we only want to urge people to do things for themselves.’

Alexandra and Greg hold workshops in which visitors learn how to graft trees, milk the animals, they learn various kinds of leaves in the forest, their coloring and shape, also how to make cheese, they also see how a lamb or a goat kid are born, and they take part in village events and traditions. The other kind of activity they organize involves larger groups, no bigger than 20 to 30 people, involving larger events. It may be a collective activity, or sheep shearing, for visitors to get involved in. Both activities have a participation fee, of which 25% goes to the social enterprise, the rest goes to the villagers for the resources consumed. Accommodation is in traditional peasant homes. The third type of activity is volunteering, participating in community projects needing expertise or additional labor. An expert may participate, or someone who wants to do some physical labor, and then the fee goes down. Groups may not stay less than 10 days. Village Life’s profit is reinvested in its activities, as the rule goes for social enterprises.

Visitors are both foreign and Romanian, most of them with average incomes. They are delighted, especially those Romanians who still nurture the nostalgia of spending their childhood summers in their grandparents’ village homes. As for the villagers who get into this game with the city people, things have changed as far as they are concerned, and not necessarily for the better, Alexandra says:

Alexandra Vasiliu: “People are very suspicious in the beginning. That is not how the Romanian village used to be, Romanians are well known for their hospitality. Since people started owning TVs, with all the negative information they get through it, they are more and more frightened, they are afraid to bring strangers into their home, and no matter how much they would like that, or realize what help it brings, they are initially reticent. They get over it, and if someone gains confidence in us as an organization, they take people in, they see the kind of people we work with, and they are delighted afterwards. Somehow, this state of delight spreads across the community very fast, and then more and more want to get involved in the program.”

So far, Village Life brought guests in three villages in the counties of Arges, Dolj and Prahova, but it wants to expand in communities in Valcea and Sibiu. One of the aims of the project is to encourage small entrepreneurship in rural areas. The villagers are encouraged to receive guests with local product fairs, held especially for them, and in this way they have the opportunity to see what sells better.

On the Village Life website, Alexandra writes: ‘Before going to Canada, the Romanian village, which was right at my fingertips, was not a preferred travel destination for me. Its peace, harmony between people, animals and nature, seemed to me natural and I took them for granted. However, living in the West and traveling around the world, I understood, and started to appreciate it at its true value. Therefore I came back to Romania trying to reconcile two needs. One was the serious need of the Romanian village to develop socially and economically, the second was my own need for simplicity and authenticity in a crazy world.’. This need for the simple and authentic seems to be felt by more and more people. Alexandra and Greg are not the only ones to rediscover life in the countryside, there are plenty of Romanians born here who choose to return for this reason.

The Association of Medical Students in Bucharest in partnership with the Physicians’ College and the “Carol Davila” University of Medicine and Pharmacy organize monthly health-caravans in disadvantaged rural areas. Twelve medical students, together with physicians and residents run clinical examinations, ultrasound screenings and blood tests on village dwellers. Elena Sburlan, a member of the Association and coordinator of the project called “Together for Rural Health” recollected the beginning of the adventure:

Elena Sburlan “’Together for rural health’ is a public health project, which started in April 2011. There have been 18 editions ever since and we have seen some 2 thousand 500 adult patients and one thousand children. We’ve grown constantly since then. We are now seeing some 250 patients at every edition. We used to hold the caravan once in a while, but now we manage to hold one or two editions per month, which last between 2 and 5 days. We usually go on week-ends, because this is when physicians are free, and most of the times we stay there since morning until evening, we see some 100 patients per day and we start again the next morning.”

In the beginning, the Communes’ Association in Romania would tell volunteer students which were the disadvantaged areas. Now destinations are established depending on the information they get from mayors and family physicians from villages where people do not see specialists coming very often.

Elena Sburlan: “There are family doctors who have 3-4 villages in care, they are 10 km away from the village and they manage to get there once or twice a month. It’s difficult. We contact the mayor, the one that usually makes the appointments. When we get there, we already have a list of people registered in the past 2-3 weeks and starting at 8 a.m. we ask them in for a check-up.”

First we take blood for blood tests then patients undergo the clinical checkup usually performed by students, Elena Sburlan explained.

Elena Sburlan: “We have a medical observation sheet which we observe, and in keeping with the pathology we found, patients are sent to specialist medical doctors. We have gynecologists, dermatologists, ultrasound specialists and cardiologists but we need rheumatologists. We perform heart ultrasound tests and the Babes Papanicolau test is done for free, with the support of the military hospital. The results go back to the municipality. What impressed me most was that we have already found women who have dysplastic lesions and for whom the treatment has been initiated, with the support of the local municipalities.”

As many as 50 physicians and 100 volunteers are part of the caravans. A pharmaceutical company sponsors part of the project by granting money for consumables. Elena Sburlan has told us more about the first caravan that she participated in:

Elena Sburlan “I fell in love with it. I understood what helping others means and that it’s possible to do something for others if you really want to. We cannot help other people as much as we would like, but even the little help that we provide makes a difference. I experienced first hand people’s kindness and how much a simple medical examination means to them. Some of these people haven’t seen a doctor in 10 or 20 years. Although they are aware they have some health issues, they can’t bring themselves to go to the nearest town for a checkup. I’ve seen many things that have impressed me. At the last caravan I participated in, while performing a routine ultrasound scan, I saw two tiny hands moving. The mom-to-be had no idea she was pregnant so the news came as a huge surprise for both the young woman and for us. So it’s not easy, but it’s not impossible either. It’s a rewarding activity that makes you lose all track of time. After checkup, each patient receives a medical letter and indications on how to continue investigations, if necessary. That’s all we can do, offering them a starting point and guidance to find out an exact diagnosis and get a proper treatment.”

Adelina Toma, the vice president of the Association, says that the most impressive place visited by the medical students’ caravan was the Danube Delta. It takes a 7-hour walk to get to the nearest hospital there.

Adelina Toma: “In order for the caravan to get there we had to cross part of the Danube by boat. You can imagine that concepts such as emergency or ambulance are not at all common in that area. Not to mention the case when the Danube is frozen and the locals’ access to medical services is close to zero.”

The students who organize the caravan would like to buy a good ultrasound screening machine, for breast and thyroid sonograms; and they are willing to work for that, Elena Sburlan told us:

Elena Sburlan: “At the moment we make abdominal ultrasounds but a medical check-up would be great if we could get that machine. And we are willing to work for it. We are now trying to raise money, we are sending e-mails, we are looking for sponsors. An ultrasound-screening device costs around 15 thousand Euros. Along the years we have been helped by pharmaceutical companies, by natural persons, but help was never sufficient enough for us to be able to make this wish come true.”

The two medical students told us that it’s not just one person that should make one big donation. If many people would donate a little, enough money could be raised to organize such caravans more often and to buy the device that people in disadvantaged areas need so much.

For more than 40 years, Gheorghe Florescu has been one of the best-known sellers and makers of coffee in Bucharest. To him, coffee is an elixir of intelligence and love, which prolongs life and clears the mind. “I think the moment you have your first cup of coffee is the best moment of the day”, he told us when we met in his coffee shop on a grey March morning. The aroma of roasting coffee imbued everything around. This hot, unique smell, capable of waking you up from the deepest of slumbers, has been with Gheorghe Florescu since childhood:

‘My first contact with coffee was when I was 8. I was in the courtyard of my godfather’s house, Gheorghe Georgescu. Sharing that courtyard was an Armenian family, who owned a coffee shop with the entrance on the street. From this family came one of the most famous Armenians in the world, Baruir Nersesian, a famous coffee maker who won the heart of New York with his fabulous coffee. A lot of Armenian coffee makers were around when I was a kid. There were at least 40 coffee makers in Bucharest after the war, and between the wars there must have been 100.’

But what does it mean, being a coffer maker?

“A coffee maker is a coffee taster and maker, an expert on how coffee is brewed and served. You have to know what you drink; there are differences between tyoes of coffee. There is better and worse coffee, special coffee and heavenly coffee.”

Gheorghe Florescu learned the craft of preparing coffee from a famous Armenian coffee maker, Avedis Carabelaian, one of the few left in Bucharest at the end of the 1960s. The master left the title to him, leaving him in charge of the coffee and delicatessen shop at 10 Hristo Botev Street, where the clients were intellectuals, actors or doctors, but also officers in the police or Securitate, and other people in privileged government positions. Avedis had left him not just the management of the place, but also his wide network of customers and the art of keeping them loyal:

‘I was a record holder in Bucharest already, I was the best known, I had the best coffee, the kind of combination we could make back then. Now we have the entire world at our disposal. Back then we had coffee from Colombia, Guatemala, Salvador, Nicaragua, and even Mexico. That is what I was blending. Back then there were a lot of greedy people selling bad coffee in total disregard of the consumer. Mr. Carabelaian told me: ‘As long as you roast your coffee what I taught you, you will never be short of customers’. And my customers have remained faithful to me to this day.”

Florescu, ‘the little Armenian’, as he was known, is also a great storyteller, with great stories about life during communism. He was one of the people who was keeping the flow of products which nowadays seem banal, but which back then were a genuine form of currency: coffee, fine spirits, western cigarettes, and any other imported products — everything the market was lacking and was considered forbidden pleasures for ordinary people and only reserved for the elite. He mastered the mechanisms that kept that society running: knowing the right people, complicity, and bribery. His history, and that of his coffee shop, is the history of Romania between the 1960s and the 1980s, written by people who are still around. In the mid-1980s, his business caught up with him and he was sent to jail. He was pardoned in 1988, and resumed his craft after 1990. Urged by a few famous clients, with a decisive contribution from his daughter, Vali, he wrote “The Confessions of a Coffee Maker”, a memoir of times which many of us would rather not remember:

“My daughter wanted to make a movie, and told me ‘Daddy, sit down and write’. I wrote ‘The Confessions of a Coffee Maker’ for her, as documentary material for the movie. I wanted it to be clear, precise, without errors, because then you attract a lot of criticism. However, there was no criticism, not even from people I wasn’t exactly kind with in the book, and who lined up for a signed copy. Finally, after they fell from power, somebody was paying some attention to them. In 2009 we sold 20,000 copies to the Romanians abroad alone. The diaspora is eager to know what happened, especially those who left the country before Ceausescu came to power in 1965, they want to know what happened. This book gives a pretty clear picture of what was happening back then.’

The book was launched on November 22nd, 2008. With the money from the sales, Gheorghe Florescu told us, he managed to fulfil a lifelong dream: refurbishing his coffee store:

“Right now we have a family business with a few employees and three branches, and we even opened a café. I don’t think you can find better coffee anywhere in the world.”

Today, Gheorghe Florescu roasts his coffee in a small shop in the centre of Bucharest. He brings to Romania exotic varieties, as well as organic coffee. Good natured, courteous, the keeper of Carabelian’s recipes is always glad to have guests, even though not all those who step in buy his coffee or the fine chocolate he sells.

For more than 40 years, Gheorghe Florescu has been one of the best-known sellers and makers of coffee in Bucharest. To him, coffee is an elixir of intelligence and love, which prolongs life and clears the mind. “I think the moment you have your first cup of coffee is the best moment of the day”, he told us when we met in his coffee shop on a grey March morning. The aroma of roasting coffee imbued everything around. This hot, unique smell, capable of waking you up from the deepest of slumbers, has been with Gheorghe Florescu since childhood:

‘My first contact with coffee was when I was 8. I was in the courtyard of my godfather’s house, Gheorghe Georgescu. Sharing that courtyard was an Armenian family, who owned a coffee shop with the entrance on the street. From this family came one of the most famous Armenians in the world, Baruir Nersesian, a famous coffee maker who won the heart of New York with his fabulous coffee. A lot of Armenian coffee makers were around when I was a kid. There were at least 40 coffee makers in Bucharest after the war, and between the wars there must have been 100.’

But what does it mean, being a coffer maker?

“A coffee maker is a coffee taster and maker, an expert on how coffee is brewed and served. You have to know what you drink; there are differences between tyoes of coffee. There is better and worse coffee, special coffee and heavenly coffee.”

Gheorghe Florescu learned the craft of preparing coffee from a famous Armenian coffee maker, Avedis Carabelaian, one of the few left in Bucharest at the end of the 1960s. The master left the title to him, leaving him in charge of the coffee and delicatessen shop at 10 Hristo Botev Street, where the clients were intellectuals, actors or doctors, but also officers in the police or Securitate, and other people in privileged government positions. Avedis had left him not just the management of the place, but also his wide network of customers and the art of keeping them loyal:

‘I was a record holder in Bucharest already, I was the best known, I had the best coffee, the kind of combination we could make back then. Now we have the entire world at our disposal. Back then we had coffee from Colombia, Guatemala, Salvador, Nicaragua, and even Mexico. That is what I was blending. Back then there were a lot of greedy people selling bad coffee in total disregard of the consumer. Mr. Carabelaian told me: ‘As long as you roast your coffee what I taught you, you will never be short of customers’. And my customers have remained faithful to me to this day.”

Florescu, ‘the little Armenian’, as he was known, is also a great storyteller, with great stories about life during communism. He was one of the people who was keeping the flow of products which nowadays seem banal, but which back then were a genuine form of currency: coffee, fine spirits, western cigarettes, and any other imported products — everything the market was lacking and was considered forbidden pleasures for ordinary people and only reserved for the elite. He mastered the mechanisms that kept that society running: knowing the right people, complicity, and bribery. His history, and that of his coffee shop, is the history of Romania between the 1960s and the 1980s, written by people who are still around. In the mid-1980s, his business caught up with him and he was sent to jail. He was pardoned in 1988, and resumed his craft after 1990. Urged by a few famous clients, with a decisive contribution from his daughter, Vali, he wrote “The Confessions of a Coffee Maker”, a memoir of times which many of us would rather not remember:

“My daughter wanted to make a movie, and told me ‘Daddy, sit down and write’. I wrote ‘The Confessions of a Coffee Maker’ for her, as documentary material for the movie. I wanted it to be clear, precise, without errors, because then you attract a lot of criticism. However, there was no criticism, not even from people I wasn’t exactly kind with in the book, and who lined up for a signed copy. Finally, after they fell from power, somebody was paying some attention to them. In 2009 we sold 20,000 copies to the Romanians abroad alone. The diaspora is eager to know what happened, especially those who left the country before Ceausescu came to power in 1965, they want to know what happened. This book gives a pretty clear picture of what was happening back then.’

The book was launched on November 22nd, 2008. With the money from the sales, Gheorghe Florescu told us, he managed to fulfil a lifelong dream: refurbishing his coffee store:

“Right now we have a family business with a few employees and three branches, and we even opened a café. I don’t think you can find better coffee anywhere in the world.”

Today, Gheorghe Florescu roasts his coffee in a small shop in the centre of Bucharest. He brings to Romania exotic varieties, as well as organic coffee. Good natured, courteous, the keeper of Carabelian’s recipes is always glad to have guests, even though not all those who step in buy his coffee or the fine chocolate he sells.

With the help of the Association for the Support of Traditional Agriculture, ASAT, people living in urban areas who are interested in healthy food may conclude partnerships with the farmers who need financial support and a targeted distribution market. The Association was set up five years ago and already enjoys the support of people in all major cities across Romana. Mihaela Vetan is the president of ASAT. She has told us how this system has been implemented in Romania.

Mihaela Vetan: “The Association partnerships were first presented to the public in Timisoara, in 2007, by Denise Vuillon, one of the initiators of the system in France. During the presentation, the organisers drew attention to the fact that at European level, small-scale agriculture was in jeopardy, because farmers were facing more difficulties and they hardly resisted the competition of intensive agriculture, supermarket chains and imports. In this context, Denise Vuillon referred to an initiative she developed in France in 2001, namely creating groups made up of consumers who decide to support small local producers, farmers in their proximity, whose natural products should be delivered once a week.”

The system was informally functioning in Romania, too, but not in an organized way and with the firm commitment of both farmers and consumer. Almost all families, especially those with small children, develop, along the years, a small network providing them with vegetables, eggs, milk, and meat. They either start a special relation with the farmers selling their products at the market or call for the support of their relatives living in the countryside. However, in time, the farmers selling their products at the market were gradually replaced by intermediaries and other distributors. This was a good reason for Mihaela Vetan to start the ASAT partnerships.

Mihaela Vetan: “In 2008, we launched in Timisoara the first partnership, developed by 20 families of consumers. What is different from the so-called informal relations, which fortunately still exist in Romania, is that under the Association partnerships, consumers make a one year commitment. In autumn they make a commitment for the next year, making down payments to producers, for them to have the necessary financial resources to make preparations for their autumn cultures, to buy seeds, to plough the land, and throughout the year they commit themselves to taking a weekly basket of natural produce.”

Marin Paraschiv is one of the 11 producers who provide vegetables to 350 families across the country. He has heard about this type of partnership from his children, who read about this on the Internet. He now has 15 subscribers, so to say.

Marin Paraschiv: “They have helped me buy seeds, build a new greenhouse, for us to work the land in a protected way. They give me money. Every month I give them four baskets of produce, which cost some 140 lei. We meet at the Association headquarters. There are 2-3 families who help with the packaging. I am happy that I don’t have to take the vegetables to the wholesale markets, consumers are happy that all products they eat are natural, they can come to visit us, to see how we grow the vegetables. There are many people who want to buy products from farmers and not imported vegetables. The products are very good, the tomatoes are tasty, just like the bell peppers and the eggplants, they are all incomparably better than any other imported vegetable.”

Consumers become aware of the fact that if they want healthy food, without any trace of chemical substance, they have to wait, because natural plants grow slowly, are not uniform, they don’t always look good, but their quality is far better. There is a charter of the Association principles, which should be observed. The provisions in the book actually regulate all elements related to production, which should be natural, says Mihaela Vetan.

Mihaela Vetan: “It is not mandatory for producers to have a bio certification, but they should be involved in natural agricultural activities; then producers should accept to be transparent as regards price-setting and production. At any moment, consumers can go to the producer to see how the vegetables grow. There is also another condition of solidarity, which is a very important element for both sides. Let’s say, for instance, that hail has affected the cabbage seedlings and early crops of cabbage are damaged, although cabbage was included on the list of products. This loss is equally shared by the consumers, they will not demand a discount on their subscription, precisely because they understand the risks run by an uncontrolled natural production. In another move, if it is a favourable year for certain cultures, let’s say tomatoes, and the production is bigger than initially planned, this surplus is brought to the consumers, because they practically support production costs.”

The price of vegetables is affordable for a relatively high number of people, and this is important because they are natural products. Mihaela Vetan has more on one of the ultimate goals of Association for the Support of Traditional Agriculture in Romania.

Mihaela Vetan : “We know that bio produce are luxury items, and we believe that by the Association partnerships we can provide an alternative, so that a large number of people should have access to high quality products.”

Many consumers who have concluded such partnerships are young parents, interested in healthy food, and they are all aware of how important it is to support local economy and agriculture.

The young people who started this NGO in September 2012 want to help those around find for themselves at least several reasons to be happy. How do they do that? There is a message posted on this organization’s webpage which gives us a hint: “According to a UN report, Romania ranked at the bottom of a happiness barometer in 2012, being Europe’s unhappiest country. The Initiative for Happiness is an association with a mission: to improve the level of happiness in Romania by means of positive and applied psychology principles. In the following minutes, Malina Chirea, one of the founders of this initiative comments on the conclusions of this UN survey.

Malina Chirea: “The hustle and bustle of city life, poverty and unhappiness are only effects, not causes. They are by-products of mentalities and mindsets. If you talk to people in the street, who feel poor and miserable, you can come up with at least two suggestions for them to improve their lives. I strongly believe that every one of us is the builder of his or her own life, but many still share a defeatist mentality, something that was inflicted upon us long before 1989. And that’s why we need to be happy now more than ever. Before 1989, people were taught to keep a low profile and obey the rules. Now, all of a sudden, we’ve got a private environment where one should be able to prove entrepreneurial skills and it’s very difficult to adjust oneself to an environment like that. We only invite people to self-analysis, and don’t come with one-fits-all solutions, because something like that doesn’t exist.”

The Initiative for Happiness has ambassadors in almost all major Romanian cities. They go to high schools and colleges and invite students to workshops and meetings, in which they explain what happiness is all about; talks are focusing on its secrets, how we can get it and more importantly how we can retain it. According to Malina Chirea, happiness could be a means to an end or a goal, depending on the circumstances. However, happiness should be for all of us, something we should consider even more than our daily bread.

Malina Chirea: “I believe that everybody, even unconsciously, is in the pursuit of happiness, as they perceive it. For some it would be a successful career, while others may see it as a big mansion or a family. For others it’s all these combined. People come from different backgrounds and that’s why they see it in their own way, but happiness is a personal state of mind. If our mental world were, let’s say, a house, a building, then happiness would be its foundation.“

But one of the biggest problems facing society in Romania is that young people have been thrown into a world neither their parents nor grandparents were able to predict and that’s why they are unable to be happy nowadays. They have been left without reference values, Malina Chirea says.

Malina Chirea: “The world our parents have prepared us for, no longer exists. Young people find themselves in a world that doesn’t comply with the ideas they have been taught in their first years. So there is a huge gap between them and those who educated them. They feel like finding their own reference values, something they no longer find with their parents or grandparents and they start searching for these values outside. Romania will be entirely changed, when all its people can talk about communism only from history books. We still have to work on that, something, which is visible if you travel around the country. We cannot stay idle and expect things to change on their own. We need to step up this process a little bit, taking some action and initiative for the benefit of civil society. One suchlike initiative is to talk about happiness and about what makes people happy.”

Over 3,000 people have brooded over what makes them happy for almost a year. This aforementioned initiative will soon inaugurate the Institute for Happiness, an area open to all those willing to find an answer to questions about happiness.

Malina Chirea: “We realized that a major component of happiness is the community and the people you have around. You need to have a place where to feel comfortable and be able to read about happiness or other motivational books. We need a place where people can come and feel at home, where they can get support from other people, who are facing the same challenges or find answers to the same questions.”

So, we can say that Bucharest now has its own place where happiness can be found. As of July 1st 2013 this address is 29, Avrig Street. There, people can find answers to important questions and if they are lucky they may find themselves on a collision course with Happiness itself.