Category: Inside Romania

A 20-year old project seems to have built momentum and brought about the promise of a major urban change in Romania. A new subway section is currently under construction in Drumul Taberei, a heavily populated district lacking in transport connections to the city centre.

But today’s feature does not concern the subway section as such, but a ground-breaking archaeological find that will breathe new life into the neighbourhood. Gheorghe Udriste, the head of the Metrorex underground transport operator, gave us more details:

“Drumul Taberei is an area known for its historical vestiges and monuments, although it was unclear where exactly these vestiges were located. Surveys conducted before construction works start should be able to identify the location of these archaeological sites. Hundreds of years ago the area was home to a major vineyard. Evidence of this can be found in an old street called Vineyards Street. It is here that Tudor Vladimirescu’s army would stop over, as well as anyone tending to the vineyards or those who built the royal cellars. Prior to subway construction works around the Military Academy building, all traces leading to this network of underground buildings had been lost. Some two months ago, the construction team was consolidating the underground wall structure using special equipment. They were trying to preserve working conditions by applying an asphalt emulsion, which started seeping out. This alarmed the men, who were unaware of any concealed, unknown structure in the area”.

The authorities have been notified, archaeologists came in, took samples for further research and some photos of the darkest areas. Here is again Gheorghe Udriste.

“We went there and worked with archaeologists from the Bucharest History Museum, who told us what to do next. The first measure taken was to cease work and notify the authorities. We had to take photos of the room with a special camera and recover some of the bricks. We were allowed to continue digging and further our research on the historic importance of these places. We’ve met people who knew there was something in the area long before excavation began. I know of an old man who recollects playing inside these cellars as a child.”

Gheorghe Udriste, in charge of the building of the new subway section, enlarged on what he saw there:

“I saw a grotto and one or two vaults, part of a tunnel-like construction. I even saw when the interior was videod and several bricks were removed. The archeologist who visited the site said that, at first sight, the construction did not have historical relevance, given that its shape and structure are not very old. We did not find even one bottle of wine, but we will work with extreme care and make sure we conserve this site to the fullest. I think we could recover part of the discovered materials and put them on display in the subway station. And, since we’re talking about wine cellars, we could even set up a museum-like area that could even include wine tasting. This could enhance the value of the subway station. Future generations would thus be aware that there were vineyards and wine cellars here once.’’

Some identical cellars had recently been discovered some 500 meters from this site. They were emptied of all content and the owner of the plot turned the site into a restaurant. The first archeological investigations reveal that this is a wine-storing cellar that goes back to the age of Romanian revolutionary Tudor Vladimirescu. The cellar stands on the site where a subway station should have once been built.

Early this spring, the Romanian Peasant‘s Museum in Bucharest hosted a special photo exhibition entitled “The Last Transhumance”. Photographer Dragos Lumpan hoped to present images from a world that seems removed from the times we live in, which is slowly dying out.

The world of shepherds who annually move their flocks from one grazing ground in the lowlands up in the mountains, with the changing seasons is still fascinating through its simplicity and authenticity.





It seems far removed from our dull routine. Dragos Lumpan’s exhibition was designed as a project that reflects this traditional lifestyle, rather than a scientific study on transhumance as a thoroughly examined phenomenon using research data.





Dragos Lumpan started his project focused on transhumance back in 2007 when, after having watched sheep flocks grazing while driving his car, he chose to be part of the shepherds ‘ life styles.. He started by integrating himself into a family of shepherds who practised transhumance and, for a couple of years he took part in several seasonal movements the family was involved in. Shortly afterwards, the shepherds, who had accompanied photographer Dragos Lumpan, decided to give up to their seasonal movement. Dragos Lumpan has further details on the project





Dragos Lumpan: “The name of the project “ the Last Transhumance ‘ is derived from this reality. Of course, there are shepherds who are still practicing transhumance but the overall impression is that this phenomenon is on decline which can sound far too harsh … In some countries there are people who are trying to back up transhumance and, in these countries there are chances this phenomenon might not disappear so quickly. The exhibition hosted by the Romanian peasant ‘s Museum has got ten big photos and 340 small printed photos two very short pieces from the film, assembled time lapses which I hope will arouse the interest and curiosity for the film which I hope will be ready in a few months. There is also an I-pad on which you can see more similar photos, almost one thousand in total, a sort of sketch notebook where there are certain similar photos for those who are patient enough and want to see more things. There are a few panels on which I put on display photos featuring snapshots of my travels which I made myself to get to the shepherds. This photo exhibition is actually a work in progress and I am working on the film.”





The transhumance route followed by Dragos Lumpan and the shepherds over the past five years has gone beyond the Romanian borders, and adds up to more than 40 thousand km, taking in countries like Albania, Italy, Britain and Turkey. The 100 thousand photos, 70 hours of filmed material and 100 hours of audio recordings make up the project “The Last Transhumance“ which is still only partially completed. Dragos Lumpan referred to the way in which the public received the exhibition hosted by the Romanian Peasant Museum in Bucharest





Dragos Lumpan: “A lot of people attended the official opening of the exhibition and it was a real joy for me and obviously for those who helped me with the project. In terms of visitors, it has been a popular exhibition. And the people attending it expressed their appreciation in fine and sincere words. I talked to a professor from the Faculty of Agronomy who voiced his discontent related to the lack of scientific apparatus in the exhibition. My argument was that this exhibition is just a visual project and I only wanted to talk about a world which is going to die, a world with all its unique atmosphere. Obviously there are many things which I could never discover and I can only apologize for not doing so. Of course, the 340 photos are printed on a small format and for some it can be a little unusual to find something like this in a photo exhibition. However I intentionally did this for those who want to enter into a world which I am not able to describe in some photos. That is why I chose a presentation method which requires the visitor to be patient – and in this way one can get a taste of the atmosphere which is also embedded in the photos on display.“



The images captured by Dragos Lumpan offer a visual dimension which can only be vaguely intuited archeologically speaking — writes historian and archeologist Tiberiu Vasilescu.

Cheese cream, sweet corn cake- a pound-cake-like rustic dessert of traditional inspiration, scrambled eggs, spicy fillet baked in the oven, toasted bread with butter, honey and a touch of mint, and many other delicacies that one could find only in the grandparents’ house, can now be found on the menu list of several kindergartens in the central Romanian city of Cluj Napoca.





This is the result of a project entitled “Clean Dishes”, initiated last year by a team of nutritionists together with Adrian Hadean, a professional cook and culinary blogger. The project is a first in Romania and is meant to make children aware of the importance of a healthy diet. Adrian Hadean has further details on the project:

Adrian Hadean: ”The project is not based on a new idea, nor is it something out of the ordinary. Many other people have tried to focus their attention on healthy diets and on children’s food, but nothing like that has been done in Romania. The ‘Clean Dishes’ project actually implements a healthy diet project in state-owned kindergartens in Cluj. I could not include all kindergartens in the project, because I didn’t have enough money to do that. I sent letters to the kindergartens in Cluj, telling them about my plans and five of them responded to my initiative. Last December, I visited the kindergartens in order to find out what parents and children knew about healthy diets and foodstuffs. I organized workshops for children, I offered them fruit and vegetables to smell and taste, we talked about unhealthy foodstuffs and beautifully colored and packed unhealthy foodstuffs on the shelves of the shops. I worked every week with the kindergartens’ 15 cooks and we cooked together the menu made up of various courses for eight weeks, including totally different dishes. Parents liked the menus very much and the courses on those menus are now served in kindergartens. “



We maintained the price of meals but we varied what we cooked. What’s the novelty, then?



Adrian Hadean: ”There are no special meals, we didn’t reinvent food or the cuisine. We just cook using less fat, sugar and salt. Most of our meals are cooked in the oven. We offer breakfast, a healthy snack and a two-course lunch plus dessert. We cook more carefully, mainly in the oven, because it is more healthy and cost-effective to do that. Children also eat schnitzel and meatballs, but they are baked in the oven and not deep-fried in oil. We have introduced cream soups into the menu, as they allow us to play with the food color and structure, and we can convince children to eat soup with pleasure. In general, potatoes, beans, cabbage are traditionally used in the Romanian cuisine. But there are many other vegetables, which can be used fresh, depending on the season. It is very important for children to get used to the taste of vegetables, when they are still very small. You know, there are adults who don’t know what a vegetable tastes like, for instance broccoli, because they didn’t eat it when they were children and now they refuse to eat it, because they don’t know its taste. The little ones are extremely curious and willing to take part in such workshops, especially those who are 3 or 4 years old. The five and six- year- olds are curious, but deeply affected by TV marketing and advertising and are unable to make the difference between beetroot and potatoes for instance, but are able to make the difference between various chips ads.”





Of the dishes you don’t expect to see on the menus of kindergartens, a particular one has arrested our attention: pasta with tomato sauce and fish. Actually, it is our attempt to determine children to eat fish, by associating it with pasta, which they usually like. We also offer them spaghetti with vegetable sauce, which includes chops of eggplants, bell peppers, squashes and tomatoes. We also cook meat dishes with eggplants, baked beetroot, and baked pumpkin. The menu also includes lentil soup, cabbage cream soup, celery and kohlrabi cream soup, pea cream soup and onion soup. The rice dishes include vegetables and desserts are more often than not a mix of yogurt and fruit, with a touch of mint and a sprinkle of vanilla.





The result of the project is that children eat healthy food and more and more people take interest in the quality of food. We have asked Adrian Hadean if parents were open to new ideas regarding food and if children accepted this new type of cuisine.





Adrian Hadean: ”They can’t accept everything from the very beginning. It is important to convince a child to try a new dish. You should not insist if he or she doesn’t like a particular dish, because you destroy everything you have ‘built’ before. I have discovered that in the families where mothers dislike a certain vegetable, children do the same, because parents act as models for their children. We use 170 recipes and combine them carefully, for the menu to be complete.”

Much has been written about Romanian beggars abroad. One piece of news, however, involves a stranger angle to this story: robots beggars. The robot in question can be seen in Mariahilfer Strasse, Vienna’s most crowded thoroughfare.

The Romanian-born Artist Daniel Knorr, currently based in Berlin, is the person behind the robot. We asked the artist more about how the project came about:

“In 1999 I was invited to take part in an exhibition in Bern, Switzerland, and I was assigned to create something for the public space. While on a visit there I found out that beggars were to be chased away from the city center because they tarnished the image of the city. And I thought I could do something, since begging has existed since times immemorial. So I thought about making a robot beggar, so that I could help beggars become industrialized, if I can put it like that. Then I was invited to all sorts of exhibitions and I created different generations of robots. The one in Vienna is the fourth or the fifth robot that came out in that series.”

Despite the fact that Knorr’s project is obviously extremely tongue-in-cheek and satirizing the whole problem of beggars, Daniel Knorr’s creation was extremely successful, quickly won a sizable group of admirers. Speaking again is Daniel Knorr:

”I had al sorts of reactions. In a museum in Essen in 2002, people said theyd rather give money to the robots than to flesh-an-blood beggars, as robots don’t smell, they don’t look ugly. People here were the first people to purchase a robot beggar. I thought it was so neo liberal for the public to do that, but I also was a bit upset. But that’s the way it goes in today’s society… I thought the robot was perfect for the trade to be industrialized. It is also the envisaged outcome of something that happens every day. Every day we all beg for food somehow, even if we have something to eat, we beg for something just for the satisfaction of it.”

The robot fits in with the theme of the exhibition in which Daniel was taking part, as proposed by the curators, namely:” At Your Service — Art and Labor”. One of the curator’s requisites was that through their work artists should illustrate the way in which the work process is becoming automated. Among the suggested topics was the way work boosts your self-esteem, and can be seen as a pleasure or burden, and also how it influences one’s professional life. The Romanian-born artist persuaded the curators his beggar robots were worth taking a look at – and over time, created several versions of them.

“The first generation model of Robot beggars was a robot with a dog, and if you happened to walk past it, the robot reacted through a photoelectrical cell and said, ”You look good. Got a dime to spare?” And if you give it money, it bids you ‘good day’. And the dog was barking all the time. Then I made one like a terminal, something simpler, which worked on the same principle. The one in Vienna thanks you and wishes you ‘a good day’.”

I asked Daniel Knorr if people understand that his begging robots are in fact works of art.

“Art is complicated, since when you’re walking on the street, you don’t expect to come across a work of art. All that is placed on a pedestal and has an abstract nature becomes a work of art but it can be anything, even an initiative belonging to a firm, a commercial, so I don’t think people perceive that something is thought out like a work of art. But the idea conveyed to the public is the industrialization of begging, the last sphere of our world that wasn’t industrialized. In my art the robots’ orientation has very much to do with the wish to materialize things. Isaac Asimov invented the three laws of robots, and the third law says that robots will have to support themselves, which made me think of how robots might look, and what they could do. Scientists took over those laws of the robots. They exist in engineering.”

During the last week of April, Daniel Knorr will be coming to Bucharest with a new exhibition, hosted by the Museum of Contemporary Art. This time the artist has prepared a “pigsty with dollars”. It consists of several origami little pigs, made of large dollar bills, their dimensions ranging from 50 centimeters to larger models.