Category: Inside Romania

Doesnt listen to me! Doesnt hear me! Doesnt understand me! Or even: Never does what I say! These are complaints we often hear from people. But do we ever think there are different ways of achieving our goals?

Octavia Udrescu and Decebal Popescu call themselves facilitators of non-violent communication ever since they started to give workshops aimed at creating a community of people able to speak in a connected and authentic way. We first asked Decebal why they give these workshops:

“For a number of reasons: one of them is my belief that we, as people, have a chance to live a happier and more fulfilled life. We were taught – and its no ones fault in particular – to think in terms of someones right and someones wrong; thats good and thats bad. Well, what Ive discovered and what Im practicing in my workshops for non-violent communication is that perhaps we see things differently and that with some goodwill we can find a way to fulfill both my needs for growth and development, and yours. That for me is extraordinary!”

Ocravia told us how the workshop participants reacted when they understood we all have different strategies to fulfill our needs.

“People would come back and tell us: I have begun to listen to others! I couldnt listen before, I thought what other people had to say was foolish, but now I keep silent. At least I listen and find out interesting things. But what if we dont start with the idea that we are smarter and stop to find out what the others have to say, what their world is like? We will be surprised. Perhaps their ideas are also interesting, perhaps we want the same things, we have the same intentions, but we pursue them differently. Each has their own way of fulfilling these strategies. Its fascinating! I find human nature fascinating and this form of conscious communication is the key to understanding myself. What do I want? Ever since I was a child, I would look at others and try to remember how I used to react, what I did then, what I did when I was a teenager. How did I behave? Did I scream at my mom? Did I slam doors? Of course I did! But why did I do these things?”

Octavia said she first applied these techniques at home, with her daughters, taking the whole experience as a challenge. What was the result?:

“I now have a better relationship with myself and my family and I show much more understanding for them when they say no to me. I talk to my daughter who is 20, an adult. Lets say I need her help doing something around the house and I tell her I need her to help me. And she tells me shed like me to tell her in advance when I need her help instead of forcing it on her that very moment and making her feel guilty if she cant accommodate me. So I change my approach and it works. If you put pressure on people, saying I want it now, it doesnt work. Now Im open to receiving a negative answer and when I ask when its good for her to do those things, they really do happen. People need to contribute, but we want to have the freedom to choose when we do and how we do it.”

We also found out from Octavia that auto-empathy can help us take a no easier:

“I realise its a difficult moment for me to get a no and think what I can do to make it feel better. By this I mean physically better, because getting a no, especially from my family, goes straight to my heart and makes me think they dont love me. So I have to say to myself this isnt about love, its important for them to do something else. I can accept this. So I do something else instead that makes me feel good.”

Decebal Popescu told us how the participants in the workshops respond:

“Wed like more people to take part and more men, also, because most participants are women who want to improve their relationships primarily with themselves. We were happy though, that many people who are parents have been taking part, both moms and dads, who have teenage children. We usually try to create a space where every voice is heard. Each has a few minutes to say why they came to the workshop and at the end I asked them what was it like for them to talk without being interrupted for a few minutes and it was wonderful when they realised thats exactly what they should do with their children.”

This is certainly an experience everyone can use, for we all want to communicate, regardless of our age.

Located in the north of Romania, Maramureș presents itself with a tourist offer for all tastes. We can choose between various activities in nature and cultural experiences. Wildlife watching or hiking can be combined with visits to old wooden churches or artisans. You can also choose to stay at guesthouses through which you can discover what a day in the life of Maramure residents is like. Thus, you will be able to be, even for a short time, part of the place. Today we stop in the central area of historical Maramureș. Here lies a predominantly rural area, without cities, and very well preserved, says Edit Pop, head of the Eco Maramureș Association.

“We have 12 traditional villages located on the banks of two rivers, Mara and Cosău. These rivers are surrounded by very beautiful volcanic mountains, with bizarre rocks, lakes and peatlands with rare flora, gorges dug in andesitic rocks, which is unique in Romania. But the villages themselves are a story, and the story is there through a lot of tradition, preserved and lived even to this day. All local traditions have their origins in nature. Absolutely everything starts from there, and we are very lucky to be able to make this connection between nature and local tradition through the tourist offer.”

And we start with the offer of spending free time in nature. For this, there are several routes, says Edit Pop.

“We have hiking trails that access protected natural areas. Basically, there are mountain hiking trails, seven in number, totaling 69 km. But they are quite difficult. They are not for everyone, but for the townspeople who visit the destination, we have easy hiking trails arranged around the villages, which are particularly pleasant and very instructive, because there the tourist can get to know all the spontaneous flora of the meadows, hayfields, medicinal plants , special landscapes, they can talk with the locals, they can participate in the mowing, of course, which is a part of the life of the locals.”

In the Mara-Cosău-Creasta Cocoșului area there are numerous wooden churches built in the 17th and 18th centuries, with old paintings, collections of icons on wood and glass, and architectural details specific to Maramures. Most of them are monument churches, and two of them were included in the UNESCO heritage. For example, the oldest is the Church of Archangels Michael and Gabriel in Văleni, built in 1521, and the newest is the Church in Hoteni, built around 1790. All these churches also bear witness to the civilization of wood, says Edit Pop, head of the Association Eco Maramureș.

“It is a story that is still lived and continues in Maramureș. Practically, thanks to tourism, we can say today that the wood civilization continues, and the constructions, wooden houses specific to Maramureș are reborn. It was a trend 15-20 years ago, when wooden houses were considered a symbol of poverty, because they are small, simple, but extraordinarily well thought-out constructions. And, of course, that the locals started thinking about building new, more spacious houses. The wooden houses were slowly either sold or turned into holiday homes, and that was a big upset. But the miracle happened, and these houses are currently transformed into accommodation structures, small guesthouses, several houses, usually grouped together in one accommodation structure that offers a unique experience to tourists. They can even stay for a few days and see the conditions in which the culture of Maramureș was formed.”

And we cannot talk about Maramureș culture without talking about craftsmen. Real miracles come out of their hands, and you can see them at work either in various fairs or even at their home.

“The good news is that new wooden houses are being built again. So, folk craftsmen no longer deal only with the renovation of old houses. We have new houses both as accommodation structures and for living in. Of course they are bigger, they are better equipped, but they are made of wood. This is how we can observe a perpetuation of an extraordinary value of Maramureș, which eventually made it famous. The elaborately carved wooden gates are specific to Maramureș. Wooden houses, households, wooden churches, truly represent Maramureș.”

Edit Pop, head of the Eco Maramureș Association, says that the story of Maramureș can be tasted. Tourists come to live traditionally for a few days and, of course, for the delicious and very hearty food. This is also very healthy, because all the ingredients are produced in the households of the locals. Moreover, tastings also take place at events.

“The village of Breb, which is the standard bearer, the honey pot of our destination, mobilized in an exemplary way. There are smaller events every weekend. We have the Cultural Garden in Breb. This is a landscaped orchard, where beautiful things happen: evenings with fiddlers, the kids from Breb take the stage, there are small artisan fairs from the area. So there are recurring events, the ones that take place during the tourist season, and there are the bigger events that are organized by the communities, by the local authorities, or the religious events, which, by the way, are also very interesting for the tourists who visit area.”

By accessing the website Ecomaramures.com you can find out a lot of details about the entire tourist offer and places to stay, or rent bikes for cycling routes. There is also information on the events and what kind of craftsmen are found in them. You can also download a free app for mobile phones. This is called Eco Maramureș and it also provides you with maps with the routes that access the protected areas or the large map of the destination.

Few people know that there is a “Sustainable Gastronomy Day”, decreed by the United Nations Organization, and marked on June 18. In Timişoara, European Capital of Culture 2023, the LA PAS Program, initiated by the CRIES Association – Resource Center for Ethical and Solidarity Initiatives, has been running since 2018, in the context of the citys preparation for the awarding of this title, which aims to capitalize on the gastronomic heritage by observing some specific principles of the slow-food movement. I spoke about this program with Mihaela Veţan, president of the CRIES Association:

“Taste as heritage” is part of the La pas, Slowing Down program, included in the European Capital of Culture 2023 program, and is the component through which we want to draw attention to the fact that food is part of our intangible cultural heritage. We have explored this theme in previous editions in different types of activities, in 2018 we had a competition of traditional recipes, then we made some video materials with vloggers, regarding traditional recipes from Banat. Last year we had an edition that we dedicated to a special social context, that of the war in Ukraine: borscht was included in the UNESCO Heritage as part of the intangible heritage, based on a Ukrainian recipe, and we had a series of activities in Timisoara that addressed this topic. And this year, within the “Taste as heritage” component, we draw attention to a very important element, namely the impact of food on the environment.”

Mihaela Veţan, president of the CRIES Association, provided further detail:

“We thought of a series of 5 gastronomic workshops in which there were chefs, culinary vloggers, but also people passionate about cooking, mainly with seasonal ingredients and from local sources. So we started in February, when we had the root vegetables, they were the main ingredients, we had a vegan workshop, the leafy greens in various preparations were in great demand, and we had these workshops during the summer and autumn. Then, at the end of the year, we will have an image of a diversity of recipes, which we can make at home, from ingredients that are specific to that season.”

The program aims to capitalize on the gastronomic heritage by observing specific principles of the slow-food movement (good-clean-ethical), developing responsible consumption skills among young people, promoting sustainable practices for organizing cultural events, encouraging public policies that favor sustainable development models, and a culture of sustainability among people. Mihaela Veţan specified:

“There are basically three important elements that we want to highlight this year: seasonality, the fact that it is important to be aware that vegetables are available in a certain period of the year, and then they should consumed and not necessarily out of season, the care for ingredients and producers and the fact that we want through our workshops to inspire and encourage people to cook more at home, because we know that it is a practice that is increasingly in decline. We cook less and focus more on semi-prepared foods or fast food.”

We asked Mihaela Veţan what tastes are associated with Timisoara:

“We talk mostly about the regional character of the Banat area, which is an area of confluence. And when we approached this element of traditional or specific character, we were more aware that an element of specificity for our area is a more unexpected juxtaposition, between sweet and salty, sweet and sour. In Banat, for example, traditionally one would eat roast with cherry compote or plum compote. It is a melange between Serbian, Russian, Swabian cuisine, including elements from Hungarian cuisine, so it is very difficult to say what is specific. But I think that this combination of tastes and unexpected alternation is an element that surprises in Banat.”

And as this year Timişoara was in a continuous celebration, Mihaela Veţan issued us an invitation:

“The La Pas program includes an extensive educational program, we are going to schools with a lot of activities, this year we will involve over 650 students, together with their families, and of course, for autumn, in October, we are preparing the third edition of the La Pas Festival, an artisanal gastronomy festival.”

All lovers of local products and culinary art are expected to participate in a program rich in events that highlight the significance of the gastronomic heritage, in relation to local communities and sustainable development.

Surely, we have all experienced moments when we didnt feel like talking to anyone, either out of sadness or disappointment. But there are also serious cases of children who cannot express themselves verbally — whether because they are shocked, abused, physically or sexually, are autistic, or have other disabilities. A doll the size of an older child was created for them, and not only, which they can make and unmake to their hearts content. It is an invention by physician Dana Jianu, plastic surgeon, awarded with gold medals in 2006 and 2007 at the famous exhibitions for inventions and innovations in Brussels and Geneva. This invention also got the attention of UNICEF and the UN, as coming to the aid of the worlds less fortunate children. Dana Jianu told Radio Romania:

“Its an invention born out of my love for plastic surgery, and I thought that not only surgeons, not only those who study medicine, could transform an entity. It could be anyone, children and adults, it could be a family activity, or maybe even for therapeutic purposes. And so, from the very beginning, I shaped it, I shaped this body out of foam with my own hands, and I dressed it in a skin. This skin allows many attachments, practically an indefinite number, and we have made it possible for a child or a player, regardless of his age, to have a companion, because once you transform this doll into your desired companion, you become attached to it. And it practically allows games of fantasy and games of boundless situations. You practically become a shaper, a plastic surgeon, but not only, you are more than that, you make a companion, a playmate.”

Dana Jianu confessed to us that she imagined her profession as a plastic surgeon as a game. Thus, using the aforementioned doll, the player-creator can transform a schematically represented body, a fuzzy silhouette, into a young man or a young woman, by adding either musculature (biceps, pectorals, abs, etc.) or specifically feminine features (breasts of different shapes and sizes, thighs, buttocks, thin waist); however, for this doll that can be male or female at will, we can create unlimited expressions by gluing on, through an ingenious system, eyes, nose, lips, ears, eyebrows, hair, of different colors and shapes creating new and different expressions (happy, sad, smiling, angry, playful, embarrassed, angry, etc.) according to the players imagination and mood. Physician Dana Jianu gave details:

“It can be both a boy and a girl, thats why its name is Dan. A. Joy or Dana Joy, as we endow her, as we give her bodily forms. It is a doll for which we can change both the physical features, by adding muscles and then it becomes a boy, or by adding feminine forms and then it becomes a girl. And all the features of both the boy and the girl can be changed as the player wants. We have a set of facial features, at some point it had Asian eyes, now its Caucasian eyes.”

Dana Jianu has two invention patents: this doll with changing features, DAN.A.JOY, and a surgical pincer for quick suture of wounds. The clear national and international success is the doll, which develops creativity, and which is a new means of communication and non-verbal expression. Raised in a fairy tale village, Vama, in Suceava county, plastic surgeon Dana Jianu still reminisces with delight today about life in the mountain village, where daily responsibilities were childs play. And also in the village, she developed the desire to help, as well as the skill in taking care of, first of all, the animals in the household, guided by her grandmother, but also the ability to prepare dishes, such as chicken or mushroom stew, going through all the preparation stages, including picking the mushrooms or slaughtering the animal, under the guidance of her grandfather. How did you decide to become a doctor? Dana Jianu said:

“Everything starts from the desire to take care of a being in need. And because I was very close to my grandmother, when she took care of all the creatures in the household, I realized that I like to contribute to their health. That was primordial, but it grew out of the culture in my family, my father being a doctor. I was also very close to life at the village clinic, where at that time they did everything: obstetrics-gynecology, minor surgery, all patients were treated for blood pressure, heart and diabetes. And I realized that I really like medicine and caring for beings in need.”

For plastic surgeon Dana Jianu, health is important. Although she is, in Romania, among the pioneers of aesthetic surgery, setting up the first functional private aesthetic surgery office and operating on thousands of patients, Dana Jianu encourages recourse to aesthetic or corrective surgery when necessary, so that we do not remain burdened by our own physical complexes. At the same time, she urges us to resort to cosmetic surgery out of need, not on a whim.

Oradea recently hosted the European Tram Driver Championship, the 10th edition, organized with the participation of 25 teams from several European cities. The contest took place on a 130-meter section in the central area of the city (from Independence Street and Union Square). The teams, made up of a driver, a woman driver, and a technical assistant, had to complete six tests to prove their professional skills, generically named: ‘Perfect Stop’, ‘Emergency Braking’, ‘Lateral Distance’, ‘Tram – bowling’, ‘TRAM-billiards’, but also a new trial. The European Tram Driver Championship in Oradea was won by the Viennese crew, and the Romanians came in 14th. Adrian Revnic, general manager of the Oradea Local Transportation Company, told us:

In Oradea, the 10th edition of this European Tram Driving Championship, took place, and we already believe that this championship is already tradition . It started as an effort by transport companies in Europe to promote urban public transport, and also to create links between European cities. This year, 25 teams participated in Oradea, 24 from Europe, one from Oradea: Barcelona, Bassel, Berlin, Bordeaux, Brussels, Debrecen, Dresden, Dublin, Florence, Gotteborg, Hanover, Kosice, Kiev, Leipzig, Malaga, Oslo , Oradea, Prague, Nurnberg, Rotterdam, Stockholm, Szeged, Vienna, Warsaw, Zagreb. As you can see, many capitals in Europe, many metropolises, many beautiful cities!

We asked Adrian Revnic, the general manager of the Oradea Local Transportation Company, what the competition tests consist of, which seem, beyond mastery, to contain a lot of humor:

In general, the Championship has 4-6 tests, it depends the configuration of the routes and the configuration of the infrastructure of the city where the championship is held. This year, we had six tests. Each team has two members, a lady and a gentleman, they go through these tests in two stages: once the tram driver and once the lady colleague. In Oradea, the tests consisted of ‘Stopping at a fixed point’, in a test with a pool table in which the tram hit the cue, and the cue, by positioning the ball, gave you a score. After that, there was a test to put out a fire, and another test in which the tram passes by an inattentive citizen, who is a mannequin, but who is placed within the gauge of the tram. A test in which the tram had to stop with the third door at a fixed point and the last test, the most spectacular from the spectators’ point of view, a bowling test, in which a large ball had to hit six pins and knock them down.

Two hundred guests, local personalities, speakers at the conference, participants, were all very impressed by the event, as Adrian Revnic, general director of the Oradea Local Transport Company, told us, who added:

We started organizing this championship in Oradea, based on the following premise: we have the impression that everything in Europe is more beautiful than in Romania. We tried to prove that Romania, Oradea, is not inferior to any other city in Europe. For three years we have been trying to hold this championship in Oradea, primarily to promote the beauty of this city, culture, tradition, and everything that involves the social and cultural side of the city of Oradea. Fortunately for us, this year it overlapped with this mini-holiday in June, in which a lot of tourists, from Băile Felix, or tourists on a city-break in Oradea, took full advantage of this contest, which does not necessarily want to promote the competition, but the part where people feel good. On this occasion, in Union Square, all kinds of workshops for children, food trucks with street food, all kinds of other related activities, were set up. This event was held over two days, the first day consisting of a conference of the Railway Club, and on the second day the actual event took place, the competition to which we had a very large influx of spectators.

The European tram driver Championship was won by the representatives of the city of Vienna, Sandra Kaider and Andreas Kainrad. The team from Gotteborg ranked second, and the team from Prague ranked third. The Oradea team, made up of Karoly Eva and Leonte Onita, ranked 14th. Adrian Revnic told us what the prizes consisted of:

The prizes this year consisted of medals, diplomas, cups, and other gifts representing the traditions of Bihor, because, together with a pottery company from Vadu Crişului, we offered them hand-made ceramics, white painted ceramic. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places received these ceramic vases, and three teams, Best ranked newcomer’, ‘The oldest competitor’ and The most popular team, received some very nicely decorated plates.

We found out that the Newest well-ranked crew of debutantes was the one from Zagreb, The oldest competitor – Olah Hofman, from Leipzig, and The most popular team was the one from Warsaw, whose members came accompanied by a large fan gallery. The prizes for the best drivers were: 1st place – Jen Collins, from Dublin, 2nd place – Robert Ionson, a Romanian settled in Sweden of Gotteborg, and 3rd place – Dominic Jurcevici from Zagreb.

Today we don’t even think twice about going on YouTube to listen to music, or a podcast, or finding a recipe for a dish. However, most people don’t know that YouTube Romania is only 10 years old, and we thought we would love to find out about it from the horse’s mouth, namely from Elisabeta Moraru, Country Manager for Google Romania, and with Dan Oros, head of marketing for Google Romania.

In the spring of 2013, Google launched its YouTube version for Romania. It hosted content adapted for users in the country, allowing content creators here to be more easily discovered, and companies to use the platform for promotion. Elisabeta Moraru told us how, starting 10 years ago, the notion of vlogger became different from that of blogger, providing a place to publish online videos.

“These have been 10 extraordinary years, and we looked back to how turbulent these 10 years were, during which YouTube, like Prince Charming, grew three times faster than others in the same period of time. Some moments are almost forgotten, but some are imprinted in our memory, because there have been projects launched during this time that we are very proud of. In April 2013, we were launching officially the Romanian version of YouTube. This brought with it the first Romanian viral clips, and helped us grow exponentially this ecosystem.

As the anthem of vloggers went, ‘We make it for you, you give us a share back’, this was back in 2015. Here is Elisabeta Moraru, continuing the story:

“Things changed in these 10 years. More and more people were hearing about vloggers, and they started to follow them on the platform, and categories emerged with a very large following, such as the area of beauty care. We held an event where I found out many beauty secrets. One of our colleagues back then was also a vlogger, and back then she had around 15,000 subscribers. Today she has 10 times more. That was a beautiful moment at the Google House.

From those promising moments at that time, the enthusiasm grew to a degree that was hard to imagine.

Dan Oros, head of marketing for Google Romania, brought us to the present:

“Now let’s get back to the present, in 2023, and look at some data. Let’s start with the most important figure, which is 12 million. Over 12 million adults visit YouTube every month. I follow YouTube all the time, I find useful information here, I find music, entertainment, education, and we are very happy to see this figure growing with every year. What is interesting is the way in which adults in Romania consume YouTube. Of course, at first it was using desktops. Now the order is different. First we have the smartphone, then the TV set, and then the laptop or desktop. If we talk about the TV, 5.5 million Romanians use them for YouTube.

And, as we are talking about the digital era, things do not stop here. Here is Dan Oros again:

“This number is growing. Also, what is also growing is the time people spend watching TV. We can see people watching YouTube on TV following longer and longer videos, such as podcasts or documentaries. What do people tell us about watching YouTube? In addition to all this quantitative information, we want to provide you with some qualitative information. Last year we ran a study together with IPSOS, to see what people are watching. 91% of Romanians going on the platform told us that they learned something new from there. And I think we all could learn something from YouTube. 85% of Romanians going there believe that watching content and using the platform is helpful when picking out a product they want to purchase. Maybe they found out about a new phone model, an interesting car, maybe they saw a better performing gaming laptop which they would like to get. Such a search could may have helped them make a decision on making the purchase. Eight out of ten Romanians tell us that they find on YouTube unique content, that they cannot find somewhere else. Last but not least, 74% say that advertisements there helped them discover new products and brand names. What we are noticing that brand names are becoming more and more creative, more original in the ads that they place on the platform for users, which makes us very glad.

Dan Oros continued:

“There are over 8,000 Romanian channels which have over 10,000 subscribers. Also, according to data from December 2022, there are over 1,600 channels with over 100,000 subscribers, and, even better, there are over 150 channels in Romania with more than a million subscribers, so that they got the golden button.

The first YouTube content creator to hit one million subscribers was Mihai Alexandru Hash, handle Mikey Hash, who reached this number in 2016. In late 2022, there were over 150 channels in Romania with over a million members, 20% more than in late 2021. The first diamond button, granted to channels that hit the level of over 10 million subscribers, was received in 2020 by LooLoo Kids. This was the first YouTube channel in Central and Eastern Europe to his this landmark.

The NARATIV Festival, now in its fifth edition, is organized by the Curtea Veche Association, and is endorsed by the Bucharest school inspectorate. In terms of figures, it runs over 2 days, and it involves 30 educators and 100 free workshops for students.

Iren Arsene, director of the Curtea Veche Publishing House, and president of the Curtea Veche Association, told us about it:

“We want to help kids to get closer to books, to reading in general. On March 25 and 26, at the Central School National College, we will have over 30 different workshops, which, when repeated, will number 100 in number, where kids between 7 and 14 will take part in various workshops led by actors, teachers, chemists, people who are good at their jobs, who will be able to tell them that all jobs are based on a book or several books. We are talking about workshops for acting, anatomy, comic books, and sports. We have to give kids the message that reading is a pleasant activity. The way we do that is that, while kids are in their workshops, their parents can sit down with psychologists who can give them ideas about reading for pleasure, how we can start that, and then maintain that habit.”

The Curtea Veche Association was set up in March of 2014, in order to develop independently and continuously the social responsibility activities started by Curtea Veche Publishing, through the national alternative reading program The Books of Youth, which aimed at increasing interest among kids and youth for reading, raising the level of understanding of texts, and increasing consumption of books in Romania. We asked Iren Arsene about the participation in the NARATIV project:

“At the edition we had before the pandemic, we had 1,500 students over the weekend. We hope to have the same this time, 100 workshops with 15 to 20 children per workshop.”

Iren Arsene believes we have to encourage children to turn them into readers:

“If we dont help them, then we cannot have any expectations, because you know how many possibilities they have these days. So, of we teach them, if we can somehow instill in them this habit, then they are sure to read. Adults are also responsible for this, and this is why we try to do our duty, and tackle reading from several directions. For instance, we can make a theater play out of a text, we can teach debate, we can teach them how to talk about books from the universal corpus. And if they get the bug, they will be reading. But, if this does not happen in school, and it does not happen in the home, and if children dont have another ways of being closer to books, then they gradually move away from books when they finish schooling.”

Some of the workshops proposed by the NARATIV Festival are debate, acting, improv, comic books, storytelling, creative writing, but also programming, ecology, astronomy, chemistry, and physics, and even financial literacy.

Children can register online for their preferred workshop, and not for just one. Each of them will be 50 minutes long, followed by a break. The little ones will be encouraged to ask questions and discuss freely, stimulating their thinking and their communication skills. For instance, in the workshop called Story Journalist, they are invited to explore a text alongside director Barna Nemethi, discovering the secrets of storytelling through investigation techniques which will spark their curiosity and interest for reading.

Through dialog with parents, the latter can find out what are the best methods by which they can encourage their kids to discover the joy of reading, taking part in the conference How the Habit of Reading is Gained, held by psychologist Nora Neghina.

Starting in 2014, the BEAUTIK Haute Parfumerie opened the gates of the first perfume museum in Romania. It is a private collection, unique in Romania, very valuable historically, bringing together creations and tradition, but also Romanian exhibits, recipients which stand witness to the glory days of Romanian interwar perfume making.

Georgian Gheorghe, head of PR for the museum, told us its story:

“Everything started in 2006 with the purchase of a vial of perfume, a special one for us, and emblematic of the museum, because it was a vial of perfume worn by Queen Marie of Romania. It was later dedicated to her, and a strong connection was recorded by history between the perfume and the queen. This is the Mon Boudoir perfume from the Paris Houbigant House. Much later, in 2014, we opened the museum proper, in December. It is a museum that has a wing for Romanian perfumes from the communist period, a wing for international perfumes from all over Europe, and more from the US, the Americas, Australia, and Asia.”

Georgian Gheorghe told us about the history of perfumes in Romania:

“Right now we have no tradition at all, and I doubt it will ever recover to the level that it once was. That is because, before the communist period, Romania copied everything made abroad, in order to have such an industry ourselves. Later came the factories from the communist period, which made history to an extent. There are several brands that existed in Romania in those times: Red Poppy, made by Miraj, the brand that took over the factory, and we also had the Farmec factory in Cluj. Before this, Romania, between the wars, was one of the strongest countries in Europe in terms of the perfume industry. That is because there were many world famous brands that had, at the time, factories or branches in Romania, such as Coty, or Guerlain, or House Legrain. However, there was not necessarily a cult of perfume making in the country, in terms of the industry, it was more that the country was a major hub for large international producers.”

Georgian Gheorghe tols us about the museum collection proper:

“Right now, in the Perfume Museum we have around 400 exhibits, but our entire collection, which is impressive, includes upwards of 10,000 items. When I say items, I am talking about many products, not just the vials of perfume. In this exhibition you find codices on perfume making, all kinds of plant catalogs with presentations and details on products and ingredients, how they were used, or what they brought as added value to a perfume, as well as products that complement perfumes, such as foundation, sometimes perfumed, or makeup products like lipstick, blushes, etc.”

The perfume shop that hosts this museum preserves the elegance of times past, attracting select clients. Here is Georgian Gheorghe:

“Among our top clients are personalities from the world of arts and culture, as well as members of the Romanian royal family, because we are also purveyors to the Royal House of Romania, and we have a close relationship with the family, including Princess Margaret, the Custodian of the Crown.”

The Perfume Museum is often associated with cultural events, as Georgian Gheorghe told us:

“Weve had several events outside the museum. These are events that took us all over the country, we held exhibits in Constanta, Iasi, Cluj, Alba Iulia, even in Sinaia, where we took part in an exclusive event we organized together with the Royal House at the Peles Museum. We held an exhibition at the Pelisor, the Little Peles, which is part of the Sinaia Museum Complex. In addition, we also had some more temporary exhibitions in key buildings. One of them was an exhibition we held in Oradea, four years ago, an exhibition in a renovated historical building. We also have an exhibition in Alba Iulia started in December, where we wanted to have as a crown exhibit Queen Maries perfume. This was a very close and beautiful collaboration with the city leadership, who helped us organize this exhibition, and we are planning more theme exhibitions in the future. I invite all your listeners to follows us on social media, because there you can find additional information and updates.”

The Perfume Museum can also be an attraction for those interested in historical artifacts. This exhibition contains rare items with great international significance, such as a perfume appreciated by King Carol I of Romania. This is a famous fragrance, made in the oldest factory in the world, in Cologne, the famous Water of Cologne. It was created by Johann Maria Farina, the first perfume purveyor to the Royal House. His name can be seen in documents showing deliveries to the Romanian royal house starting in 1889.

Even though death is met with sadness in our culture, in the area of Maramures, in the north, in the village of Sapanta, and back in 1935, a tradition was started, which became the so-called Merry Cemetery. The year 1935 was when the first funny epitaph appeared on a cross, and, since the 1960s, the cemetery is sprinkled with over 800 such crosses, made of oak wood, becoming a veritable open air museum, a tourist attraction. Visitors here may notice that some crosses are painted on both sides. On one side there is a description of the life of the deceased, on the other a description of the cause of death. Most cross inscriptions are badly spelled on purpose, and some are in archaic or dialectal speech.

Today we are at the third generation of traditional craftsmen carrying on the tradition. We were told the story of this craft by Ana-Maria Stan, the daughter of Dumitru Pop-Tincu, who was the apprentice of Stan Ioan Patras, the first creator of these crosses. She is the wife of the one who continues the tradition, Stan Ioan Patras III, grandson to the creator.

“My father was an apprentice to Stan Patras from the age of 9. Then he continued his studies, left for Timisoara, then came back after Stan Patras died in 1977. He then continued, then unfortunately died at 67. Father carried on the tradition as the apprentice to Stan Patras. He loved the village, being a Sapanta local, also working as the apprentice, he got to love the craft and he continued it. Stan Patras, with his crosses, helped us locals to get easier over death, which in the end is part of our lives. For us it is normal. I am young, I grew up with this, and it is the same for all of us locals, it is normal.

A hypothesis was launched according to which Stan Ioan Patras, who lived between 1908 and 1977, was inspired by the culture of the Dacians, who found death to be a reason for merriment. Aware of the passage of time, local creators all had apprentices. Here is Ana-Maria Stan:

“Father, just like Stan Patras, had 2 daughters. Father, in turn, also had a son, and along the years he trained several apprentices. I got married in 2011, and my husband worked with father. This was not from the start. After we got married he helped around the workshop, and this is how he learned. He has a son, but if anyone else would try to learn the craft, he would teach them.

We asked Ana-Maria Stan if visitors to the cemetery have a favorite epitaph:

“The most sought after epitaph in the Merry Cemetery is that made by father for his mother-in-law, saying something on the lines of: ‘Underneath this heavy cross/ Lies mother-in-law, what a loss/ If she’d lived a week more, blunder/ She’d be reading, I’d be under’.

The crosses in the Merry Cemetery represent values that can be compared to any great work or creation, witness to a gifted people, with a true creative vocation. The crosses are inspired from everyday life of people, with all its experiences. They reflect the entire life of the departed. The cross is a mirror to the late person, their entire life is on there. The crosses that made the village of Sapanta famous are unique by the blue color they are painted in, but mainly for the funny epitaphs that describe them. They are all written in the local dialect. Dumitru Pop Tincu used to say that, even though he didn’t use that old language in real life, he kept strictly to it on the crosses, for the sake of his master teacher.

Ana-Maria Stan, Dumitru Pop Tincu’s daughter, told us how the crosses are made, how long it takes, and she invited us in her husband’s workshop:

“You can find us here, in Sapanta, in the Ioan Stan Patras Memorial House, where you can visit and see what he did along his life. Also, my father left behind a few paintings, and, of course, the workshop in which we still work. You can see live the way we work, and how a painted cross is built. There are several stages, from the cutting of the wood, into a long strip, which gets dried for about 7 years, and then it takes about 3 to 4 weeks to honor an order. In these parts, we don’t put up the cross right when someone dies. The family comes over about a year later to put in the order. After the family does so, depending on the workload, it takes about 3 to 4 weeks.

The Merry Cemetery in Sapanta, one of the best known places related to Romanian culture and traditions, brings in thousands of tourists every year.

For several months now, an edutainment park in
Bucharest has been encouraging kids to learn by playing, in a centre designed
as a miniature city. Children have a chance to find out what profession they
might be interested in, a more than welcome initiative given that in schools they
usually have access to theoretical, rather than practical information about
various occupations. We talked about the idea with marketing and communication
manager Ana-Maria Pascaru:

Ana-Maria Pascaru: Destiny Park is in fact the first edutainment park in Romania. We
opened it on 2 September, so it’s been 4 months already. We are glad to have
brought this concept to the Romanian market. Learning by playing is a
relatively new concept in our country and it somehow completes the non-formal
education kids are getting outside school curricula. We target children aged 4
to 14, which is quite a large age group, and our main goal, as I was saying, is
to educate by play. The centre is basically a miniature city, or as we like to
say, a city run by children. There is an industrial area, with places where
children learn, for instance, about furniture manufacturing, or about dairy
processing or about agriculture and what the agriculture of the future will
look like. There is another area focusing on medicine, with a dental clinic and
a hospital with several wards, including a surgery section, an emergency room,
a neonatal unit and ambulance service. In all these areas, we teach children
what certain professions are about. Obviously, we only cover the basics, we
given children some information, but we do it through play, which makes it easier
and more fun for kids to learn.

The marketing and communication manager Ana-Maria
Pascaru highlighted the novelty that the experiences in this centre brings to
children’s lives:

Ana-Maria Pascaru: If you remember, in the past there were visits to parents’ workplaces.
I understand this is still a thing, but not in all companies. Destiny Park is
the place where many children get in touch with certain professions for the
first time. These professions cover a wide range, from the IT sector to
medicine, agriculture, industry, chemistry lab, airplane pilot and so on. And
it’s all very attractive to them, because they play and they learn.

The project initiators also thought about
getting children familiar with the concept of social responsibility, so a
number of projects are under way, in which kids are encouraged to contribute:

We
are running several campaigns of Environmental Corporate Social
Responsibility. We started off even before opening the park, even in
the pandemic we had some activities with the Grigore Alexandrescu
hospital for children, then, in August, before opening, we had 2
weeks when we had 2,500 children visiting, children from
disadvantaged backgrounds, or children with disabilities, with free
access. This project continues. In December we started gathering what
we call magic money. Magic money is the currency of our little city.
Kids who enter the part, based on the ticket they purchased, get a
check, then some magic money. The first lesson is the economy lesson,
as we call it. The moment when they get this money, they can attend
certain activities. For the fun ones they have to pay, and for the
ones they work in they get paid a wage. The magic money represent the
Destiny Park currency, and we thought it would be nice to encourage
kids to donate, to learn civic spirit, to learn that giving is
beautiful, and giving to kids of lower means is something they should
do. As a result, we started setting aside money from kids. If they
run out of money at the end of their experience, when the park tour
ends, they can donate it, or take it home and use it again when they
come back. This is how we started gathering magic money, and our
foundation, through this gesture that is, after all, symbolic, turns
magic money into tickets for disadvantaged children.

Kids
come here to have fun, but they learn that work is very important
too:

Some
only work, others only try to have fun, but, as I told you, at some
point they run out of money and have to work. They can’t ask their
parents for money, because everything happens with magic money. We
have two kinds of tickets: three and a half hours, or a full day.
Most parents, especially on their first visit to the park, take the
three and a half hour experience, since each experience is between 15
and 20 minutes. Upon entering, the kids can have a tour of the park.
This is what we advise them and their parents, so they can see what
they would like to do. So, one they get it, they pick and choose
their activities, where they want to go, and usually many of them are
very happy to work, because they are proud of getting a salary.

Ana-Maria
Pascaru told us what older children enjoy and choose to do:

The
older ones, between 10 and 14, head to the more fun or more
interesting activities. For instance, the Aviation Academy is a very
popular area with older children, because we have two real flight
simulations, where the older children love playing. This is a very
desirable area for the older kids, the same as the hospital area, or
the Formula 1 simulator area.

We
found out that most guides in the park know English, but many or them
also speak Russian or French, so that the park is welcoming for
children of various nationalities.

He decided to settle in Romania from
the Netherlands in 2011, he married in Sic, a village in Transylvania located
40 km from Cluj Napoca, to a woman who owned a saltwater lake, so his most
recent project is to organise trips and accommodation in the area, including
swimming in the lake and dancing at the Dance Museum he set up in the village. The
Romanian story of Michel van Langeveld, however, began much earlier:

I’m a fanatic folk dancer and I
started folk dancing when I was 20 years old, in Holland. I finished my school
and in September 1980 I went to a dancing club and I liked it so much that that
same evening I became a member of the dance community and every week I learned
the dances of Europe, Israel, America, everywhere. In 1984 I went to Amsterdam
and in a second-hand bookshop I saw a book about Transylvania and Hungary. In
1990, for the first time I went to Sic.

Michel van Langeveld is not the
first foreigner to fall in love with Romania and stay here, most often
breathing new life into the places where they set up home. He says it was the
traditions and the beauty of the village of Sic and its authentic rural
landscape that convinced him to settle here:

It was also for me a great surprise
because after 1990 I went to Romania every year after the Revolution and
Transylvanian Hungarians started to organise dance camps and also you could
learn the Hungarian music and songs. I went to a lot of dance camps in
Transylvania, but also across the Carpathians, to the Moldavian way of dancing,
and that’s also very nice. And more and more, because I attended these dance
camps, I went to places that were so beautiful that I always said to myself:
put a gate around Romania and you have an open-air museum. I like the
traditions, I like the people very much and in 2004 in Sic I saw a blue Transylvanian
house with a roof that I thought was very romantic and I decided to buy that
house.

And from buying a house here and
turning it into a museum it was only a small step. The Dance Museum in Sic
currently houses 460 pairs of boots using in traditional dancing, as well as
music instruments. Michel van Langeveld:

I have a very big collection of
violins, double basses. A lot of tourists are coming thanks to the Tourist
Office in Cluj Napoca. In the surroundings, in Sic, we have, after the Danube
Delta, the second largest field of reeds which is called in the Romanian
language stufaris. A lot of Japanese tourists are coming and people from
Israel. Near Sic you have the city of Gherla, it’s an Armenian city but it has
also a Jewish synagogue. A lot of people from Israel come to visit this
synagogue and on the same day they also like to come my place because I once
told the guide that I can dance 200 Israeli dances and spontaneously I started
to sing an Israeli song and within a couple of seconds everybody was dancing.

The rooms of the museum house still
retain their traditional look, with one room decorated with hand-made
embroidery and rugs. We also find here painted pottery and a small collection
of old radio sets, reminiscent of a time when people used to dance to the
museum they heard of the radio.