Photo credit: (c) Eugenia PASCA / AGERPRES ARCHIVE

“Tourists, most of them Romanians, alongside foreigners too have chosen to spend the night between years either in the half-board houses in the Maramures County’s villages and communes, or in the motels and hotels of the five spas of the county. For those who preferred the New Year’s night in the countryside, traditional meals are waiting for them, of which the pork meals will keep the top: cabbage rolls (sarmale), jellied pork, white and black pudding, smoked bacon, next to Transylvanian specific meals. The traditional sponge cake and the stone baked, the wine and the mulled plum brandy from their own household too will complete the meals seasoned with some other culinary goodies in order to diversify the food on this special night,” the chairman of the National Agency of Cultural and Ecological Rural Tourism (ANTREC) Maramures, Victoria Berbecaru told Agerpres.

The tourists who are going to spend the New Year in the country will be carolled, and bands of folk music will delight their ears with recitals courtesy to some board houses’ owners.

“We are pleased that all guest houses and motels in the Borsa mountain spa are fully booked this year. It’s a sign that one could make performing tourism when having good road infrastructure,” said, in his turn, the Maramures County Council’s deputy-chairman, Gabriel Zetea.

Tourists who have chosen as destination the Vaserului Valley will enjoy an outdoors’ New Year’s night in the Maramuresului Mts., after strolling with the Mocanita narrow gauge train more than 21 km till the Novat-Paltin terminus station, where the train’s owners have completed preparations for a nature party.

“At end-journey, in the Novat-Paltin station tourists will descend and will be expected to spend their New Year’s night in open air at camp fire. All comfort conditions were created for such an event. The meals are traditional, and completed with hot wine and the customary Maramures mulled plum brandy, next to champagne. The charm of the night between years spent in the strong mountain air is something special and we are happy that the foreign tourists choose to spend the end of the year in such a landscape,” said Ioan Coma, the manager of the Viseul de Sus Forest Railway which administers the Mocanita train.

Price of a ride with the Mocanita train is included in the open-air New Year’s night and oscillates from 158 RON to 258 RON (rd 35 EUR to 57 EUR), and without accommodation. (1 EUR=rd 4.47 RON)

The price for the most important night of the year in a rural board house in Maramures County varies from 150 RON to 250 RON, and a day of full accommodation, B&B, could make it to 70-120 RON.

Over 440 guest houses, motels and hotels operate in the Maramures County, according to the ANTREC.AGERPRES

Photo credit (c) Mihai Dragos GEORGESCU / AGERPRES ARCHIVE

Rosu (27 of age) won bronze in the snatch event, with 140 kg, with Moldovan Dumitru Captari ranking first, 155 kg, and South Korean Le Min-woong ranking 2nd,with 143 kg.

Counting all liftings, Captari took the first spot, with 350 kg, followed by Rosu, 316 and Lee, 315.

Romania has another five athletes left in the competition: Nicolae Onica (94 kg), Loredana Heghis (58 kg), Bianca Ionita (63 kg) and Mariana-Georgiana Dumitrache (69 kg). AGERPES

Photo credit (c) Gabriel BADEA / AGERPRES ARCHIVE

The hot shot video was being watched 30,000 times, almost three times more than the next ranked shot from the match opposing Venus Williams (USA) and Angelique Kerber (Germany) in Montreal. With only one day before this match, Halep also managed to climb up to the second position in the WTA ranking, which is her best rank so far.

More than that, Halep has another hot shot in the top five, ranked 4th, from when she played against Agnieszka Radwanska in Indian Wells. However, the Polish player was the one to claim the victory back then, with the score of 6-3, 6-4. AGERPRES

Photo credit: (c) Cristian NISTOR / AGERPRES ARCHIVE

Calugareanu, with CSA Steaua club, is ranked No 1 in the to-date rankings of the 2014/2015 World Foil Cup season with 100 points.

Ranking 5th is Romanian Maria Boldor, while Ana Boldor takes the 42nd spot.

In junior sabre, the best-placed Romanians in the World Cup rankings are Adrian Dabija (No. 45) and Claudia Naboiu (No. 42). AGERPRES

Photo credit: (c) Sorin LUPSA / AGERPRES ARCHIVE

King Michael turned 93 years old on October 25, and he celebrated his name day on Nov. 8.

People of all ages, from children to the elderly, attended the ceremony held in the garden of the Elisabeta Palace. A military band played military songs, but also arias from famous operas.

The King stepped out onto the balcony around midday, alongside Princess Margareta and Prince Radu and greeted the crowd; after this moment, the band started to sing the Royal Anthem. Many people had tears in their eyes when seeing the royal family. They chanted “King Michael!”, “The King and the Fatherland!”, “Monarchy saves Romania!”.

President-elect of Romania, Klaus Iohannis also attended the event; he was welcomed at the entrance to the palace by Princess Margareta and Prince Radu Duda.

Klaus Iohannis gave Princess Margareta a bouquet of flowers.

An offbeat presence was that of former classmate of the King, Lascar Zamfirescu. “I love him very much, because he had a hard and unjust life,” Lascar Zamfirescu said referring to King Michael.AGERPRES

Photo credit: (c) CAMELIA BIGAN / AGERPRES STREAM

The 33-year-old Dutch has inherited his love for animals from his parents, as it has been handed down from generation to generation. After working in the Netherlands and the US, the young man decided to come to Romania, where he used his experience to open a farm at Naipu and another one in Slobozia.

‘I have chosen Romania of all the countries. I graduated from an animal husbandry faculty in 2003, after which I practised for six months in the US and six month in Romania, in Deva, but in the end I chose Romania because I like it very much as a country; I like its people and opportunities. In the Netherlands and the US there are full-blown systems with strict rules where it is hard to get. Everything is well established there and there is no more room to get in the system. The opportunities in Romania are greater than in the US or the Netherlands,’ the Dutch farmer says.

He says he first came to Giurgiu County in Romania as a manager and opened his first farm in the village of Naipu, after which he acquired another farm in Slobozia. He admits that prices are also much smaller in Romania: one hectare of land costs 80,000 euros in the Netherlands, while in Romania he paid up to 3,000 euros for one hectare.

‘I started up with a farm in 2004, at Naipu, where we own 1,000 hectares, and two years later we bought land in Slobozia as well, where we now have 200 hectares of land, we started with 100 own cows from the family’s farm, money from our parents, no bank loan, and now we have 1,600 cows with calves,’ he says.

To reach Harry’s farm in Slobozia we followed the indications of a local villager, who waxes poetic about the Dutch young man, saying he is proud to know him, because the farmer is employing some 20 locals, paying them European wages, because ‘Dutch people mean business.’

Photo credit: (c) CAMELIA BIGAN / AGERPRES STREAM

Harry’s farm was set up in the former communist collective farm of Slobozia that was abandoned after the December 1989 Revolution. His office is modest, located right near the cattle halls — a small, concrete floor room without floor covering. The young man follows on a display everything that happens in the farm. Nothing escapes him. A white coat and a bonnet stay at hand that he puts on when entering the halls. His feet are shod in leather clogs with wooden soles.

Harry says he has fallen in love with the places, he feels good here and he cannot be away for long. Romania has become his home country. ‘I have made my home here, but I also go to the Netherlands. Last time I went there it was as short while ago, for my Grandpa’s funeral, but I arrived there by plane at 09:00 o’clock in the evening and the next day at 09:00 o’clock in the morning I took the train back to Romania. I call this place my home; it is here where I feel good; I have my own family, my own business. We also spend our holidays here in Romania, but in the mountains. I like Romanian villages because in the Netherlands there are no more houses with pigs and cows; the animals are staying at farms only,’ adds Harry.

He is married to a Romanian woman and together they have a daughter. ‘I met my wife at Naipu, where I opened my first farm. It was love at first sight, at least on my part. I believe now it is on the part of both of us, because we have a 10-month daughter who received Romanian names,’ says Harry.

In fact, the only picture he keeps on his desk is a picture of his wife and his daughter, confessing that he loves his family and traditions a lot, and that he has a respect for his forerunners. ‘Our daughter is called Andreea Maria: Andreea because that is also the name of my sister, and Maria because that is my mother-in-law’s name. I like the children to bear the names from one generation to the other; my wife does not like it, but I am traditionalist and I insisted on that,’ he says.

After almost ten years in Romania, Harry van der Bruk has got to know the country and its people. ‘Romanian workers know a little something of everything — agriculture, soldering, computers. Dutch employees are specialised and if some unspecialised comes to a cattle farm he or she knows nothing; I cannot say which is the better, but that is what sets the Romanian and Dutch workers apart. Workers knowing a little of everything could be an advantage. For the rest, my cooperation with the local officials goes on well, but there is a lot of red tape,’ the young farmer says.

When he arrived in Romania, he had 100 cows from his family’s farm, but now Harry has 1,600 and has managed to access two European projects — one worth 600,000 euros, under which he bought equipment for his arm at Naipu, and another one worth 2 million euros, under which he wants to set up a 400-cow hall at his farm in Slobozia.

Photo credit: (c) CAMELIA BIGAN / AGERPRES STREAM

Asked about what else he wants, he says everything revolves around family, children and health, and less so around wealth. Talking with Harry goes on smoothly, but his eyes are glued to the displays on his desk.

When we left, he volunteered to give us a bottle of milk. A worker explains his gesture, ‘He is of Germanic origins, but he has borrowed some of the Romanians’ customs: he has become more welcoming, more giving.’

Here in Romania, Harry has found his peace and he knows he has made a decision he will never regret. To him, the Netherlands is a pleasant memory, but the book of his life is being written in Romania. AGERPRES

Photo credit: (c) CRISTIAN NISTOR / AGERPRES ARCHIVE

Branza defeated her Steaua CSA fellow Simona Gherman in the final 12-0, after the 15-4 victory on Adela Danciu of the same club in the semifinal. Gherman had advanced to the final by defeating Cezara Constantin of Craiova LPS 15-9 in the other semifinal.

In the men’s competition, Munzone of Scherma Acireale won the final against Alin Mitrica of Craiova CSU 12-6. The semifinals were Munzone versus Adrian Pop of Satu Mare CSM 15-0 and Mitrica vs. Arkosi Bertalan of Satu Mare CSM 15-0.
It was Branza’s second consecutive victory in the Alfredo Bachelli Trophy, a competition dedicated to the Italian fencer who founded the fencing school of Craiova. AGERPRES

Photo credit: (c) CRISTIAN NISTOR/AGERPRES ARCHIVE

More than once, I have seen people coming and touching doors, windows, pots and fencings at this museum of the old soul, moved by a nostalgia that only they know, then smiling and saying out loud ‘I’ve grown up here. This is my grandfather’s home.’

And to see that the childhood memories’ sack is bottomless, I lingered for a moment on a note in the museum’s guestbook by someone from Fundu Moldovei, Suceava County, who has written, ‘Today I had the opportunity to attend an emotional moment occasioned by the consecration of a blacksmith’s workshop acquired by the Village Museum from a relative of ours from the beautiful Bucovina, Fundu Moldovei. This way we could admire the richness of the museum and the people taking care of its management. The scenery is great, and the exhibits are displayed in a completely natural, appropriate and well organised framework. We thank everyone who deal with and put their soul in preserving traditional customs. Our highest consideration, Family Grigorean Dumitru. We are living now in Bucharest, but I was born in Fundu Moldovei, Suceava County.’

The Astra Museum of Traditional Folk Civilisation, which in 2013 celebrated its 50th anniversary, is the largest open-air museum in Romania and the second largest in Europe. It covers 96 hectares, of which the exhibition itself covers 42 hectares and it is enriched every year with at least four to five monuments.

Photo credit: (c) CRISTIAN NISTOR/AGERPRES ARCHIVE

Located in the Dumbrava Sibiului Natural Park, the museum has a lake and more than ten kilometres of trails. It is not only just an open-air ethnographic exhibition, but it also offers complete tourist packages. Visitors can enjoy a wide range of traditional dishes in the rustic ambience of Carciuma din Batrani, the pub of good old’ years, the Tulghes Inn and the Vestem Inn, with the latter also providing accommodations. A double room, breakfast included, costs RON 120 here.

The tourist infrastructure of the ASTRA Museum was expanded in 2007 with the two-star Diana Hostel, which can accommodate 70 guests. In 2013, about 1,500 people came and in January-July 2014 it welcomed 710 tourists. One overnight at the Diana Hostel costs between RON 30 and 50 per person.

The Conference Room, with all the necessary technical equipment, can seat 120 people, and it can be rented on request.

For the most pleasant free time spending, the museum offers the possibility of travelling by boat on the lake, by carriage or by sleigh. In 2011, the Astra Museum of Traditional Folk Civilisation was listed in the Michelin Green Guide with the highest distinction: three stars.

Photo credit: (c) ISABELA PAULESCU/AGERPRES ARCHIVE

The number of visitors to the open-air museum grew exponentially from year to year, from about 120,000 people a year in 2007 to 188,495 in 2012 and 220,130 in 2013. Nearly 30 per cent of them are foreign tourists, according to Eliza Penciu of the museum’s Marketing Department.

The events that attracted the largest number of visitors in the past years were the Night of Museums — 14,500 visitors; the National Festival of Folk Traditions and the Craftsmen’s Fair—8,850 visitors; the Traditional Artistic Crafts Olympiad — 4,837 visitors.

The Sibiu museum has rich cultural offerings throughout the year.

The events that attract the highest number of visitors to the open-air museum are those included in the ‘Living Human Treasures’ programme: the Traditional Artistic Crafts Olympiad (at its 19th edition in 2014), the National Festival of Folk Traditions and the Craftsmen’s Fair (12th edition), the Trade Fair of Romanian Folk Craftspeople (which turns 31 in 2014) and the National Festival of Traditions and Customs. Other important events of the Astra are the Nice. Ceramic. Useful. International Trade Fair, the Universal Day of the Folk Blouse, the Infant Day and the trade fair of brands.

Photo credit: (c) ROMULUS BRUMA/AGERPRES ARCHIVE

At the Astra Museum, volunteers join curators and supervisors. The museum carries out volunteer programmes that offer young people the opportunity to develop useful social and professional skills. In April 29, 2013 — May 12, 2013, a project called ‘Education for volunteering in the cultural sector’ was conducted, financed by AFCN, as part of the VOLAM volunteerism platform initiated by DALA Foundation and the and the Astra Museum of Traditional Folk Civilisation, in partnership with UNION REMPART of France, a federation of NGOs with expertise in the refurbishment, preservation and promotion of international heritage.

In July 2014, the Astra Museum welcomed three groups of volunteers from Romanian and foreign universities that conducted conservation and refurbishment works on monuments and heritage objects of the Astra Museum as well as activities to promote the Astra Museum of Traditional Folk Civilisation.

Summer vacation is highly spirited. Visitors are submerged in the atmosphere of traditional villages, while being presented a new approach to the capitalisation on the museum’s assets through cultural events of the past decades, particularly the Living Human Treasures programme. Trade fairs and workshops by craftspeople, folklore shows, gastronomic events at the Country Trade Fair make up a quasi-permanent summer programme offering Romanian and foreign tourists alike the opportunity to discover the Romanian traditions.

In fact, the Astra Museum feels like a miniature Romania, the Romania of the countryside. The long-term development strategy of the Astra Museum includes the reconstruction of the specific cultural landscape around monuments by preserving and cultivating traditional fruit trees and traditional vegetable varieties, cereals, technical crops and flowers. Another development direction is represented by attracting new audiences, getting closer to the community, in order to extend the possibility of creative leisure. In this regard, workshops were held for the auditing and improvement of tourist products and services, the development of tourist business plans and of a feasibility study for the establishment of a Centre for Regional Resources and Activities at the open-air museum in Dumbrava Sibiului.

Photo credit: (c) AGERPRES ARCHIVE

In order to preserve unaltered the paradise of the Romanian countryside, the museum has been concerned with attracting investment, especially foreign one. The Astra National Museum Compound has accessed external non-repayable funds under two major projects funded by the financial mechanism of the European Economic Area (Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein).

The first of these projects focused on creating a modern centre for the conservation and refurbishment of cultural heritage assets. In early September 2009, construction works started on the Astra Heritage Centre, at the third entry gate to the Astra Museum of Traditional Folk Civilisation, that covers 1,878 square metres of multi-purpose space, including storage areas for the museum’s collections, conservation and refurbishment laboratories, a training centre for Romania’s conservators and curators (CePCoR). The total budget provided for the project amounted to 2,916,238 euros. Astra, with direct support from the Sibiu County Council, contributed 15.58 per cent toward the project. The project was completed in 2011.

In recognition of the results of implementing a previous project, when Astra demonstrated administrative and professional skills in reaching all the proposed cultural and investment indicators and using up 99.9 per cent of the available funds, the Astra Museum of Traditional Folk Civilisation was named a potential beneficiary for a new round of fund allocations for the priority sector ‘European Cultural Heritage Conservation.’ The designation was made under an agreement between the European Economic Area (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway) and the Romanian Government on the implementation of the EEA Financial Mechanism 2009-2014, published in the Official Journal of April 23, 2012.

Photo credit: (c) ROMULUS BRUMA/AGERPRES ARCHIVE

By April 2016, an Open Heritage project is carried out at Astra to increase public access to the multi-ethnic heritage values of the Astra Museum, set at 3,500,054 million euros.

The project envisages a complex cultural program, including a partnership with MiST — Museum of South Trondelag of Trondheim, Norway, designed to strengthen bilateral relations through joint research into the cultural history of ethnic minorities, reconstruction, preservation and refurbishment of representative monuments at the open-air museum, to develop and promote an exhibition circuit called the Road of Ethnic Minorities and to improve physical accessibility by the construction of a new building at the open-air museum (to host the Museum of Transylvanian Civilisation that currently has no location, and a modern access facility, both included in the Multicultural Museum Pavilion — PaMM).

‘The Astra Museum has witnessed a growing influx of visitors over the last years, with a turning point in the year when Sibiu was a European Capital of Culture, when the number of visitors doubled from the previous year. Since 2008, the open-air museum has constantly had 200,000 visitors, being the most visited facility of the institution. The Astra Museum became a landmark for everybody, because of its numerous national and international projects carried out and its constant involvement in the efforts to promote traditional values locally and regionally,’ Astra Museum Director Ciprian Stefan tells Agerpres.

According to him, the museum in Padurea Dumbrava Sibiului prides itself on the most extensive collection of mills in Europe, over 30 mills, some almost two centuries old and, most importantly, still operational.

Photo credit: (c) ISABELA PAULESCU/AGERPRES ARCHIVE

Beyond figures, fresh air, traditions, homes saved from the Romanian countryside, which is losing increasingly more of its charm, you cannot but wonder what miracle occurred in the summer of 2009 in the heart of a family from Fundul Moldovei that came to the heart of Transylvania, in Sibiu. Because that must have been a wondrous joy that filled their hearts for they wrote in the guestbook on Pentecost: ‘On this holy day of Pentecost, we were honoured to join the wonderful people who staged the blessing of the ironsmith’s worship from Fundu Moldovei that belonged to Ioan Burduhas, who died on January 26, 2005. We were pleasantly impressed with the way in which the workshop was restored and we hope that it will be still in such wonderful state many years from now on. Thank you to everyone who had the initiative to purchase for this wonderful museum, a place where we will come with pleasure whenever we have the opportunity.’ AGERPRES

Photo credit: aronet.ro

Founded in 1954 at the initiative of Professor Valeriu Bologa of the Cluj University of Medicine and Pharmacy, the museum is tucked in the Hintz House, a historic monument dating from the fifteenth century, which accommodated the town’s first pharmacy “St. George” — founded by a Saxon family — throughout its uninterrupted operation for almost 400 years (1573 — 1949). As of 1752, the space was rented out to private pharmacists and the first tenant was privileged pharmacist Tobias Mauksch; in 1863, it became ownership of the Hintz family. The property was returned in 2008 to a descendant of the Hintz family (who were the last pharmacists to work here until 1949).

The Hintz House — 1904
Photo credit: aronet.ro

The initial core for the establishment of the museum was the collection of Transylvanian pharmaceutical items of Professor and Corresponding Academy Member Iuliu Orient (1869-1940), which was displayed at the Transylvanian Museum in 1904. Other donations added later on, all bearing remarkable testimony to the pharmaceutical activity in 16th — 19th century Transylvania.

The collection is displayed in three rooms of the old pharmacy and two laboratories that preserve the medieval setting, located at the basement, where an entire arsenal of tools used for the preparation of drugs meets the visitor’s eyes: there’s a distiller for obtaining the alcohol used to extract tinctures from various herbs, containers for melting substances, bowls for the hot preparation of drugs or for roasting therapeutic seeds, presses for medicinal juices, tools for shaping or capsulizing tablets and suppositories, bronze and iron mortars (16th century), old furniture, medicines, prescriptions, seals of medieval pharmacies.

Photo credit: calatorii.myfreeforum.ro

Trade-specific weight units are not missing from the pharmacy collection: the libra (420.82 g), the ounce (35.001 g), the drachma (4.375 g), the scruple — scrupulus in Latin (1.550 g) and the granum (0.072 g).

The museum boasts the most valuable collection of pharmaceutical vessels in Romania, dating from the 16th — 19th century, made of wood, ceramic, earthenware, glass or porcelain, all by well-established manufacturers, painted and engraved with the Latin names of the pharmaceuticals kept in them. Some of these recipients are unique in Europe.

Photo credit: turdalive.ro

The decoration of the Dispensary, the space where drugs were sold, is unique in Romania; it was ordered by pharmacist Tobias Mauksch who has worked here for half a century. The original 18th century ceiling frescoes are preserved, featuring elaborate pharmaceutical symbols: the tree of life surrounded by the two serpents of Aesculapius and a crane holding a stone in its claws as a symbol of watchfulness.

Also to be found here is a pharmaceutical chest from the 17th century, with ten drawers, each with a plate indicating the substance deposited inside: “Crem. Tartari” (potassium hydrogen tartrate, with laxative and diuretic effect); “Lap. Pumicis” (pumice powder, a remedy against intestinal parasites); “Lap.Haematid” (hematite — a trivalent iron oxide; the powder of this mineral was used as antihaemorrhagic agent).

Photo credit: www.welcometoromania.ro

Also to be seen in the Dispensary is the diploma awarded to pharmacist Velits from Turda in 1776. Two wooden panels painted in the eighteenth century represent Greek physician Hippocrates and the goddess of wisdom, Minerva.

Displayed on the prescription preparation table are some drug formulations used by pharmacists in the past such as coral powder, powdered precious stones, crayfish eyes, Syrian asphalt (used to treat rheumatic diseases) or herbal tinctures.

The museum also preserves medical kits used during the war, complete with soothing remedies, medical books and documents belonging to the first pharmacies in Transylvania.

Photo credit: primariaclujnapoca.ro

Among the fascinating exhibits are medicines from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, many of them very bizarre, such as mummy powder — considered a panacea in the Middle Ages and credited with miraculous powers of curing the plague and cholera; Teriaca — a medicine more than 2,000 years old, a complex product with over 60 herbal ingredients that also contained a significant dose of opium, used predominantly as an antidote against poison, as well as an ingredient in even more complex medication; Arabian lizard — used as powder in the manufacturing of diuretics and aphrodisiacs.

Photo credit: romania.ici.ro

The Pharmacy Museum in Cluj-Napoca presented on February 24, 2014, on the Romanian love day — the Dragobete — an ‘Eau d’Amour’ recipe dating from the nineteenth century. The perfume recipe which was high in demand at that time was preserved in the ‘St. George’ apothecaries and contains essential oils of bergamot, rose, orange blossom, violet root oil, and musk, amber, coumarin, vanilla, ylang-ylang, jasmine essence, all these exotic ingredients mixed in various quantities with wine alcohol. The fragrance was prepared in the pharmacy, which was also offering cosmetics in those days, and sold in special, hand painted vials.

The Pharmacy Museum is a special collection that lights the spirit through the passion for serving the profession that imbues the exhibits and the originality of the tools of the trade.

AGERPRES