Raindrops, a gentle drizzle…but everything stands still.

The memorial “Shot Pillars” honours the martyrs from the December 1989 Revolution in Cluj, Transylvania, an artwork that delights both eye and the mind.

Visually, it imprints an unforgettable mark on the viewer’s retina, its beautiful organic shapes coming together to tell a story about freedom. What sort of story? The beautiful part is that once the theme of sacrifice is set, the mind, the conscious and unconscious are left to wonder and explore their own interpretations.

Located in Cluj Napoca, in the city’s “Unirii Square”, the sculpture could easily go unnoticed. One could even walk through it, walk amongst the heroes, without realising its significance, because the sculpture has become part of the city, part of the people. It is only when you raise your view a little higher up, above the living, moving, that you notice the imposing structure - the pillars who stand taller than us, a representation of individuals who have become greater through courage and ultimate love and offering.

A splendour of symbols hides beneath the first piece of modern art in Cluj:
the bronze itself is a material which has gone through fire and keeps the fire deep within, a tragedy frozen in time; The pillars stand up, no matter how much battering they receive from bullets or the elements; their presence, profound and immortal keeps eternal spirit is alive whilst their tragedy was washed away in December Rain of ‘89.

This piece of art has created mixed reactions for “being in people’s way”: some people walk between the pillars, some stop and look through the bullet holes, some go around the sculpture. The new generation embraces this new, more accessible art form in the street, and that’s not to be said as a figure of speech: Hugging the pillars is a form of self-expression and self-identity.

In order for the artwork to be well understood, it is important to consider the two visual directions:

Horizontality – On the pavement, in the place where people lost their lives, lie two memorial plaques with all their names. This location, of the metal plaques has often triggered controversy from the families of the perished, who have demanded the plaques to be raised, in order to avoid people stepping on them. But, in the artist’s view, the tragedy of their (soulless) bodies rests on the pavement whilst the pillars stand up, a symbol of immortalisation of their souls and their ever-living spirit between us.

Verticality – the pillars support the sky. Their ending form an architectural structure upon which the home and spirit of a new society is built. Each column has its own identity, some are more feminine, some are more masculine, but no two are alike.

Crafting the sculpture in real size turned out to be tedious and hard, because no company in Romania could commit to casting such a large bronze structure (3.5m high) in one single piece. The artist called in favours from a friend and together they experimented, and experimented, and continuously failed, at a cost of about $20,000. However, after this endless chain of failures, their determination paid off and they managed to create 4 pillars out of 7 until they ran out of finances again. In the end, the rescue came from Petrisor Tarlea, the boss of a company called Metalul, who offered to help by lending the resources needed to complete the work.

The process in pictures…

The Artist claims that he himself is a sculpture, a sculpture of the Divine Creator and that his art form is spiritual exercise.

Liviu Mocanu is an artist to watch. His creative genius follows the footsteps of Constantin Brancusi in blending simplicity with sophistication in modern art.

Text: Ciprian Morar
Photos: Radu Pop

7 square km of demolished buildings and over 40,000 people displaced just to make room for The Palace of the Parliament in old Bucharest.

Did you know that Romania has the second largest building in the world, after the Pentagon?

There’s no way you can miss this imposing building, even if you’re only passing through Bucharest, Romania’s capital, either due to its squeaky eclectic style, or perhaps due to its incredible dimensions.

The Palace measures 270 m by 240 m; 86 m high and 92 m below ground level. Astonishing - a building which is taller underneath the ground, we’re talking about 12 floors above level zero, and about eight, underneath (plus foundation and parking lots).

The construction of the Palace began in 1983 under the Ceauşescu regime and was designed as a symbol of political and administrative power. After its finalization, the presidential couple was going to move in this posh residence (that 26 years later is still about 15-20% unfinished).

Some bewildering statistics:…

• 1,100 rooms
• 3,500 tonnes of crystal
• 700,000 tonnes of steel and bronze
• 200,000 m² of woolen carpets (the largest one weights about 4 tonnes and has 600m²)
• 1,000.000 cubic meters of marble
• 5,500 tonnes of cement
• 7,000 tonnes of steel
• 20,000 tonnes of sand
• 1,000 tonnes of basalt

The amount of wood and other materials used for constructing this huge building, propelled the Palace of Parliament to become the heaviest administrative construction in the world. In 2006 the building was estimated at 4 billion dollars, becoming the most expensive building in the world as well.

A selection of photographs:
             

The Palace of the Parliament on Arsenal Hill - the very downtown of Bucharest - was designed by a group of 400 architects coordinated by Anca Petrău, a young lady whose age was just 28. The building was part of a very ambitious project started by Ceaușescu family, after visiting North Korea’s Kim II-sung in 1972. Ceaușescu’s desire was to make The ‘People’s House’ the largest personal residence and most lavish palace in the world.

In the 80’s, over 7 km² of buildings from the historic district were demolished for this humongous construction. It is said that 19 Orthodox Christian churches, six Jewish synagogues, three Protestant churches and over 30,000 residences were wiped out to make room for the administrative and political center.

Its original name was ‘House of the Republic’, given by Ceaușescu himself, but its popular name is The House of the People – or The People’s House. Today, the luxurious Palace is used for a wide variety of purposes: it hosts the Chamber of Deputies, the Romanian Senate and lots of public offices. Also, the 30 conference rooms can be rented for about 2,000 euros. In the basement there is a large sports facility, a swimming pool, and also a anti-atomic bunker that was going to be connected to the Bucharest subway. The People’s House also hosts the National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC), but watch out: the Museum is on the opposite side of the the touristic entrance of the Palace, so save yourself over 20 minutes of walking around the building. A huge percentage of the Palace is not in use.

Fun Trivia: In ‘92 Michael Jackson was the first celebrity to have used the balcony to address an enthusiastic crowd, making one of the most classic goofs (when saying): I LOVE BUDAPEST!

Walking around the palace will take an eternity - but it’s really worth taking a taxi, because otherwise it will take you over 40 minutes to walk around it.

Contact details:

Address: Palatul Parlamentului, 2-4 Izvor, sect.5, Bucureşti
Telephone: 021 402 14 28
Program: Guided Tours are available daily between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m, in several languages, but you may have to wait 10-20 minutes to get allocated to a group.

Text: Emma Mocan
Photo: Gaspar Serrano, Waterboyzoo, Andrei Soimu, Ioana Capanu, Stefan Dumitru, Ana, Rapsak

If you’re strolling around in Maramureș, you might as well set your GPS on Săpânța.

This place is only about 18km from Sighetul Marmatiei and it is unique not just in Romania but likely in the entire world, because it hosts the only known ‘funny’ cemetery. You should definitely stop by and not only visit a merry cemetery, but also understand a little more of the Romanian culture, known for its humor and self-irony.

In the village of Săpânța, Stan Ioan Pătraş started carving his first wooden cross of the Merry cemetery in 1935, sculpting bas-relief and writing poems about the deceased. His naive paintings use a bright blue dubbed the “Săpânţa blue”, most probably representing the sky and lots of other vivid colors such as green (representing life), yellow (representing fertility), red (representing passion) or black (standing of course for death). All these colors were obtained from natural pigments, and are well preserved.

Walking between the 800 wooden crosses is happy experience. You’ll find it hard to hold back a beautiful smile, because every cross will tell you in just a few words the story of a life, of a person, a sad destiny seen through a pair of funny lens.

           

The villagers from Săpânța defy tragedy - it is said the culture of this cemetery is rooted in Dacian times, in which “passing away” is only seen as passing on to a better and more satisfying life.

So if you are in Maramures, stop by and amuse yourself with the stories that all these unique crosses have to tell at the Happy Cemetery in Săpânța.

Where is the Merry Cemetery from Săpânța?
See map, GPS Coordinates: 47° 57′ 52″ N, 23° 41′ 48″ E , Maramures, Transilvania.

Text by: Emma Mocan
Photographs by: Yvonne Kirk , CSD

Text: Bogdan Adrian Stănescu; Translated & adapted by: Ciprian Morar
Photo: Bogdan Adrian Stănescu; Vlad Mereuţă;

You’ve got to get up early to catch the “Mocăniţa” train on Vaser. Armed with all the photo gear, you get on your way towards the old train station, depou CFF Vişeu, dreaming about the steam that’s going to surround you , the “chuffing” sounds of the blastpipe and the wheels clacking rhythmically on the lazy rails.

It’s Saturday morning, just half past 5. A silly idea crosses your mind and you’re wondering whether you’ve gone completely crazy: - you’ve already spent 4 hours on the train, just in order to spend yet another 7 hours in the carriage of another train, without a precise destination in mind. This thought however, fades away almost instantly when a cloud of white thick smoke appears in the distance, rising slowly like a ghost from the horizon, on the top of the houses in Vişeu.
You feel the urge to walk quicker but the rush is short lived - the smoke is rising just from the chimney of an old factory. No sight of “Mocăniţa” , and you are continuing your quest through the nippy morning. The early morning în Vişeul de Sus is not picturesque, it looks as if even the shadows have left town.
After a bit more exploring, you stumble upon the first living soul, who, in exchange for some old cigarettes shows you the way to the… “- Wha’ you after ? Mocăniţă?…ahhh the train station… just take the first right and straight ahead….”

6 AM - having arrived at the train station, you wonder around, secretly admiring the rail workers who have been doing the same job for a lifetime, dressed the same, with exactly the same vocabulary and habits. These workers are not bothered about your camera, all they care is work . This seems so naturally well rehearsed, as if they have always been posing at work,…the platform becomes their catwalk, the steam engines the backdrop. .

For the untrained eye of a tourist, life in the Vaser area appears to be perfect, but for the locals, it’s not an easy one… Nea’ Vasile (you can use any name, especially if you forgot to ask him) begins telling you that he’s been doing the Cozia-1 locomotive job for over 30 years, that life is very hard in town and prices as steep as the hardship . As soon as these details are out of the way and the scene set, he swiftly moves onto describing Măriuţa, the most renowned and well looked after locomotive from the lot: “I take Her out only on special occasions - for example if they are filming some sort of an old movie here”. Another worker steps in and tells you that Măriuţa is so sparkly clean that wiping it with a white napkin will leave the napkin white. A pretty adventurous call indeed, seeing the state of a place, a train station where everything seems to be hibernating under a dark blanket of dust, ashes and diesel. If Măriuţa is indeed so sparkly clean, her sisters aren’t…: Cozia-1 , 764.469 and 763.193 (the old Moldoviţa) these two have the delight of being used daily for logging and other wood industry matters in the Vaser valley.

he three locomotives of the old CFF Vişeu depot (now called „SC Vişeuforest” and owned by “R.G. Holz”) robot themselves up and down the valley, taking empty wagons and bringing them back full of timber logs. The train to “Făina” is special. Apart from the freight wagons used for the wood, they also attach a wagons for passengers, for a wonderful journey (especially if you are a train lover!).

Two hours later, along with the crepuscular light, the team leaders show up: “Who are these guys?…- We are photographers. - And what are you doing here? - We are just taking photographs… - Aha then…” Well, it didn’t take too many firm words to figure out who was the security guard of that place (surely not the one who originally let you in). You quietly take your camera and move along the platform, along with everyone one else, families who are waiting for Mocăniţa. The ticket costs just 25 RON, after which… everything else is just pure poetry.

While the smoke is raising out from the locomotive chimney, slowly arranging and decomposing itself in the atmosphere, you try to break away from the other tourists, hoping to freeze on some mirific moments of your journey on camera. The journey is epic on the narrow 760 mm rail gauge.

The “magnificently high” speed of 30 kilometres per hour makes its statement and will often prevent you from capturing a sharp picture; the bumps and the knocks of the wagon propagating through your body, through to body parts you didn’t even know you possessed. The camera indeed isn’t spared either, but there is no reason to be worried, even the steam locomotive can run out of steam every now and again. She consistently needs to be fed and her cravings are monumental: she lusts for fire and water.

25 kilometres later and you realise that you’ve pretty much exhausted all the key moments from the journey and you are expecting and waiting for something new. You begin to wonder, and wonder…. “what’s the end of the journey?”. Another 16 kilometres more and the answer awaits you: nothing, at the end of the journey there’s nothing. You arrive at about 3 km from Ukraine, you get off, walk around for 30 minutes and then get back on the same train for the same journey back. . Perhaps its time to sleep now, but for the ones who aren’t able, there’s enough action in store to make things interesting again. You’ll be ever surprised by the ingenious maneuvers used to keep the pack of wagons together, the “breaking techniques” and other things which help the train going on the track.

Another 3 hours of decent and you’re quickly approaching Vişeu de Sus. The wait is near, passengers relieved: the signal on their mobiles is back on. . The relaxation, the “switch off” is over.

You’re back, “connected” again to the modern life

The end.

Used with permission from fixpix.ro

Text: Lavinia Gliga; Translated and adapted by: Ciprian Morar

Photographs: Eugen Radu Iancu Marculescu; Sigfrid; Daniel Tellman

The rain has just stopped. The pavements are still wet and the green grass full of carefully arranged water droplets, but they are frolicking full of young lads dressed in colourful clothes. Their laughter intimidates even the clouds, who make way for the warm sun of july. Between the walls of the old fortress, laid out amonst 9 towers and three bastions, tourists swarm like little ants. They seem delighted by the conglomeration of small little stalls, the glazed apples, the cinammon flavoured kurtos kalacs, the knitted bargains sold by old ladies. The Medieval Festival is in full swing and Sighisoara is suffocating.

Up in the Clock Tower , the linden wood figurines are already acquainted to the noise and the tourists who climb up to see them up close. They’re also used to their old neighbour, the old clock, whose wheels have always been unrest-fully working. They’ve been there for hundreds of years, with the sole mission they must always complete: indicate the day of the week (they rotate every midnight), in order to remind the locals of peace and justice.

The clock tower officially opens up the way towards a labyrinth of cobbled stone alleys, flanked by some old colourful houses. It is quite a feat trying to find a house that doesn’t have some kind of a memorial plaque or note attesting an old story of significance. Amonst all these there’s an old house, plastered in tangerine orange, an old house in which Vlad Tepes was born. You’ll recognise it quite quickly by the plywood cut out of Dracula, which thrones at the entrance.

Only a few steps away you have the Citadel Square, a place very suitable for a nice break.
The small benches spread around the 2 old imposing and watchful trees offer a place for relaxation and comtemplation. Should you be feeling peckish or just in a mood for something sweet, you must go to the House on the Rock. This establishment belongs to a small non profit organisation with american origins, an influence felt in the wonderful choice of yum-yums. The sandwiches are accompanied with chips, the cucumber salad is deliciously sprinkled with a honey mustard sauce, the apple and blackberry pies are the divine embodiment of the best a tree farm has got to offer, the brownies are drowned in chocolate, whilst the chocolate chip cookies simply melt in your mouth. The lemonade is hand made on location, the apple juice is organic and the coffee is big and smells gently of pistachios. This is not just food. This is a gorgeous food.

In small beverage shop around the corner (read palinca, a strong romanian brandy), the plum and pear steam is hallucinogenic. The fee for a taster consists in just a smile and asking a few questions about the age of the huge barrels. That surely will give you some courage to attack the 175 steps made of black wood which take the you to the Joseph Haltrich high school and the church “Biserica din deal” .

Up behind the church it’s quiet and a little nippy. The Cemetery - where transylvanian saxons, hungarians and romanians rest, is busting with green. You walk slowly on narrow alleys, between fir trees and all sorts of bush, trying to discover yet another tombstone decorated with strange statues. The hullabaloo is away.

On your way down it is very likely that it will only be you and yourself walking down on the cobbled stone. Such privilege, such quiet joy, knowing you can wander around without jostling with market stalls demand small detail… avoiding any festival times (be it medieval, interethnic or draculesque). At least for the first time, it is worth it, you need those precious moments to fall in love with Sighisoara…