Kaplan, a reporter, traveled through the Balkans in the early 90's, and wrote a book called Balkan Ghosts. He started his Romanian travels in Bucharest and made a circle around the country, hitting my region, Bucovina, halfway through his travels. I am now going to unplagiarizing use his words:
"Bucovina is actually the northern part of Moldavia, anexxed by the Habsburg Austrians in 1774 [...] The southern part [of Bucovina] has always been part of Romania.
"On the eve of World War II, in an observation about Bucovina that was as true in 1990 as it was then, Sacheverell Sitwell wrote: 'In no other district that I have ever visited, be it Spain or Portugal, In Sweden or the Gaeltacht of Western Ireland, is there this sensation of remoteness...a land of green meadows and firwoods.'
"As in other parts of rural Romania, I saw hay-ricks and horse-drawn leiterwagens bearing peasants in sleeveless sheepskin vests, white homespun linen, and black fleece headgear. Elsewhere in the country, such things were juxtaposed against ugly factories and cheap apartment blocks to form a picture of industrial poverty. In Bucovina, however, they were details in an idyllic picture of early-century Europe.
"Among the wide bank of beech trees the soft hills were garlanded with pines, birches, and massive, black-pointed firs. Poplars and linden trees lined the roads, and apple trees filled the adjacent fields [...] I felt as if the black-and-white part of my Romanian journey had suddenly ended and the Technicolor sequence had begun."
So come visit sometime. It's technicolor here.
1 comment:
Your site is like Oz.
Post a Comment