A Piece of Dislocated Deutschland
Place: Sibiu (aka Hermannstadt), Romania
After nearly raining all day the day before, the sun finally came out on Sunday. To try to cut cost, I moved out of the private house and moved into Nathan¡¦s Villa Hostel (35 Lei per night). In the afternoon, I joined an excursion to historic sites near Sighisoara.
The Tarnave plateau, which stretched between Sighisoara and Brasov, is traditionally known as Burzen Land. It is in the region that Saxon (German settlers in Romania) built settlement with bulky city walls and fortified churches, to defend Turkish invasion in 15th and 16th centuries. Some of these fortified churches are UNESCO designated world heritage sites.
Since public transportation is infrequent around the small villages near Sighisoara, I think it is wiser to pay some extra cash and join a local daytrip tour. The Eye Tour is led by a Dutch couple who had spent their summer vacation in Romania for the past 10 years. They eventually decided to purchase a cottage here and started their own business as a tour company. With the cost of 100 Lei, it is not really cheap. But at least, I didn¡¦t need to worry about the transportation issues. Also, our Dutch guides do speak Romanian fluently and knows local customs well.
We stopped at Biertan first, to see the largest fortified church in this region (yes, this is a UNESCO designated site). This 15-century church used to be the site of Lutheran bishop from 1572 to 1867. This is the only fortified church in the whole region that is still open and holds religious service (though the service is no longer frequent). In addition to a quite large organ, its most famous design is a wooden door with 19 locks. The most tricky part is, from outside, it seems to have only one lock. This lock won the first prize in 1900 Paris world expo.
After wandering in Biertan, our van stopped in another village to have some drinks at a local bar. The tour guide Marco chatted with us his experience living in this region. Then we continued our tour to visit a sheep farm.
The local shepherds still herd their sheep in a very traditional way. Most of them wear a type of cute and funny bow hats. In addition to showing us how the shepherd dogs move sheep skillfully to opposite sides of fences, the shepherds also demonstrated how they milk the sheep (those sheep milk mostly is used to produce cheese, which we were asked to sample). Through the interpretation by Marco, it seemed that the shepherds were especially interested in knowing more about me. I was the first visitor they had ever seen from Asia. Yes, it is special to be 'yellow' at this corner of Europe. They even suggested I could stay there longer as an 'intern shepherd.'
Well, thanks, but no, thanks!
Later we dropped by another village and chatted with some locals (through Marco¡¦s interpretation of course). We also learned some history of this region. Though most villages were established by Saxon Germans since medieval time, currently they are populated with only ethnic Romanians and Gypsy. Many Saxons emigrated to Germany in 1990s, after the Romanian communist regime collapsed and they became able to moved out. This region¡¦s Saxon population has almost been depleted in the past 15 years.
It just occurred to me that this whole region actually does not feel very authentically Romanian. From the building styles and the churches, it definitely feels more German. While majority of Romanians are East Orthodox Christians, most churches I saw so far are Lutheran churches (which is the denomination most Saxons belong to). The red-tiled roofs in this region resemble quite a bit with those I saw in towns along Romantisch Strasse (Romatic Road) in Germany years ago.
In many ways, Transylvania of the "Siebenbuergen" feels more like a dislocated part of Germany. The idea of visiting an unauthentic Romania started to make me regretting my early decision. I just kept thinking: if I have entered Romania from Ukraine, I would have been in Moldavia region first (instead of Transylvania). South Bucovina in Moldavia is known for its Orthodox painted monasteries (anther UNESCO site). Would it feel more authentically Romanian there?
I love Germany and have traveled to Berlin several times (and still cannot stop). However, it felt a little odd to come all the way to this East Orthodox country to see German styled houses and churches.
But I guess I had no extra time left to turn my trip north to visit South Bucovina. Now I only planned to continue south from Sighisoara. Ironically, maybe due to this region is more German than other parts of Romania, Transylvania is actually historically more affluent and advanced than other regions. This has made it easier for foreigners to travel around this region.
Of course, no place in Transylvania is more German than the city of Sibiu (German name: Hermannstadt, or Hermann¡¦s town). I even read that their current mayor, Johannis Klaus, is of German descents. Lonely Planet states "the city once again under German leadership."
On Monday, my fourth day in Sighisoara, I decided to travel to Sibiu on a daytrip. It is only about 2 hours away by a SUV-like Maxi-taxi.
Sibiu will be the cultural capital of Europe in 2007 (which just coincides with Romania¡¦s entry into European Union). So currently, the renovation work and reconstruction of many buildings was ongoing all over the city. Fortunately for me at the time of my visit, the renovation work in and around the main squares was mostly done, so I could appreciate the glory of its original beauty. The three interlocking squares, Piata Mare, Piata Mirca, and Piata Huet, have some very handsome baroque and neo-classic buildings. Climbing up to the top of Council Tower (1 Lei), I had a quite nice panoramic view of the whole Sibiu old town. Its sea of red-tiled roofs were currently being cleaned and should look polished by 2007.
One special building style in Sibiu is that many houses sport eyeball-looking windows popping out of their red-titled roofs. That looks sort of spooky and made me feel that somebody¡¦s watching me...
Just as many books I read recently about Romania (Robert Kaplan's "Balkan Ghosts" and Benderson¡¦s "The Romanian" among two of them), Sibiu is usually considered the most pleasant city in Romania. Many people here speak English quite well and the streets are clean. And as 2007 approaches, it should only get better. Many descendants of its original founders may have left for the better job opportunities in Germany, but their legacy remains.
Thinking about it, all these history actually make Transylvania a really fascinating region. Beyond the myth of Dracula, werewolves, and other horror fiction figures, real-life Transylvania is a multicultural melting pot with both modern and some traditional lifestyle. Romanians, Hungarians, Germans, and Gypsy all have their influence on this land, under the backdrop of magnificent Carpathian mountains.
Get more information about Sibiu 2007 Cultural Capital of Europe at: http://www.sibiu2007.ro/
No comments:
Post a Comment