Sept. 2-4: Hermannstadt

[EK]:
Aka Sibiu.

We arrived Sept. 2 and we leave on Sept. 5. This gives us a few days of just wandering, talking with people, and getting to know this pretty pretty city.

First, we are staying in a former chapel (from the 14th c.), which has been restored by its Saxonian (Romanian German) owners. We face the 15th c. Gothic church that dominates the city’s skyline. I feel ridiculously pampered here - we each have not only our own rooms but our own sitting areas. Upon arrival, we talked with our host, Leni, for almost an hour. She explained recent corruption scandals that we had heard snippets of through western media (because of protests in Bucharest). We talked about the corruption of the Romanian government (in particular the party of the legislature, the PSD) and a recent petition, signed by 1 million Romanians, to bar corrupt politicians from office. Rudi Giuliano, siding (of course) with the corrupt government, urges them in an open letter to pre-emptively pardon all the kleptocrats so as to “clean it up” and avoid consequences for the powerful. Classy guy. I will post a link to the story when I return to the U.S. Suffice it to say that it surprises me not a bit that that buck-toothed villain is siding with the other  comic book villains; it is a feature of every Trumpian enabler to be an amoral international criminal.

Our balcony

Just a little part of our house...

We wandered for hours our first day in Sibiu (and our second), and explored an annual pottery fair with everything from kitschy mass produced magnets to beautiful pieces of folk art. People identifies as Hungarian or Romanian porters; Emily and I bought pieces from a family who were preserving traditional Romanian weaving patterns by painting them on plates. We also wandeeee to a shop called Caier, which was run by a young woman who was rebuilding a traditional loom and who also sewed incredible modernist/traditional dresses. I got a black and white pop art dress with pockets and we talked for a while about Romanian traditions, the loss of traditional arts and architecture under the communists (Sibiu was spared from concrete re-building because Ceausescu did not want to anger Germany by destroying Saxon buildings), and the value of supporting local artisans.

I began an obsession with electrical wires and poles... Just the sheer madness of their "system."

WHY DO WE NOT HAVE BULK FROZEN FOODS EVERYWHERE?

Dascia: the car of Romania.

Rare photo of an Orthodox priest "in the wild."

Not creepy...

Emily's favorite part of the trip.

A notable minority of the men here are macho, with big biceps and deep tans and track suits, and their counterpart women are often plastic, with very short shorts and long nails. This results in a distinctly Jersey shore aesthetic, complete with fancy cars and booming music.

On Sept. 2, we participated in a protest against the ruling party by standing in front of their headquartees with other people and staring for 15 minutes, apparently to let them know that “we see you.” We spoke with a man afterward about the corruption of Romania but also the fact (his opinion) that it wasn’t as bad as Hungary or Poland; not yet.

In total in Sibiu, we went into four distinct places of worship: a Lutheran Church (German-Romanian), an Orthodox Church (Romanian), a Catholic Church (Built by Jesuits during the Austro-Hungarian empire), and a synagogue. The synagogue was really special: a woman let us in and then explained things to us with virtually no English. But through gestures and with a limited subject area (Jews in Sibiu), we communicated a great deal. We learned: the community is tiny (24 people) as a result of out-migration rather than the Holocaust, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of Romanian Jews’ deaths east of Sibiu. We also learned that the synagogue was no longer used often; it was maintained as a relic, in its 19th-c. form. We also learned that the woman had married into the faith, and that she was preparing for Rosh Hashanah.

On our last day in Sibiu, we biked out to a town called Cisnadioara, where we wandered in a ruined old Lutheran church that had served a second purpose as a WWI monument, with names of the deceased (all German names) in a ring around the apse.

From there we biked and walked bikes on some very rough roads to neighboring Rasinari, a quaint town of little brightly-painted houses. A bike path led almost the whole way back into Sibiu and we gratefully rode it back after our first taste of Romanian back roads.

Bike path out of Sibiu!

We frequently saw WWI memorials, and in Sibiu (and around), the names were German.

Our first taste of Romanian off-road riding.

We'll just walk this bit.

Once back in Sibiu we went to our one big meal of the day, a practice we have found works well in these parts: an early dinner/late lunch feast. We found a German restaurant called Hermania that used almost all locally sourced ingredients and also poured giant glasses of wine. We had lamb and trout and amazing bread and we waddled home to nap it off.

We met up with Leni that evening, our last in Sibiu. We had microbrews at a pub and talked about: politics, design, economics, deforestation, and the perils of suburbia (especially Costco) for a few hours. Her English is amazing, she’s lived in Germany and Australia, and she was trained as an industrial designer, so she had a lot to share. She expressed support for the president of Romania (Iohannis), in contrast to the legislature. Iohannis is a Saxon, and Leni knew him through common contacts. She also said that Obama, when visiting Romania in 2016 or so, promoted fracking. Come on Obama! I left the conversation with a better understanding of Romania’s place in the world and feeling incredibly lucky that we have met people who can educate us.