“I can hear distant sirens and see a realm of tight concern but fear fails to grip me. There is no bravery in this, I merely lack the capacity to assess life’s fragility while living.” – Old Sean
A Life Not Waiting
There are some corners of the world which exude a level of peace that are difficult to quantify. Life is slower and the roll of time rises without the sharp jar of changing events. It’s a bit of an illusion bubble on the verge of popping, because things are happening. Profound things, nearby, with shaking repercussions. But while the bubble wobbles, there’s a solace remaining for however long it lasts.
Baia Mare, Romania is one such place. Though the city is a large and sizable place, there isn’t a ton to do. I moved here for my resting period specifically to sit back and get work done. An old friend from China is currently living here, giving me a place to comfortably stay while I reorient after a rapid journey through Western Europe.
That’s not to say that Baia Mare doesn’t have it’s own charm. The central area surrounds an impressive clocktower and large plaza with various churches and restaurants nearby. The Village Museum of Baia Mare has a nice display of traditional buildings with interwoven fences dividing up the hillside. Low, tree-dense mountains are seated to the north, commonly collecting rainclouds. They are laced with narrow hiking trails to nowhere, passing overlooks like the Virgin Stone and Lacul de Acumelarea Firiza, a currently-drained scenic lake resort.
A Trip To Mountains
Even further out, there’s the Blue Lagoon (Lacul Albastru), a mountain lake of brilliant emerald hue this season. The downtown Museum of Mineralogy is charming enough in its own right. The coffee shops in the area are excellent and plentiful. Overall, it’s a great place to work with relatively limited distractions.
Romania has surprisingly robust WIFI and internet connections, with some of the most stable service I’ve ever experienced. The relatively low population, excellent fiber-optic connections and concentration around cities has been a boon to me and my work.
Unfortunately, I’ve been forced to ping-pong around Baia Mare quite a bit. My friend Edin caught COVID the week of my arrival, causing me to stay with her friend Alex. (I should mention that the number of people named Alex in Romania is something of a running joke. There are a-many people named Alex here). He was incredibly generous in allowing me to stay at his apartment (which is typically Romanian-hospitality culture) but he was forced to head to Cluj-Napoca for work a few times.
In a Tiny, Red Car
As such, I spent my first two weeks in Baia Mare making small trips around the city to various Airbnbs, all while hammering away on my keyboard for work.
Eventually, my friend Edin recovered enough for me to move into her apartment. My quiet stay in Baia Mare become much faster-paced at this point since Edin was prepared to show me all the wonders of her country.
In her tiny red car, we shuddered our way into the countryside on a tri-weekly basis. The tiny red car was prone to breaking down before being patched up with electric tape and heat-resistant cords. We soldiered up and down mountains, jerkily changing gears all the while.
Romania is a very, very pretty country, especially the further a person drives into the highlands. There are wonderful views of vast golden farms, tall, dark pines and curling lakes everywhere. Traditional Romanian houses are a combination of worn wooden doors and steep roofs. Many are decorated in meticulously patterened tiles which blaze with color in a rolling countryside. There are long-haired goats trotting about, sheep upset at arriving cars, mutts of every natural color imaginable and chickens effectively conquering and occupying abandoned farmhouses.
On high power poles, enormous balls of sticks are clustered together with haughty storks peering down at passing cars. Drivers in Romania veer with a sort of brutal joy, switching lanes with impunity. Romania doesn’t have a straight highway system, so the only way to traverse the country is by wandering though dozens of tiny villages, all while avoiding cops.
Romanian Architecture
Romania is also saturated with three sorts of traditional pseudo-structures. The first is the wooden gate. These are huge, arching creations with unique designs joyfully pressed into the seasoned wood. The most common design is the image of a rope, but there are also sun, horse and tree-of-life motifs.
The second traditional structure seen nearly everywhere in the obscure countryside is the stone orthodox figures. These carvings are usually of Christ, saints, monks or the Virgin Mary. All the stones are usually smooth in a slightly phallic shape, usually marking out roads or shepherd boundaries. (It’s common for farmers to pay shepherds to care for their animals during the breeding months to diversify the gene pool and ensure access to grazing pastures for smaller households).
The final structure seen absolutely everywhere is the most depressing. Romania has a grim history of oppressive Communist rule, liberations and social unrest. The result is a fair number of harrowing statues depicting victims of Communism when Romania was a territory of the Soviet Union. The sites are getting a bit more attention than normal at the moment, largely because of the Ukrainian war currently ongoing. The most famous of these structures in my area is the Memorial to the Victims of Communism and of the Resistance in Sighetu Marmatiei. If you want an educational day with heavy tones of depression and realization, this is a great place to visit. Damn harrowing lists of events all told from inside stark walls that scream generations of humanitarian disasters.
Mountain Drives
However, to get to all these places, one must wander through long roads of Romanian countryside.
Traveling through the Romanian countryside is partially fun for the different types of food available. Romanians are not afraid of their pastries and snacks. Road trips are more like culinary adventures in strange moutnain retreats. Though I can’t recall every restaurant Edin, her cousin and I stopped at, I do recall Păstrăvăria Alex. The large mountain villa is actually an access point to an artificial fishery where excellent dishes are available after an hour of slow cooking.
But the food didn’t stop there. We gorged ourselves over several days, eating Sarmale Cabbage Rolls, Mamaliga Polenta, Mici Grilled Minced Meat Rolls, Zacusca Eggplant Dip on Baguettes, Covrigi Romanian Pretzel Twist Rolls, Slanina Fatback Bits, Salami, Papanasi Sweet Cheese Fried Donut Cakes, Kurtoskalacs Hungarian Chimney Cake Rolls and Cheese, meat and sauce Polenta Corn Plates. All of this is usually accompanied by an unholy amount of Palinka, a flavored spirit which dominates bars throughout the country.
I see a rounder stomach in my near future.
The Poetic Tombs
During a separate trip, my tiny group wound north through various villages to the Ukrainian boarder. I really wanted to see the Merry Cemetery mentioned in Atlas Obscura.
Romania, especially Orthodox Romania has many wooden churches. These buildings are traditionally made narrow with great planks of wood, sweeping, steep roofs and singular protruding steeples. The churches are a fantastic way to see the country when touring, especially since they tend to congregate in historically potent places. But the best church to visit is Biserica Nasterea Maicii Domnului. The amazing building is shingled in bright, green patterns. The interior is some of the brightest, most intricate Orthodox artwork I’ve ever seen, with various saints posing on pale walls. The exterior has additional bright colors, with gilded mosaics worked into supporting pillars.
But the reason this church is extra entertaining is the Merry Cemetary surrounding it. The operational Orthodox graveyard is morbidly bright and cheerful. All the traditional graves are painted bright blue with amusing Romanian epitaphs and pictures of individuals. Most of the epitaphs are simple descriptions of the buried person while others are short stories. Some of the pictures show the individual, but others depict the person performing their job. All are carefully, lovingly constructed.
The most famous epitaph in the cemetary belongs to an old woman, who’s son-in-law wrote:
Underneath this heavy cross
/ Lies my mother-in-law poor
/ Had she lived three days more
/ I would be here and she would read
/ You that are passing by
/ Try not to wake her up
/ For if she comes back home
/ She’ll bite my head off
/ But I will act in the way
/ That she will not return
/ Stay here my dear
Mother-in-law.
The area around the Merry Cemetery is likewise very popular. There are various trinket shops selling snacks, full honey-combs, heaps of food, traditional clothing and bottles of Romanian liquor with wooden toys, churches, arches and figures inside the glass bottles.
Grim Horizons
The problem with visiting a place so close to the Ukrainian Boarder is the nearly-tangible sense of action happening just over the horizon. There are a ton of Ukrainians working odd jobs throughout the country, but they’re being quickly shuttled further into Europe since Romania doesn’t have an infrastructure to support them. Sirens are often audible at various points along the boarder throughout the week, softly heralding danger to the north.
The Ukrainians I have met here are an odd bunch. They tend to cluster near to one another in batches of three or so. Sometimes they wander close to Romanian citizens, who seem to like them somewhat more than the local gypsy populations. Ukrainians have taken service jobs in various business sectors and seem culturally compatible enough to be well-liked socially, but not economically. Ukrainians doing jobs around Baia Mare are looked at with a fair amount of trepidation, but are often invited to hang out socially.
The majority of them I’ve spoken with are fairly young and speak excellent English with thick accents. There are many who are spitting mad and more who are almost passively uncertain. Romania isn’t even a stop-gap for many, just a waystation. A few talk about earning money or getting jobs to funnel cash back into Ukraine. Some, especially the younger men, debate about heading back. Others try to strategize on how to get out of the region entirely, or get their relatives out of Ukraine as well. They almost universally scoff at uncertainty and talk about Ukraine with an ironic starkness, dodging between patriotism and joking about the country’s infamous corruption reputation.
It’s very difficult for me to get a bead on their emotions regarding the subject. Conversations are usually placid observations spiked by a sudden, unidentifiable emotion and then a shrug followed by a gradual subject shift. Romanians are more forthright about the conversation, but opinions are largely secondhand.
Aside Strife
I’ve been close to war zones, protests, riots and danger before in my life. I was in Missouri during various race-riots during my university career. I wandered through Myanmar during ethnic-militia skirmish actions. I’ve been pulled from mine fields in Laos. In Sri Lanka, I spoke with populations that recounted the relatively recent Civil War, who spoke with rancor, especially along the East Coast. I’ve walked past a dead body recently shot in San Jose, Costa Rica. In Mexico, I had a young man working as a taxi driver veer into a shaded parking spot where we wiggled down, evading several cars he recognized as cartel vehicles. I’ve been held at knife-point in the United States and looked out over crowds pushing and hollering against security in West China. I’ve been punched directly in the face in Ireland, Thailand, St. Louis, Mexico and Ecuador. I’ve faced deportation, threats, bribes and curses in half a dozen nations.
Those are human-centric dangers that come back to me with only a mild amount of clarity. They didn’t cause me any profound concern because nothing really came of it. And when something did come of it, it was survivable. And when it had lasting repercussions, they were endurable. My experiences are nothing like escape from an active war zone perpetuated by an invading world power, but there’s something similar in the attitude when Ukranians are willing to speak with me about the subject.
The Ukranians I’ve spoken to seem to have a similar mentality, the hope and resignation of a gambler whatever cards come up. They’re a strange, complex culture of people. They seem at once pragmatic and prone to intense surges of emotion which are corralled briskly.
Currently, I’m on my last day in Baia Mare. Edin and I are only here for a couple more days, catching up on our respective jobs. Soon, we’ll head back to Cluj-Napoca where Edin will have a vacation and I’ll begin the long trip back to the United States.
Until then,
Best regards and excellent trails,
Old Sean
Written August 12th 2022
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