Wisdom Of The Land — Exploring The Remote Villages Of Romania

The ancestral virtue of the unsung heroes living in paradise

The smell of fresh baked, still warm, delicious homemade donuts fills the air and there’s a newfound passion for each of us. As we’re sharing the seemingly bottomless cauldron of heavenly delicacies around the campfire, the old lady continues her stories about life in this remote corner of the mountains.

In their new quest for authentic experiences, modern travelers have found this piece of heaven about a decade ago and it became somewhat famous. People started to wander around the hidden trails once known only to villages and their livestock. Tents started appearing from time to time and with new fame also came controversy…

The bucolic atmosphere and rustic way of life in these secluded hamlets was somewhat disturbed. While they were already slowly fading away, the question is if they can be revived somehow but still retain their authenticity. On the other hand, are we pushing them further on the edge of disappearance?

You see…there’s a problem in Romania and there aren’t many ways to answer it. While in other places on Earth, the rural landscape has lost any hint of traditional lifestyle, Romania still preserves many amazingly authentic villages, but this is changing before our eyes. The young are leaving for better lives in the cities and often abroad, while only the old are left to guard these archaic treasures.

It is also the case for our host in Fundătura Ponorului, the lovely lady who baked donuts for a handful of photographers who set their tents in her garden. The secluded hamlet with its cottages spread throughout a breathtaking valley lies in the mountains of southwestern Transylvania, a stone's throw away from the old capital of the Dacian Kingdom, ancestors of these people.

She tells us how her children are scattered throughout Western Europe and how they only visit once or twice a year…never all together! Of the two dozen homesteads hidden around, only half still welcome their people each spring, after the snow thaws. They belong to the inhabitants of the villages from the foot of the mountains, some ten kilometers away. They bring their sheep and cattle to graze the lush meadows until the first signs of winter.

Fundătura Ponorului is just one of the countless villages spread throughout the Carpathian Mountains of Romania where life follows the never-ending cycle and nature. Here, people are still tightly bound to the land and wealth is not measured in money or things, but in how many animals they have. It makes for one of the most humbling and touching experiences I have ever witnessed!

A few years back, I fell in love with this amazing and unique place, returning each season to capture its soul. I also set out to uncover and reveal the beauty of such hidden heavens through my images. Along the way, I met some of the most genuine people one could imagine, like this old lady who offered to cook for us as soon as she’d finished tending to her cattle late in the evening.

In the valley below, there‘s another old woman named Armina, over 80 I presume, who lives alone in a wooden cabin. We saw her each morning heading out at the first rays of light with her small herd of sheep and faithful dog. I wonder how many ageless stories are intertwined along this lazy little valley…

I remember each and every moment that changed me along the way, each destiny and each place that I had the chance to touch for the briefest of times. Like the breathtaking misty sunrise, I witnessed in the village of Dumești, with its small traditional shacks with hay roofs spread over the rolling ridges of Trascău Mountains. Or like the heart-melting moment a lovely lady from a village in Bucovina showed us her flower garden and gave us flowers, as it was her most prized possession.

Through these last years, I’ve had the chance and pleasure of discovering remote villages like the hamlet of Poiana Călineasa, where shepherds from three counties have their summer residences. Hundreds of traditional wooden houses and cottages are packed together over a few idyllic meadows, deep in the Apuseni Mountains of Romania.

I’ve wandered around the hills and along the valleys of astonishing places like Poiana Mărului, Holbav, Peștera, Măgura, Șimon or Fundata, to name just a few of them. This is just the beginning, as I’m already longing to be back in the mountains again, searching for the meaning of life through the eyes of the simple people…