Impresions of the journey.
Warm daylight gently caresses my sleepy eyelids, awakening me to the start of a new day. It will be a day when the normal routine will go by the board. We are going to a village inhabited by the Hutuli people, four kilometres from the Ukrainian border, a hamlet right on the edge of the European Union.
The pleasant sun comes with us to Radauti station, where we wait for the train to Nisipitu. A loud whistle is heard. We shrug on our backpacks, and when the train stops, we climb on, choosing window seats. The sun continues to warm us, its heat increasing as early morning turns to day.
We pass through many stations before we reach Nisipitu, the last station in Bucovina. It is a tiny station with a mysterious atmosphere, hidden in the surrounding countryside. We take a little-used road, covered with the dust of many years. Occasionally, we hear the sound of a car approaching, until it overtakes us, wrapping us in a blanket of dust.
After half an hour of continuous walking, we arrive in Paltin, one of the villages on the outskirts of Brodina. From there, we continue our journey through the forest. When we start to feel tired, we decide to rest for a while on a large stump, from which we can view the scene before us. As we watch from our elevated perch, we admire the sky, now covered by a grey lattice. In the distance, the silence is broken by the sound of thunder, which urges us to hurry.
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The road through the forest seems to conspire with the mysterious world of the Hutuli, appearing to be accustomed to the frequent heavy rain. The dew of the silence mingles with that of the divine touch, which we feel whilst treading the meandering path, that loses itself between the bodies of trees sculpted by the irreversible passage of time.
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The going was hard for those unused to this kind of pathway, but sweetened by the striking beauty of our surroundings and the unmistakeable smell of rain-drenched earth. Suddenly, the path forks. Ahead of us is a view framed by the mountains, the height of which creates an illusion of ragged walls surrounding a mysterious fortress, a world in which time and space are rewritten in the song of every bird.
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Before us, a stack of dried grass, burned by the heat of the sun and sweetened by the recent rain, appears to show that the inhabitants of the fortress are at home. We are in the hamlet of Pleoscii. Our sights are focused upon the small dwellings spread out as in a fairy tale. The scene appears to have been cut from an old book, which makes us wonder "who are these people?"
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In the distance we notice a horseman approaching, he bids us good-afternoon, and dissapears from view. We are astonished that the horseman was in fact a woman, and even more so by the afinity she had with her animal.
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To begin with, we hesitate to enter this world. In the gateway of their home, an elderly man and his wife smiled warmly, and encouraged us to approach. We fell into conversation with them and asked if they could furnish us with information about the origins, music, traditions, occupations and religions of their people. We were surprised at the warmth with which these people welcomed us into their life, and the openness they showed us in presenting us with the various aspects of their history.
The people who shared with us moments from their past are Vasile Stoler, his wife Mitrana, and their daughters Ana Zeliuc and Vasilena Crevco.
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Click here for a movie of our visit. This is only in the Romanian language.
Item written by Amalia Ciobanu and Diana Caciur.
Last updated 17th March 2007