Culture
“Be our guest again!” when the pandemic period is over
A tourism promotional video was recently published by VOLT Cinematography – a film, commercial, music, and video animation production company from Moldova. The slogan of the short movie is “Be our guest again!” meant to revive the touristic activity in Moldova after the pandemic period. The film’s director and scriptwriter is Vlad Bolgarin.
The recent short movie followed the first promotional video, which was published in 2017, being produced by Atelier, and having Viorel Mardare as director. The first short movie, with the slogan “Be Our Guest in Moldova”, featured a foreigner who got lost while taking a walk in Moldova’s countryside. The main character, who resembled Brad Pitt, was played by Ronald Huisman, a Dutch actor visiting Moldova.
VOLT Cinematography also produced the miniseries “Lost in Moldova” and the animation film “OF” | “Sigh”, which received a multitude of awards and prizes at national and international film festivals.
See also: The first episode of “Lost in Moldova” miniseries was released
Here are seven reasons to visit Moldova, if you haven’t done it yet.
Photo: Volt Cinematography| Facebook
On the Nistru, near the village of Varnița, a few colored pens with blue dots in the middle travel up and down the river. If you get closer, the pens become kayaks, and the blue dots – the students of the kayak-canoe school. You can also see that there is a larger boat, where the trainer Mihai Chitaica is sitting, taking care that nobody flips over, that the children paddle well, and encouraging a healthy competition. On the water, nobody asks them where they’re from and what language they speak. Nistru and Mihai Chitaica unite them all: the students from Gura Bîcului, from Varința and the ones from the North district under the administration of Bender.
Mihai Chitaica, Master in Sports, trains around 15 children in kayak-canoe
He smiles a lot and the red cheeks emphasize his good mood. This is how he wants the children to remember him. Mihai Chitaica is 68 years old, he has retired a long time ago, and he does everything for the children who come here to learn how to paddle on Nistru river.
Mihai Chitaica is a master in sports. Besides training and competing as a veteran, for many years he has worked in the field of carpentry, having a small workshop near the river, in the village of Varnița, Anenii Noi. But, while seeing the children and their trainers of kayak-canoe from Bender, kayaking down the river, his heart would melt. So he put a kayak on the river and slowly remembered the rowing technique, the rhythm and what it feels like when the drops of water sprinkle your face. He worked up the courage and rowed down the river.
He understood that he can do more, and today he trains at least 15 children. Some of them were “stolen” by sports lyceums or clubs from other countries, and he is very proud of them. He is not upset, because it is “the choice of each of the child,” says Mihai Chitaica. He is very happy with their results, at the same time saddened by the fact that children couldn’t train during the pandemic – they couldn’t train enough, couldn’t organize competitions in Varnița, couldn’t go abroad for competitions.
The school is attended by the children from Gura Bîcului, from Varnița, but also from the North district under the Bender administration. “When they come here, I tell them ‘You are all equal to me. When you are here with me, you are my responsibility for the two hours, and you have to behave as I tell you to.’ One of the trainers from Bender once told me: ‘I noticed that your children don’t have quarrels.’ And I told him that I just don’t accept it, it’s that simple. If I hear any swearing, they get punished. You know how I punish them? I make them do push ups, lift weights.”
Varnița is a village in the Anenii Noi rayon. It is located on the right bank of Nistru river. It borders with the Bender, the North district being a part of this town, and it is under the administration of Tiraspol.
Varnița is a village in the Anenii Noi rayon. It is located on the right bank of Nistru river. It borders Bender, the North district being a part of this town, and it is under the administration of Tiraspol.
Professional kayaks are narrower than the ones for beginners
In the center of the neighboring village, Gura Bîcului, students are waiting for Mr Mihai, as they call him. On the way to Varința, where the classes of kayak-canoe take places, after the children are picked up in the minibus, they start to discuss the current situation:
— We have a new outbreak in our village.
— Don’t tell me that.
— There are people infected.
— Where? Show me! Who is infected?
— There are in Bulboaca!
— Well, they’re in Bulboaca. But I don’t live in Bulboaca. I live in GB!
— Ok.
Then, when they get to the gym, they change their clothes, run a few circles for warming up and come back to the kayaks near the gym. Two of the younger kids approach a kayak and each of them grabs one by the tip. The children clumsily lift the kayaks, as they slightly shake while being carried towards the river. The older ones put their kayaks on the shoulders and carry them with much ease.
“Hey, girls, stop occupying in the wharf!” shouts the teacher. Mihaela, Cătălina and Ana row just a couple of times and already reach the middle of the river. They stay together to chat, but also to compete. “Align. Ready? Go!” shouts the teacher and the three girls lift their paddles almost simultaneously and, while tilting to the left, they plunge them into the water. They row with their entire bodies, then, in a second, they lift the paddles again and plunge them to their right with the same force. In a few seconds, Cătălina is two meters in front of the other girls. She is the fastest one.
Cătălina Cotelea, one of the fastest students
After rowing, they move to the gym. Cătălina Cotelea is 14 years old and she joined the kayak class in 2018. She has a cold and had to move to the gym, where she teases the younger students. She sits in the lotus position: “Get your bum lower!” Cătălina speaks to her little brother, Gheorghe, with a bossier tone of voice. “She’s neither kind, no mean,” he adds, mentioning that she is actually just strict.
She doesn’t lose sight of the four boys she is in charge with, making them do the plank, then sit in the air, like on a chair, with their straight backs next to the wall. Her tanned face covered in freckles, once teased by her colleagues, now looks too serious to make fun of. But not to Gheorghe. He allows himself to be silly and feel special, because the trainer today is his older sister
In the winter, the younger kids move to the gym and train for spring, when it’s warmer and the ice melts. This is when they take their kayaks on the water
Cătălina inspired Gheorghe to join the kayak-canoe class. He is nine years old and “a month ago, I was the youngest one in my group. And now, I believe that I am the best. I paddle very well and I have the second-best speed.” And Mr Mihai agrees. Last year, he took the boy for his first competition, even if he was two years younger than the allowed age in his category. “He is quick-witted,” confirms Mihai Chitaica, mentioning that he was awarded the first place in the age category of 10-11 years old.
Gheorghe wishes he becomes a gym teacher. “If you are a math teacher, you need to have nerves of steel. But if you are a gym teacher, you tell the children ‘Let’s go, let’s run, let’s…’ you only give commands!” explains the youngest member of the Cotelea family.
The expenses for competitions are most often undertaken by the teacher Mihai Chitaica, but also for the training, the fuel, the kayaks, their repairs, and other expenses. In order to make sure that children can train, Miahi Chitaica decided to make some money from tourism. Previously, he would earn money from carpentry and renting the gazebos, now he has at least eight kayaks and four small homes he can rent to tourists.
Last year, for example, he organized a tour of 26 km for eight men. “In the kayaks I put some wood for the fire, they took their tents and groceries with them. They spent the night near the river and enjoyed it a lot. They now want to come back with their families.” The experimental tour started in the village of Șerpeni, with a rest stop in Speia, and the night was spent in Telița. Although it was a success, he couldn’t continue with the tours this summer due to the pandemic.
Ana Glijinscaea is one of the four girls who joined the kayak-canoe class
Then he bought some lumber and other materials in order to build a pontoon for tourists. “It will be ready in spring,” assures us Mihai Chitaica and asks us to imagine a pontoon floating on Nistru, with a tent on it, and a few young people partying and having a barbeque.
The trainer has great plans for local tourism. These plans will get him closer to his biggest dream – “putting on the water as many children as possible”.
Text: Georgeta Carasiucenco
Photos: Tatiana Beghiu
Editing: Anastasia Condruc
From eight in the morning till noon, every Thursday and Sunday, people lay their merchandise on the main street of Dubăsarii Vechi. Even if there is a market place on one side of the road, behind a fence, with many suitable stands, very few merchants use them. They prefer to park their vans in front of the gates and open the back doors to the street. They sell tomatoes, eggplants, beans, fish, second hand trousers, hay bales, cooking discs, auto parts, pink dresses bought decades ago in Moscow with a hundred dollars and sold today with one hundred lei. Not only locals sell at the market, merchants come from the entire region, from Corjova to Tiraspol.
Once people start gathering their stuff and the village is no longer engulfed in the turmoil of the market, you can go on and visit the village. The locals ride their bikes in a hurry and the old ladies are having a chat sitting on the benches next to the fences of their yards. In front of the mayor’s hall a few workers are spreading and leveling the gravel on the road.
An Nistru, careless about the tumult of the village, continues its way to the sea. It is always there, adorned with autumn colours. Besides the river, other places in the village attract tourists: the mansion of Nicolae Donici, the tomb of the Donici-Macri family and the secular oaks grove “Pohorela”.
Mansion of Nicolae Donici
Nicolae Donici was born in 1874. Because he became an orphan at the age of eight, he was put under the care of his aunt, Elena Lisacovschi.
After he studied astronomy in Odessa, in 1908 Nicolae Donici returns home and near his mansion builds the first observatory in Bessarabia. He continues his scientific research in Dubăsarii Vechi until June 1940 when USSR demanded from Romania to evacuate its civil administration and troops from the territory. It was then when Donici was constrained to leave the country. He came back in 1941 and found his mansion and observatory destroyed. Three years later, Donici leaves Moldova forever and moves to France.
For a long time the mansion was administered by the local kolkhoz, which changed its aspect, covering the facade with tiles and building and annex. Still, on the right back wall of the mansion you can still see the old plaster made out of “eggs, lime and sand”, as explained by the vice mayor of the village, Constantin Macarenco.
At the mansion you can also find the ornamented “stairway to heaven”. It is an outside metallic stairway used by Nicolae Donici to climb up to his laboratory so he wouldn’t disturb the inhabitants of the house when doing his nocturnal observations. You can still see this stairway today. What is interesting about it is that it was designed to change the angle of the steps during winter time in order to prevent slipping.
The bust of Nicolae Donici stands tall in front of the mansions. It was installed recently, after the previous one was stolen and sold for scrap.
Macri-Donici Family Tomb
If you go to Dubăsarii Vechi, you must visit the tomb built in the second half of the 19th century. What makes is unique is its history and decorative elements.
After the death of his father, Nicolae Donici and his mother, Limonia, move to his aunt. Four years later, his mother becomes ill with typhus and is isolated in a separate room in order to prevent the spreading of the infection. But because Nicolae misses his mother very much, his aunt breaks the rules and cracks the door of the isolated room so he could see his mother from a distance. But soon after, Limonia dies. She was only 35 years old.
Her embalmed body was placed in the tomb built in the yeard of the church in Dubăsarii Vechi founded by Nicolae Macri, the grandfather of the scientist from his mother’s side, who fled to Bessarabia from Greece. The tomb was built by the master Tuzini after the sketch by Alexandru Bernardazzi.
Two oil lamps were always lit in the tomb. And inside the hermetically sealed glass coffin you could see “a young woman with a pale, delicate face, almost looking alive. She wore a white coronet, and on her finger – a little ring”, according to the authors of the research “The youthful enthusiasm and the bold dream of the astrophysicist Nicolae Donici, founder of a scientific citadel on Nistru river”. During the soviet period, the tomb was vandalized and the coffin incinerated. But the structure and its decorative elements are still there.
“Pohorela” secular oaks grove
The grove is located in the Northern part of the village. There are over 130 secular trees. The strongest ones are more than 1,5 m in diameter. Some of the oaks are more than a century old, and others are believed to be even 300 years old.
Legends say that this forest was used by the tatars as camp site when they were coming to invade the local villages. One nigh, the villagers burnt the camp, thus burning the forest as well. “Pogorela” in Russian means “burned” and, through generations, this word became “Pohorela”. The grove is also called “Pogoreloe”, “Pohorila”.
The name of the village comes also from oaks, in Russian – „dub” [дуб]. According to the vice mayor Constantin Cacarenco, people from the village were using dubases, small boats made from oak trunks, and dubăsar was the person who was steering them.
Usually, the vice mayor of the village, Constantin Macarenco, is conducting the tours to tourists and officials from different countries or from Chișinău, to partners and people interested in investing in the village. But local authorities are not able to organize tours for all tourists. “The mayor’s hall can’t perform economic activities”, explains the vice mayor, adding that there need to be other methods for developing local tourism.
Once you get to Dubăsarii Vechi, you will notice that the water in Nistru flows slower than in the North of the country and that its banks are closer to each other. This difference is due to the Dubăsari hydropower plant. But fishermen consider it an advantage – the narrowing of the river is an indicator of its depth. In other words, the river is deeper and it means that there can be more fish. If you want to fish here, you should know that experienced fishermen from the village mentioned a few deeper pits where larger fish might be habitating. It’s important to “feed” the place and have a water resistant tent in case you want to spend a few days here. You can find food in the village, Dubăsarii Vechi is famous for growing tasty vegetables.
Produced with the financial support of the European Union within the “Support to Confidence Building Measures” project, implemented by UNDP. The opinions expressed in this material do not necessarily reflect the official position of the EU or UNDP.
Culture
The prodigal son returns and turns his grandparents’ home in a tourist attraction on Nistru river
Reading Time: 7 minutesOn the road towards the school, a well-maintained rural house catches your eye, yellow stags painted on its blue terrace. Behind the house, Nistru river flows peacefully.
Petru Bondari, the owner of the house, comes out into the yard with a plastic bottle. He goes to the spring to bring some water for the tea. He wears a waterproof jacket and hiking boots. Hi walks slowly and looks around with his clear blue eyes, reminiscing about his childhood. He is now 34 years old, and the love for his home village and the passion in his voice makes you believe that everything is possible, wherever you decide to live.
The scrambled eggs
It’s 11 o’clock on a cold winter day. The wind sweeps the snowflakes and the village seems numb. Petru’s childhood is strongly connected to everything related to swimming in the Nistru river, to the cows, to grandma Ileana and the cold plăcinte she used to cook. The children of Pohrebea would run towards Nistru whenever they had the time. Petru remembers the tricks he used in order to have as much time for himself as possible. Once, his mother allowed him to go swimming with the boys only after he would bring her two buckets of horse manure for her to render the oven. “And because I couldn’t find enough manure, I filled the buckets with soil and I placed the manure on top. My mother was amazed that I came back so quickly, and I quickly ran away to the river,” he laughs with nostalgia.
The village of Pohrebea in Dubăsari rayon is inhabited by a few hundred people. It became famous following the “Hodina” festival in 2019. After this event, people became interested in the beautiful landscape of the Nistru river bank. Some even bought houses, which they transformed into guest houses.
When he reaches the spring, Petru bends over and fills the bottle with cold water running from a pipe. A stone wall is built around it, in order to protect it from the rocks falling from up the hill. Even now the locals come and take water from the spring in front of the school close to his grandmother’s house, where he used to come running during the recess and eat something warm and tasty. “The best plăcinte and găluște I had where cooked by grandma Ileana. She would often prepare some scrambled eggs in a hurry. They were so good, that many of my colleagues were dreaming about this dish.” He still remembers the way she was scrambling the eggs so masterfully. “When I was going into the kitchen and see the oil lamp lit, I would know immediately that it’s a Holy day. And it was then when my grandma would cook cold plăcinte, which were incredibly tasty,” recalls Petru about his grandmother, whom he lost when he was a child. Even now, he is still very connected to her. He only knows his grandpa from pictures – he went to war and never came back.
„I felt torn away from everything that makes up a home”
After the death of his grandma, the household became empty. Because it was a difficult period in their lives, his parents decided to sell his grandparents’ house. The new owners left abroad shortly, and grandma Ileana’s house was left unattended. “Every time I was passing by, I felt so much sadness…” Petru admits.
He grew up and went to study Law in Chișinău. At the university he understood that this field is not for him, so he started applying to different programs which offered him the opportunities to leave abroad. “There is this stereotype that if you want to have the life you desire, you must absolutely leave Moldova. I believed it too.” Thus, as a student, he went to Romania, Ukraine, Switzerland, Poland, Belgium, France and the US. In the meantime, he got married.
“Wherever I would end up, I always felt like being torn away from everything that makes up a home,” he admits. Four years ago, Petru returned to Pohrebea. “Nowhere in the world could I feel like home. Only in the village I was born and grew up.” But once he returned, he didn’t find his childhood friends here, ass they all live abroad. This didn’t discourage him. He knew that in Pohrebea he had a place where he can build his life and that he wouldn’t have to start everything from zero. Using his experience, he launched a small business organizing team buildings. The concept is that the activities would take place open air, on the Island of the Cows, the place where the local villagers would take their cows and leave them there from spring till autumn, and in the evening they would go there to milk them. “The cows have everything they need to be happy there, but it is also a very picturesque place,” he smiles, fixing his hair ruffled by the hat.
„La mâca Ileana” guest house
Although years have passed, Petru was still saddened when he would walk near the house where his grandma used to cook him scrambled eggs or the cold plăcinte specially prepared for celebrations. He had some savings and one year ago he contacted the owners of his grandmother’s house. He wanted to buy it no matter the cost. “At first, they told me like 20 times that they wouldn’t sell, then they wouldn’t even answer the phone. But after a while, maybe they thought that they can get rid of me if they ask for a price five times higher than the one they bought it with in the beginning,” he recalls. But in the summer of 2020, both parties signed the sales agreement. Since then, his grandparents’ house started to change to become a guest house. The idea was to open its doors wide to all the people who are in need of peace and quiet, dreamy scrambled eggs and cold plăcinte.
He repaired the house while preserving its authenticity: the roof covered with clay tiles, the whitewashed walls, the colorful ornaments on the outside walls and the old frames with family pictures. Also, he collected old objects in the village, which he arranged in the yard and on the wooden terrace. Thus, in the autumn of 2020, the guest house opened its doors. Here you can find accommodation, but also see how the corn is grinded at the old stone mill Petru took from aunt Dunea. She got it from her mother-in-law, but the original owner is still unknown.
Because the pandemic is still not a thing of the past, the business cannot really flourish, but Petru says that he’s not losing hope. “We have time to make improvements. Everything is new to us, but we adapt,” he says while sitting on the wooden terrace.
The old mill
In the alley there’s aunt Dunea, who is trying to calm down her nephew. The poor little guy was at the dentist earlier and his grandma tries to bribe him with the promise of a fresh colac (ring shaped-bread) and Coca-Cola, as a reward for the teeth he lost so bravely.
“Aunt Dunea, come in… Do you remember the mill you gave me?” asks Petru, while putting his arm over the woman’s shoulders. She is dressed in a black mantle and has a wool scarf over her head. “You want to have a museum here, right?” she jokes timidly. Aunt Dunea looks around till she sees the mill, and memories start coming back to her.
When she was young, her husband, “a strong fellow”, would pour two buckets of wheat and grind them in the mill. They were making flour for bread, plăcinte and cookies. The cold plăcinte were always the stars at every table. She would always share them with the entire neighborhood, with all her relatives. “I have relatives on both banks of Nistru river. When we gathered, the house was full. I went to a few weddings in Transnistria, and they would come to ours. They also make beautiful weddings, very beautiful, I have godchildren there. We call each other, we keep in touch,” she says.
When the people from both banks of Nistru river will visit the “La mâca Ileana” guest house, Petru will grind some corn and make a mămăligă. “We, as common people, don’t have this segregation that one is Moldovan, one is Romanian and the other is Ukrainian or Russian, if they are from Transnistrian region or not,” Petru explains, and aunt Dunea confirms, nodding her head.
The idea of a guest house came to Petru Bondari while also having in mind the revival of the village. From its hills you can see Nistru – a wonderful view attracting tourists. “If the village is visited by more tourists, the locals will have the opportunity to sell their products and stay in the village,” he says. This is why Petru wants to stay in Moldova and develop his business, because “Moldova has potential”.
Moreover, Petru tells us that in the last few years, many houses in Pohrebea were bought by “outsiders”. “Most of them want to transform their houses into vacation homes, where they can spend their weekends and holidays,” he explains.
Pohrebea is a village of legends: kurgans, objects from the Cucuteni-Trypillian civilization and the legend of “Saint Alexei” church are just some of them. In the future, Petru wants to collaborate with entrepreneurs from the left bank of Nistru river, because both sides wish for this to happen. “I had the opportunity on numerous occasions to talk to the people from the Transnistrian region. They told me they would be happy to do things that would improve the situation on their side. Undoubtedly, the desire is there. And when it’s strong enough, everything is possible,” Petru says, while looking at the alleys of the village where he was born, where he grew up and where he wishes to stay.
Author: Eugenia Ciurcă
Editor: Anastasia Condruc
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