Textile Hunters: Romania

Romania
14^th October 2014

Our room in Maramures was decorated with Ramona's handiwork

If Eger was “small town”, then Maramures was positively rural.  And the textile trail was hotting up!  Our homestay host, Romana, had her house beautifully decorated in the traditional way with all manner of textiles.  We also had a day tour of the local area organised, fitting in visits to the Painted Cemetery, the Holocaust Museum, an ancient wooden church, a working farm that used water driven tools and a painted monastery.  The link to textiles became quite clear – making cloth and decorating textiles was once just part of life. 

The Black Wooden Church

Textiles inside the Black Church

Felt made with an antiquarian water-driven pounding machine

The Painted Cemetery

In the old town of Sighisoara, we first met up with Vlad the Impaler (aka Dracula).  Perched high on a hill (a good defensive position), this walled complex certainly retains something of the character of those dark old days.  Gloomy covered stairs reek of headless horsemen, whilst a maze of narrow, cobbled streets offer secret places to hide or be hidden.  Overhead, massive towers loom dramatically and a cemetery has just the right amount of unkempt greenery.    

Sighisoara's Town Square - site of some nasty goings-on in the old days!

We took rural to a new level in Viscri, where our host had restored a number of houses in this peaceful village. 

It was like a living museum and we very much appreciated friendly locals who treated us to living the good life.  The fortified church had a few rooms of costumes & textile folk crafts to browse through, so with a pair of locally made felt slippers, we were making connections at last.

Brasov became our base for a day tour of exquisite Peles Palace, medieval Rasnov Fortress and Dracula’s most famous, Bran Castle. 

We had a great day sticking our nose in to see how the rich and powerful lived during the various eras covered by each castle.  Brasov itself has a rich and most interesting history and we wandered for a few hours inside and out, of the old city walls. 

The time had come however to seek out an ethnographic museum and Brasov’s fit the bill especially well.

Looking soldierly in Brasov

Bran Castle...Vlad stayed here once

Beautiful costume in Bram Castle

We drove through beautiful autumn forests catching glimpses of snow as we made our way by bus and train to eventually arrive in Bucharest.  This is a stately and reserved city with vast monoliths built to commemorate the might of conservative communist leaders.  We explored the city, delighted by its many paradoxes and yet again managed to unearth a link to Vlad the Impaler, with foundations of his Princely Court in the city centre.  I found a few vague textile connections though didn’t have time to fully explore museums.  The weather was nice, the park attractive with row boats, black swans and old men playing board games.  So instead of pounding the pavement, we sat lake-side and took in the ambience over a local beer or two.

Again, a few more interesting links to explore Romanian textiles:

ThreadWritten Textiles

R John Howe

Romanian Ethnic Art (Pinterest)

Shop display looking rather enticing but closed!