Culture
Vîșcăuți, the Moldovan village where you feel like heaven
She enters the house in a hurry and arranges the corner of the entrance mat. She leaves her purse and other items on the kitchen chair and starts washing the dishes. Then she goes to the second floor, changes the sheets on the beds, arranges the trinkets on the table, draws the curtains and opens the windows to aerate the room. From the window you can see the Nistru river, its banks covered with fresh vegetation. The woman sees to her tasks. She vacuums, she cleans the floors and starts all over again on the first floor.
Then she moves to the old house next door. Nobody was accommodated in this house yet, as everyone prefers “euro” repairs, as Lucia, the 52 years old administrator of the guest house, explains. But she doesn’t let the dust settle on the furniture and always has the rooms ready to accommodate guests.
The House of the Boyar is a guest house in the village of Vîșcăuți, Orhei, and can accommodate up to 8 persons. It is part of an eco-cultural touristic project “Bronze Half-moon” (“Semiluna de bronz”), which aims at attracting tourists in rural regions, offering them authentic experience, but it also promotes social entrepreneurship.
Besides involving the locals by creating jobs, the project also offers the opportunity and necessary support for the villagers to sell their products and services. Also, the profit is reinvested in the locality and its development. For example, now they work on developing a touristic trail through the forests of Vîșcăuți with all the necessary infrastructure, which will benefit the visitors of the village, as well as the locals.
Lucia quickly sweeps in the yard and takes out the trash. She managed to tidy up in just about two hours. A group of tourists just left and another one is coming. Lucia Frunză took off her apron and is ready to welcome the guests. “They come from Chișinău, they come from everywhere,” she says in a hurry.
Lucia remembers when she received a group of 18 people. At their request, she cooked them plăcinte, pot roast and mămăligă. But she decided to make them a surprise and prepared some mulled wine. “As a bonus. I have a special recipe. I add black pepper, sugar, lemon, oranges and a little vanilla. These give the wine such an arooomaaa.”
She is a very good cook. And one of her secrets is a special knife, which she carries with her from home to the guest house and back. It’s a cleaver with a wavy pattern blade, so when she cuts produce, it has jagged edges. When she makes soup, she cuts the potatoes, the carrots, the meat and the onion – she slices everything with it. Once she brought a bowl of soup to uncle Colea. “Oh, this soup with farfalle is so good, it’s like at a restaurant!,” recalls Lucia amused about the impression she made on the neighbor.
The meadow and the cave
Gheorghe and Ludmila Frunză live down the road from the guest house. When Lucia has too much on her plate, the old couple helps her out with cooking or with laundry. He is 74 years old, and she is 70. In summertime, the couple spends their second youth in Vîșcăuți. In winter, when it’s cold, they go back to Chișinău.
Gheorghe was born here, and he knows all the surroundings like his five fingers. He knows how to reach the Boyar’s Cave two ways: one is more difficult and the other one easier.
If you are in good shape and have the courage, you can reach the Boyar’s Cave through the ravine. But Gheorghe’s legs can’t keep up with this trail as he used to. The pathway to the cave goes between two rocky hills. You will step on the slippery rocks, washed by the cold water of the springs. You will climb the trees so thick, you can’t embrace with both hands, knocked down by the summer rain.
You will slowly advance towards the cave located up the hill, where you’ll see the Cornelian cherry dogwood full of hard-to-reach red berries, which local people pick for making compote. If you try and yell between the two rocky hills, your voice will not travel far. You will have no use of modern technologies, and your phone will only be good for taking pictures. Here you can breathe fresh cold air, while embraced by the silence dictated only by the murmur of the water.
Once you reach the cave, you need a lantern. On the walls you can see “V+M=LOVE”, but also hanging bats – almost embraced one next to another. There are three entrances to the cave and many labyrinths. No one knows exactly what are its measurements. There are some assumptions that it’s one kilometer long. But you can’t really reach its depths, because it collapsed a long time ago.
There are many legends about the origin of the cave. Gheorghe tells us that it used to be a quarry, tons of rock being extracted for the construction of churches.
Actually, according to archives, the cave was dug by the Sandino boyar around 1900 for storing wine barrels.
Locals say that during the two world wars, the cave was used as shelter for their grandparents and great-grandparents, and that they were guarded by the soldiers stationed in Vîșcăuți.
The old couple takes us on the river bank. “If you get on the boat and sail on the river, watching the forest… It’s such a beauty!,” Gheorghe tells us with excitement. He walks slowly and looks towards Nistru, watching the swans, the forest. “The air in Vîșcăuți almost makes you drunk,” he adds. He is followed by his wife Liuda and Daniel, a boy from the neighborhood.
They want to visit the three springs. It is said that the water of each of the springs has distinctive tastes. When they get to the place, they can see tourists’ traces: campfire ash, some pieces of paper. Tourists are not uncommon in these places. Gheorghe tells us that they come with their tents and spend a couple of days here fishing. He likes spending time with them. “All of them say that this is a nice quiet place”.
In Vîșcăuți you can rent a boat from the locals. You can also buy homemade bread, wine and free range chicken, fresh river fish, home grown vegetables. The village also has a beach, a picnic area, a wharf and a neighborhood called “The joyful neighborhood” due to the events organized here. From time to time, people gather here and cook fish soup or barbeque, they play some music, dance and party.
“The hill of Chirița” opens a view of Nistru river and the surrounding areas. “Now everything has dried-up… But when it’s green, the flowers there are wonderful!,” says Gheorghe.
“In Rață’s music video they showed the entire village. They filmed the forest and our meadow”, recalls Gheorghe. “There is also a song – My meadow. He sang it on TV many times,” adds Ludmila.
„Over the mountain, over the river – is my meadow,
Sometimes yearly, sometimes late – I take a walk there,
Over the mountain, over the river – flowers and roses,
Over the mountain, over the river – hidden memories.”
The lyrics to the song “My meadow”, sang by Moldovan singer Ion Rață, born in Vîșcăuți, where the music video was filmed.
Since the pandemic started, Ludmila and Gheorghe appreciate life in the village even more. “When the pandemic started, everyone was so agitated and scared. When we were in Chișinău, we would see all the ambulances and police cars throughout the entire city. But when we came here, it was like coming to heaven. When you get in the yard, you don’t need the mask any longer. We are peaceful here and we see to our chores. In Chișinău we didn’t have anything to do, except sitting on the benches outside. But here we exercise, we grow vegetables, fruits, we make canned food for winter,” Ludmila explains. She appreciates the tourists visiting the village, because the people have the opportunity to sell something to them. “They really don’t have a way to sell something in the village, no means to make a living.”
The luck and the happiness to be born at the river
Because the village is located on the banks of Nistru, the river is the one dictating the life in the region: it gives people water, it gives them food, but also leisure areas. Gheorghe remembers that especially during the soviet period he would visit his relatives on the other side of the river, in the village of Harmațca. They would barbeque under the willows near the river and then cross Nistru and continue their party under the willows of Vîșcăuți.
At the guest house, while stirring the pot roast, Lucia is humming a sad song. She is absorbed by the process and lets herself caught up in the moment:
Nistru, don’t drown me,
Nistru, don’t drown me,
Shai-rai-rai-ra, Shai-rai-rai-ra.
You don’t have the money to burry me,
You don’t have the money to burry me,
Shai-rai-rai-ra, Shai-rai-rai-ra.
“I woke up to this song. I woke up with my grandparents, with my parents, with the entire village singing it, and we learned it.” She grinds some cheese on a plate, and on another she puts some parmesan – so it’ll be tastier with the mămăliga. She puts some clay plates on the table and invites the guests.
“I am very proud to be born near the river,” says Lucia. She has happy memories of her childhood, when the winters were colder and the ice on the river could reach even 1 meter in depth. “Cars and tractors, even trucks with gas tanks would cross Nistru, driving towards the Transnistrian region,” she explains.
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People live in VîșcăuțiSources: BNS, 2014 |
People live in HarmațcaSources: dubossary.ru, 2013 |
Even today, the bond between the two river banks is not lost. Lucia has relatives living in the village across the river, in Harmațca. “We have brothers and sisters, we have cousins, we are all related to each other. Because it’s a whole.”
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.
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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