April 9th visit to Orheiul Vechi and Milestii Mici

An icy cold wind is blowing, as if we are in the mountains, which gives clear views on the rolling landscape and beautiful soils!  (says the agricultural expert  in me). The experts (Robert, Ron and Jaques) have a closer look at the spillway of one of the many dams.

About 40 kms north of Chisinau lies Orheijul vechi, arguably  Moldova's  most fantastic sight

The Monastery, carved into massive limestone rock, in the middle of a huge meander in the river Raut in this wild rocky, remote spot, draws visitors from around the globe.  

The cave monastery was dug by orthodox monks in the 13th century in a cliff overhanging the Raut river.  This region was a place of worship for Geto-Dacian tribes, from before Christ.

<-- The caves are in the steep rock  below map numers 12,17,13,14; view is from nr 9a over looking the valley           

                         This view above was seen from nr 12a on the map, standing on the ridge

            

According to the Orhei website (with beautiful pictures!)  http://orhei.dnt.md/: "The Christians in the process of searching for Messiah could not miss such a divine place near the nowadays Butuceni and Trebujeni villages".
In the 14th century Stefan cel Mare (returing in streetnames and statues al over the country) built a fortress here which however was destroyed by the tartars.

Transnistria (The land at the other side of the river Nistr). We make a small detour as we like to see the river Nistr, the border with the self declared, Russion supported, republic of Transnjistria; there are strong border controls but they let us through as we only want to see the dam, and of course get an impression of what Transnistria looks like, from a distance.  Well, this is what it looks like:

The wine road.

The area around Chisinau is famous for its rich soils and good wines. The Cricova winery is the grand duke under the wineries, with a special red sparkling wine.. It boasts 120 kms of underground labyrinth roads of which 60 are used for wine storage. Tunnels have existed here since the 15thcentury, when limestone was dug out to help buld Chisinau. This explains all the nice white buildings! Cricova wines and champaigns have a high international reputation. Vladimir Putin celebrated his 50st birtday here.

There is such a strong wind that we are almost blown away at the dam site.

We go to the cellars of Milestii Mici, who specialise in white table wines. They entered the guiness book of records in 2006 with the largest wine cellars, containing more than 1,5 million bottles of wine. All together 160 kms of cellar(see the site map below) of which they use only 55!  90 % of Moldovan wines are exported, being much at demand in northern Europe and USA.Wine export yields 130-150 mln dollars annually, accounting for 1/4 of the country's budget! We taste some of the wines in a beautiful underground setting, but the wines are not as impressive as the caves!

Purcari wines (south western area)  are famous, and at the end of the 19th century were supplied to the Royal British Court.

Back in Chisinau we celebrate this very good day with very good food in a very nice pub-like restaurant. Discuss the myths around natural and antropogenical influences on Climate change; Ron has started a very informative, neutral and scientific database for that, which I recommend: http://www.climatedata.info/  

April 7th

This week was for  celebrating the respective 60year anniverseries of my good friends Marga in the USA and of Lindsay in the UK.
Also for booking the trip to Rapallo, Italy, on april the 20st (Also Marleen and Iris will be coming to support the LENtrophy waterpolo finals, that is great!).
Further I applied for a very interesting job and am in the process of organising a workshop in May on sustainable development as a VVM contributon to the Dutch Government's Sustainability Agenda.

We concluded the week  with a proper friday evening ice-cold wodka(Robert) and a dry vermouth with lime( Jelleke), like inold Nigerian times, on Lindsay & Jeremy's porch. 

Een typical day in Chisinau

After our daily early exercises (Chi Gung & tummy training) and breakfast, Robert goes to the office around the corner; the trees show some activity and I spot a typical spring flower (klein hoefblad)  in between the tarred road and sidewalk.  Otherwise it's still cold, rainy and windy. I do some work in the house (dishwashing, laundry, gmail, website, job application, organissing the VVM workshop about sustainability), make myself a cup of coffee and go out for daily shopping. It means walking along the Stephan cel Mare boulevard, which takes at least 20 minutes, passing various embassies (guarded by police)  government buldings, orthodox churches, flower stalls, the main parks...and always something happens here.

Yesterday there was a life TV recording in front of the Moldova Government building as there was some kind of memorial activity going on- it feels silly not to know what this is about. Just as silly that I couldn't explain that I wanted butter instead of this very nice young cheese. It appears to be named UNT; milk is LAPTA and easier recognisable, as it is being sold in plastic bags, like the ones in France on our first camping tour when I was 12 years old and  found that quite fascinating: milk that did not come in a bottle!

In the evening Robert and I make a walk towards the nice looking green area (on the map that is!) We are wondering what nice park with view on a lake- or so it seems- there might be. It is not so far from our street so we go there and find a once beautiful park area where the stylish staircases and the fountain are broken down, the lake is a muddy place, and only the birds are singing- that makes it a nice spring evening after all!

Meike's waterpoloteam playing Finals European LEN trophy!

Even though we are in Moldova, we are following the events in the Netherlands, where 'het Ravijn' played the first match of the  Waterpolo LEN trophy Finals(European Cup)  against the Italian club Rapallo Nuoto, on april 6th. Among the 700 supporters in the new Nijverdal Swimming pool were friends and family who sent us text messages to keep up with the scores: 7-2 after the first quarter, great! They win with 12-5, amazingly good!

Meike has been playing a great game and is suddenly world famous in the Netherlands. Watch the official Dutch NOS evening news (video with a short interview with her) via the next link.  The return game will be held in Rapallo, near Genoa, on the 20st of April, and Robert and I are planning to go to support Meike and her team, and hopefully share in the final siege! 

http://nos.nl/artikel/231135-het-ravijn-haalt-uit-in-ecfinale.html

By the way, Meike did keep the  ball (on her head) out of the goal!                                 

Photo's thanks to http://www.mtb-sport.net/

                    

Decorated easter eggs

The only thing we bought in Romania were decorated eggs, traditional, hand painted with wax, you won't believe it when you   see such crafty workmanship 

Then we were happy to be home again in our stylish appartment at the Petru Movinastreet  

Rumenia - visit, Sunday april 3d

From this last beautiful Monastery it was another 55 kms to Suceava, where I had reserved a room in a hostel, managed by Monica, a young internationally oriented and cheerful Rumenian woman who speaks excellent English. I  recommend her, http://www.classhostel.ro/, also for guided tours, but do know that she will be leaving Romania to start a hostel in Singapore at the end of this year.
On the way we passed through Radauti, famous for it's black pottery, but we don't need things any more :)

The carpets, or rugs actually,from Rumania, like the one you see on the photo, with roses,  handwoven and beautiful on both sides, are suddenly very fashionable in the Netherlands; they cost here about 600 euro's. 
                               
Sunday we need to travel back to Chisinau. the landscape is the same every where: extended hilly plains, now and then cut by rivers and streams. Consisting of this beautiful black earth. I noticed that the farmers bring horse-manure on top of the soil. They have a lot of horses here to draw the carts, so there's more horse manure than cow-manure. Cows I sighted only one or two, now and then, looking lost somewhere on a field or in the woods. In many valleys there are dams for irrigation purposes. Near lunchtime we arrive at Iasi again, where we take leave of our hitchhiker lady. It's very common here to hitch hike, as there are only few long distance buses and trains only twice a day.

It is common to pay the busfee for a ride. I notice that all cities here look the same: wide streets/ boulevards with apartment buildings, all 4 or 5 floors high( no highrises or individually outstanding officebuildings, shops on the ground floor, broad sidewalks planted with trees, and cars parked alongside.  Maybe Rotterdam looked like that before the war, without the cars obviously!

We find ourselves a nice place for lunch, outside in the sun and out of the cold wind.They do salads and spaghetti and even have nice music and speak english. Recommendable: Clubul Bursei, opposite the cinema and next to Best Western hotel, just behind the main square.

From Iasi it's down alongside  the wide valley of the rivers Prut and Jijia; along the roadside we find storks, almost every other kilometer, on their nests built on electricity poles. So spring must be coming after all!

Bucovina Monasteries -3

Still saturday April 2d: from the Moldovita  Monastery to the Sucevita Monastery, 35 kms through the mountains, hairpin turns and all. A very quiet road, as everywhere here in Rumenia. The Sucevita Monastery was built between 1580 and 1601. The paintings were made by two brothers Sofronie and Ioan between 1595 and 1596. Incredibly beautiful is the ladder of virtues, the Jacob's ladder? At one side angels are helping people to move up to heaven;  on the other side devils are tearing people down from the ladder.
According to our guidebook: the pictorial  expression of exceptional esthetic value reflecting man's aspiration to perfection, in the fight between good and evil, to regain the lost harmony after you 've committed sin.  

I find it very interesting after having been in Assisi, where the focus of the western catholic church was on the life of Christ, his death and  in particlular the resurrection, the life after death! After having been in Ethiopia, where the focus was also on Jesus' life and the good deeds he did. Here the focus is on you as a human being and what may happen to you.

The next photo is  a special for Lisette Thooft (author of the book "de onverzadigbare vrouw en de afwezige man", about man having to deal with the dragon =women), as it shows a woman riding her dragon, meaning, being in control of her dragon, the beast.

The next fresco shows a man sleeping, or dying(?), where from his navel (where we now that the CHI, the life gining energy is) his soul or higher self emerges, fascinating! What did it mean to say, all those years back?