#sureanu

[danielbudau]

Sureanu 2021 #wallpaper #sureanu #mountains #românia #winter #munteromania #sonys20ultra #danielbudauphotography #danielbudau #naturallightphotography #sunset #sunsetphotography #wallpaperwinter #snow #snowboarding (at Domeniul Schiabil Șureanu) https://www.instagram.com/p/CKeDvLegkNg/?igshid=6686t8ioqte8

[artiistu]

👉 #Amintiri din vacanta... De sus de pe domeniul schiabil Sureanu. Va spun sincer ca m-as cam muta acolo. M s-a lipit sufletul de locurile acelea linistite! 💓 #snow #sureanu #oasa #judetulalba #turism #plimbare (at Cabana Luncile Prigoanei)

[transylvanianphotoessays]

Cioclovina. România. 2016 A warning message in yellow paint: N U B O C A Ț [in English don’t block]

At the end of a 14-km drive on a dirt road with plenty of potholes, the car reaches the beginning of a village. It’s not really what everyone would expect. There aren’t any houses where the village starts, only wooden garages. Neither is there a welcome sign, only warnings "don't block" "don't park".

[transylvanianphotoessays]

Costești-Deal. România. 2016 In the Șureanu mountain range, family members are traditionally buried on the farm land. Wooden painted crosses are placed on the graves depicting narratives from the Gospel e.g. the baptism of Jesus Christ.

[transylvanianphotoessays]

Costești-Deal. România. 2016 Boitar, the black dog, standing silently by the shepherd’s legs

From the deserted school building, the road climbs up a very steep hill face. Right after the climb, the road goes left. It surrounds the mountain from here on. Beneath the road, some large sheep dogs were resting in a plum orchard. Above the road, a flock of sheep was grazing in a fenced pasture land. Tending to the flock, a man together with a small black dog. The black dog started barking aggressively at the sight foreigners. Boitar was soon cautioned to calm down and retreat by his owner’s legs.

Boitar with a slight grumble became silent. The shepherd finally greeted us and quite timidly started telling us about the whereabouts, about the few people that still live here, and about the cold weather which came a little bit early this year. In the background, snow was covering the southern horizon marked by the tallest peaks of the Șureanu range. As we became more familiar, he told us that he had not been born in Costești-Deal. For the people on the south of Prisaca, he was kind of an outsider. Even so, he knew a lot about this place where he has been living for quite some time. He had been born in Novaci, a town south of the Carpathian ridge, in the Gorj county. Shepherding had moved him here.

As many other Romanians during the past two decades, he had also been working abroad. He spent 8 years in Spain, France and Germany. Living and working there gave him the chance to notice how life is abroad. People were expecting to live 90 years or so. They would not work during their retirement and spend time at home or at the beach (on several holidays). He noticed a great awareness on the need to stay healthy: people walking to work rather than using one of the cars or running daily in the morning. At first he considered them crazy. Why would someone do that? If you owned three cars, why won’t you use them? Talking to the other miners (supposedly locals from the Jiului valley region working abroad too), he would tell them that the Westerners by running 8-10 km per day end up being much healthier than the average young hard working guy Romanian. Currently back at home, he didn’t find it amazing that the same people from the Western countries were filling the mountains with tents during holiday season. During the summer, there are more foreign campers than local shepherds in the Șureanu mountains.

Considering all that, today he is proud that he was never critically ill. At 51 years of age, thanking God he is not taking any medication. In his exact words, he doesn’t know yet what a pill is. He is aware that people in the region don’t live long as in the West and blames it on the harsher life in the country. People work hard at their jobs. Even after they finished coming home meant only more work, handling the farm, cutting grass, collecting the hay and so on. Also for others (those living in the cities), life is much more sedentary. Sitting at offices and preferring to drive a car rather than to walk. He feels sorry for his younger brother, a 39 years-old accountant, who has been very ill recently.

As most shepherds in the Carpathians he has mastered the skills of a professional mountaineer. In winter nights he takes his wool jacket, “cojoc”, his parka and a sheet of cellophane and sleeps in the snow. A real winter bivouac! To shake of the chill, he takes a morning shower by rubbing snow on his body. He heard on TV that an 102-year old man from Sibiu is still committed to shepherding. The old man lacks most of his former strength, but still can keep up with the flock and is more trustworthy than a young shepherd. Encouraged by this hero of the trade, our shepherd hopes he can stay strong and fit. Fresh air. Clean cold water. Tasty food straight from his garden. The elements are in his favour.

[transylvanianphotoessays]

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Costești-Deal. Romania. 2016 The Sounds of the Șureanu Mountains. Boitar, the shepherd’s dog, welcoming strangers loudly while the shepherd tries to calm him down.

[transylvanianphotoessays]

Costești-Deal. Romania. 2016 It turns out that the pigs were roaming not only on private property (the lands around a deserted farm), but also on public property.

Higher up, on a flat land surrounded by acacias was a large old building with cracked walls. The doors and windows were missing. In order to stop animals entering through the doors and to avoid more damage to the building, someone had nailed boards on some of the entrances.

From afar, the building had the appearance of a school with grassy playground which had become a snuffling pen for the pigs. At close inspection, the only signs written in green paint indicated this was a meetings hall on one side and a buffet on the other. Has it always played this double role?

[transylvanianphotoessays]

Costești-Deal. Romania. 2016 At some point the south-western ridge of Prisaca unites with a western ridge which is followed by a descent dirt-road which links these small farms on the mountain with the Orăștie valley. Meeting the road could be considered the beginning of the more central part of this scattered village, although the first farm on the road is completely deserted. Well, from a human perspective it can’t really be called central.

The only abundance in this region was that of farm animals. A large drift of young pigs (not piglets, but adolescents) was snuffling through the fallen leaves searching for fallen walnuts, plums and apples. They belonged to some farm, but they were roaming freely and carelessly on this side of the mountain doing whatever they loved to do.