From the Former USSR with Love

At Sigheta there is a new bridge across the Tiso to the Ukraine, former USSR. A little bit of paper work, a walk in the rain, and there you are...

Even before Sapanta, we noticed road signs in Russian as well as Romanian

We did not dare take pix of the border facilities, but you can

see the new bridge in this Ukraine billboard, at the crossing;

I think it says "Your capitalist wolves' taxes at work..."

From the bridge, Romania on the left, Ukraine on the right; River Tiso in the middle

So there we are, past the border station and its frowny-faced guards

Just like in Romania, unfinished buildings

Welcome to Slatina

The village church; note variety of construction materials

One or two very nice houses; most not so nice

There were exactly two stores open, both

very limited general merchandise, staples,

beer; nothing in the way of souvenirs or

trinkets, not even post-cards; not unlikely

we were the first Americanskis to venture

this way

OK, now we've been to the Ukraine; alas, not much to show

for it but stamps on our passports, but we did it

PS For those wondering why we did not venture further into this fascinating land, the Ruskies generally, in whatever their former-states, are not particularly welcoming of independent travelers, and especially of those in RVs; we have an acquaintance who did the Ukraine recently in an RV, but he was part of an organized caravan (convoy), that is, a tour. Next time. Or more likely, the time after that.

Sigheta Marmeita

The town of Sigheta Marmeita was a few kilometers up the road from Sapanta, and it offered a couple attractions: the home of writer Elie Wiesel and a bridge to the Ukraine.... Sigheta was infamous after the war as a place where the new communist regime imprisoned and murdered dissidents.

The Elie Wiesel home in Sigheta

More

It now offers tours, but we decided our Romanian was too
 limited...

Wiring in Sigheta; like a lot of other places we
have visited

One or two of the churches downtown

Another

The Palace Cultural

Merry, Merry, Cemetery

Our first goal was Sapanta, in the Marmures, and its "Merry Cemetery."

It's a small village, no campground, no supermarket parking

lot, nothing...so we just parked next to the church and the

cemetery; obviously, the church is being renovated, and I

 figured it would be quiet...

The night was very quiet

But, to our surprise, the church was still in

use, bells pealing Sunday morning, and

amplifiers broadcasting the 2 hour+ morning

Orthodox mass

But we got to see the "Merry Cemetery" where one of the

locals years ago began the tradition of carving and painting

the grave markers, wittily, and always happily; the

tradition continues with his apprentices

The Creatorul, Stan loan Patras, directly

opposite the church entrance

The tire guy, with whom we could relate...

The school teacher

A writer?

And the most intriguing--and photgraphed--

of all

And the mass went on, and on, and on... (mostly to the

 tune of "Car 54, where are you?")

Most of the faithful outside

Patiently

More Marmures Scenes

Scenes driving into the Marmures...

We were struck by the number of very large residences,

most under construction, few actually finished and

inhabited

Even in fairly remote rural areas

We have seen hundreds, perhaps thousands; all of the

same very recent vintage, when Romania entered the

EU and capital apparently flooded in--but not long enough...

These beside more traditional dwellings, each with a front-

yard well and a yard given completely to fruit and vegetable

gardening

Up in the hills, a road-side picnic area

In one of the cities, like Cluj, much defunct heavy industry

and oil (?) pipelines

Ditto

A defunct farm collective out in the countryside, one of

dozens

Great beauty in the churches that are

everywhere

And more unfinished 5,000 square foot mansions

And more wagons...it is a country in transition

On to Romania

Blog post #800 finds us in Sucovita, northern Rumania, Moldavia, seeing our third "painted" monastery in a day, and parking in its visitor parking lot, not far from a restaurant with wifi. We finally got the needed new tires in Budapest, at a place called Automax. So far, so good. We drove on, after stocking up at the nearby Tesco, into Romania. At the border they stamped our passports, noting we were in a motor vehicle. (We'd better be in a motor vehicle when we leave!) We also bought the required vignette for travel on Romanian highways, about $30 for a month. We stopped a bit past Oradea, an unattrative Soviet-bloc industrial town, at a restaurant that offered free parking. A beer brought access to wifi too. The next day we drove on into the Marmures, the mountainous northern region, just south of Ukraine, famous for its wooden churches and continuing peasant life. Below are some scenes from the road...

Our first night in Romania; northern Romania has few--

possibly no--campgrounds; fortunately, wild camping is

tolerated; especially if you clear it with the proprietors and

buy a beer or dinner

Alas, it was only the next morning that we discovered we

had parked nearby a business that traffics in the gnome cult;

the gnome cult knows no boundaries, no borders

Romanians are renowned as the worst drivers in Europe,

the highest accident rate and the highest mortality rate;

despite the fact few own cars; here's the third auto junk

yard we saw the next morning, nearly all the wrecks

front-enders; this was the best-organized junk dealer I

have seen...

These are Romanian hay-stacks, all organized around

central poles; we have dubbed them "Vlad the Impaler"

style; we have seen tens of thousands more in the last

few days

Hotel Montana

Isvorul Crisului, aka "Souvenir Village" a

little town approaching the Marmures that

is lined, both sides, with little tourist

trinket shops

Goes on perhaps a mile or more; one of the things we have

learned is that, at least in this region, all the villages and

town go on a mile or more, generally more, since they

simply line the highway, with no side-streets or

off-shoots; this means you'll have a 3-mile village,

followed by, another 1000 feet, another 3-mile village;

consequently, if you abide by the laws, going is very

slow, in our case, averaging about 35 mph; we are clearly

the only vehicle in Romania that abides by the laws; these

people will pass you going uphill on a blind curve, in rain,

in areas congested not only by other cars but also horse-

drawn wagons, bicycles, pedestrians; we are driving very

defensively

We expected to see horse-drawn wagons occasionally;

they are everywhere, even in some of the cities

Ditto

Entering Cluj Napoca, another big city, not

attractive to our eyes

Back out in the countryside, nearly every

house has a painted metal Jesus

Ditto; the painted metal Jesus business must

be very good