We have in the past done a lot of bashing of the Romanian countryside on these pages, and have been accused of being ignorant urbanites who know nothing of country life.
This is wrong.
We in fact know a fair bit about life in the Romanian countryside, and this is the main reason we care so much about improving the lives of those people who have little or no choice other than subsistence farming.
Anyway, ignorant or not, we decided this week that it was about time we gave the Romanian countryside (or at least one tiny part of it) a somewhat patronising pat on the back.
We are unaware of any of Romania’s counties having the equivalent of England’s Best Kept Village competitions. (While we don’t think such a thing exists here, we could be wrong: do let us know if we are).
Anyway, should such a competition ever be introduced, we know which village we’d back to take first prize: Petresti (Petrifeld), in Satu Mare.
Bustling Petresti
We are familiar with Petresti (which is here) for the simple reason that our in-laws live there, and we visit at least once a year.
We were there last week.
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Petresti is a terrific place, and of all the Romanian villages we have visited it really is entitled to call itself The Best Kept.
There is no litter, there are no stray dogs, the vast majority of houses are in great shape (and – importantly – lived in), it has sewerage (installed this year), gas, electricity, a good shop, a handsome church, a kindergarten, an elementary school in better shape than many in Bucharest and a sports hall that would shame most towns and cities in Romania (or anywhere else!) and – until recently – a third division football team (really: Fink Fenster Petresti).
It even has a restaurant, while a bowling alley and fishing lake are currently under construction.
Compared to the next village up the road, the rather frightful Piscolt, it is paradise.
Petresti, in a word, thrives, and is proof that where there is a decent mayor able to make use of every penny on offer from government or from the European Union ‘stuff can get done.’
Petresti's school
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C4%83rman
This one is the best kept Romanian village I saw, but from the comfort of my car.
Yes, Harman is also a developed village.
And Cornu is also a developed village, I don’t expect Adrian Nastase to be taking vacations on dirt roads…
Historicaly interesting village:
-Scornicesti: Birthplace of you know who… has anyone been there? was it well kept at the time?
Among other things, it had a 25.000 seats stadium if remember correctly + a football team in the second division and always ready for promotion
)
Yes, it was indeed a well kept village, as well as the village of Petresti (where Elena Ceausescu was born).
Of course, after 1989 the stadium and everything else became ruins…
Nowadays, if you’re looking for well kept villages you should go to Rachitele where Emil Boc was born. I think Elena Udrea built a sports hall with a few thousands of seats, among other improvements in his village
)
Have you heard about Antonesti village? Not the birthplace of the man (of course, that controversial Antonescu), but his ‘vision’ of a model romanian village. Now forgotten and not very populated, just some of the houses remain.
What do people do up there for employment out of interest. Lack of jobs surrounding village areas surely must account for some of the shitty states villages are in.
Actually the problem is quite on the opposite side: all villagers are now working in the West and send money home to their parents who usually drink these money together with their pensions at the local tippling house.
You can drink a lot with 100 Euro at a tippling house in a village.
And then everyone’s crying that they can’t find people to do chores on the field, like planting wheat and collecting apples and so on…
I have 3 cousins who used to live in a village in Oltenia (close to Craiova) and a few years ago they all left to work abroad: 2 boys went to Spain to work as constructor workers and a girl went to Italy to work as a housekeeper.
And they kept sending money home so the old ones could drink. And then they all came back and bought land and built 3 villas with 15-17 rooms each. And then they realized there’s nothing for them to do over here and they moved abroad for good.
Now they only come to Romania in vacation with their families, but they still keep sending money so the old ones can drink. The villas are deserted for most of the year.
I think one of them beat the sh*t out of some other villager 10 years ago, not sure if he killed him or only disabled him but he did spend some years in jail…
Actually he only disabled him if I remember correctly…
The owner of the local tippling house beat a villager to death because he remained hidden over the closing hours and until morning came he drank all the booze he could find.
But the owner of the tippling house got away with it, he paid the police to cover the case and the police did so because that villager was only a drunken thief, he had nothing, he wouldn’t work and lived by stealing stuff from everyone.
Mainly subsistence farming, working their own land and selling surplus produce at the market in Carei. Others have jobs in Carei.
You don’t need to look far from Bucharest to find a very well kept village. Corbeanca looks great, and the mayor has been around since before 1989, when he was party secretary.
Popesti-Leordeni also looks good and developing. And there are also many other villages which look great, there’s a weekly TV show on OTV showing developed villages and interviewing their mayors.
Personally I don’t watch it but I remember that once there was a village from the region of Oltenia shown and its mayor interviewed: he accessed European funds, he paved all roads, he put in sewage, he bought snow removal machines and agricultural machines and the local counsel rented them to people from all the villages in the area.
So there are probably many other villages looking wonderful in Romania.
Neither Corbeanca nor Popesti can be considered villages. They are suburbs of Bucharest, with most of the people who live there working in the capital.
Not necessarily Corbeanca. Popești-Leordeni is a town anyway, so it doesn’t count.
According to the wikipedia page about this village, only 11% of the population are ethnic Romanians. 47% are Hungarian and 31% are German. Even the mayor is an ethnic Hungarian.
If this is one of the best managed, most tidy villages in Romania, what does that say about Romanian people/culture?
It says that hadn’t the West been around to steal the country’s resources, maybe the other villages would have also looked properly.
But check out my village, from the link below. That village was built by some people who paid the West back with the same coin.
Gypsies are like America – sometimes you love’em sometimes you hate’em…
Is that seriously the conclusion you come to? Did the west not come to steal the resources from this village? Is it just by chance that “the best kept village” in Romania is a Hungarian/German village? I think this says something about Hungarian and German culture at the very least.
Of course, if you put it like “what does that say about Romanian people/culture?” then I have to come to my conclusion.
We don’t know if it’s “the best kept village” in Romania, but suppose it were – we don’t know how far away the other ones are so considering that I personally know a few well kept villages in Romania, following your judgement for me it says that Romanian culture is as advanced as the German/Hungarian culture combined. So you made an unfortunate comparison.
Then how do you explain the village of Buzescu looking as it does while other gypsy villages look like in the stone ages? They’re all gypsies, aren’t they?!
It is highly unlikely that any place in Romania has 31% ethnic germans. That figure must be pre-1989.
That data is from the 2002 census.
Here’s the wikipedia link for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petre%C5%9Fti,_Satu_Mare
Many of the German properties are used as holiday homes: the people who own them only spend the summer in Petresti. The majority of the day-to-day population is Hungarian. My father-in-law (who is Romanian) once got a note from the council telling him not to water his garden for a while in order to save water. As the note was in Hungarian he carried on watering his plants, and when somebody came to ask why, he simply said that he lived in Romania and that he only understands Romanian
Imagine if Bucharest had a parking system like this!
http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/07/18/7107062-pay-by-phone-parking-no-quarters-but-hidden-costs
Imagine if New York had free parking as Bucharest has!
You should visit Buzescu village in Teleorman.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UEKI59Itk8
Those guys use European money too, alright
Either your photos don’t do it justice or a better title might be “The Least Ugly/Dull Village in Romania”
My photos are, as usual, to blame. But it is by no means a picturesque place, and I hardly meant to say it was.
Just neat, tidy, well looked after and not quite as crap as so many others.
Certeze village, also in Satu Mare canton, is also tidy and looked after, but with a + of pitoresque. They are sourrounded by forests and they keep some tradition related to wood craftmanship; wooden gates, fences made of huzelnut branches, wooden church, etc. There is a nice hotel in the forest, called Valea Mariei, where there are 4 or more pools (using natural hot springs). Food is boring but conversation can be very interesting, when talking to old people; they have stories to tell. Soil is not good, people work in wood industry (furniture, export to Germany); some still keep some sheep, but it’s more like having spoiled pets.
Also in Satu Mare canton, might be nice to visit Zetea family, they have a family business = tuica.
Totally agree with you from these photo’s…but I have to say, look where it is..right up there on the Hungarian boarder…of course it looks like this…Hungarian influence. But I’m all for it, congrats to the people that live in this beautiful village…here’s to more like it…
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