The mills in the Rudaria Gorges

The ensemble of mills in the Rudaria Gorges is the largest complex of its kind in south-eastern Europe.

Christine Leșcu, 05.09.2015, 13:06

At the foot of the Almaj Mountains, in the western
Romanian region of Banat, in a small place called Rudaria, now known as
Eftimie Murgu, people still preserve old customs alive, not for religious or
mystical purposes, but to provide their meal: they grind cereals at some
centuries-old water mills.

The ensemble of mills in the Rudaria Gorges is the
largest complex of its kind in south-eastern Europe, being powered by the
Rudarica rivulet, a tributary of the Nera river. The old name of the locality,
Rudaria, is derived from the Slav words ruda (ore) and reka (river). The
words also make you think of the stones the mills were made of, being powered
by river-water.

Documented in the 18th century,
apparently, those hydraulic systems were introduced in the area as early as the
2nd-3rd centuries, by the Cistercian monks. Even if
some of those mills have been restored, and others completely rebuilt after the
initial architectural plans, they continue to provide maize and wheat flour to
the locals. The villagers say that once, a mill functioned uninterruptedly for
24 hours to grind wheat and produced no less than 130 kilograms of flour.

Mihai Otiman, public administrator at the Eftimie
Murgu town hall, tells us more about the past and the present of the mills in
the Rudaria Gorges.

The first mills date back to 1772. Some of them were
reduced to rubble, and only 22 of them are still standing and functioning after
repeated flooding. Last year, for instance, we had a problem, when a powerful
flash flood destroyed two other mills in the month of September, but we managed
to reconstruct them, with support from the National Investment Company. We’ve
also reconstructed four dams, we have one more to rebuild and everything will
go back to normal. Unfortunately, last year we were hit by floods and this year
we are facing drought. The river has
dried up and it should rain a lot for the storage lakes to be filled with water
again. Silt should also accumulate to raise the water-level, so that the mills
may become operational again.

Hidden under the hard rock slope, where a modern road
was built, the mills are well protected, standing on the riverbank. But,
because the rivulet does not have a high flow, people built small dams to
assure the necessary water flow for the mills to function properly. The mills
bear names, either that of the builder, of the place they are located on or of
the family who takes care of the mill, at the request of the other co-owners:
the Tunnel Mill, the Trailoanea Mill, the Firiz Mill, the Rosoanea Mill, the
Mill between the Rivers, the Prundulea Mill, the Popeasca Mill, the Maxinoanea
Mill, the Hambaroanea etc. Mihai Otiman explains how this type of mill
co-ownership has functioned in the area.

The mills belong to the villagers, in a collective
ownership system. Each mill has around 30 owners who are in charge of the repair
works and maintenance. They each take turns grinding, on days that they decide
among themselves. On that day, the villager comes and takes care of the
grinding, and at the end turns the key to the manager, who passes it on to the
next miller. They grind maize into flour for porridge, as well as various grain
mixes for feeding animals. We also grind flour for whole-wheat bread. What we
have here is not a museum, the mills are operational and they are actually in
use.

The mills in Rudarie Gorges have been built in
keeping with the principles of the vernacular traditional architecture,
restored in the early 2000s under the supervision of the experts from the Astra
Ethnographic Museum in Sibiu. The funding was provided under EUROART, the EU
fund earmarked to Romania for cultural projects. To this day, all repair works
have to be done in keeping with the same traditional methods. Mihai Otiman
again:

The mills are built entirely of weed. Obviously,
over the years some specific traditional elements had to be replaced. In the
past, even the water wheels were made of wood, but since there are no longer
any craftsmen who know how to make those wooden blades, we switched to metal
wheels. But everything else is made of wood, and it all fits nicely into the
architecture of the area. The roof itself is made of wood shingles, sheet metal
or other materials are not permitted.

Today, the mill complex in Rudarie Gorges is on the
list of Historical Monuments in Romania, and hundreds of tourists come to see
it every year.