2023 Retrospective

We set out to tell you surprising stories and I think we succeeded

Ana-Maria Cononovici, 09.01.2024, 13:36

As usual, we start the year with a review of the most interesting topics covered in 2023. We set out to tell you surprising stories and I think we succeeded.

Thus, in January we stopped at the first educational park opened in our country and found out from Ana-Maria Pascaru, director of marketing and communication, what offer they have come up with for children between the ages of 4 and 14.

If you remember, in the old days, visits were made to the parents’ workplace. Now I understand that these things still happen, but not in all companies. But here, at Destiny Park, is practically the place where children come for the first time, most of them in connection with certain jobs. That is, we go from the IT area, to medicine, agriculture, industry, chemical laboratory, airplane pilot, car pilot. It’s all very attractive to them because they’re playing and learning at the same time.

In the spring, we found out that the first edition of an event that can create a tradition took place: the Best Wine Grower in Romania Contest. It is about a national competition in dry pruning grape vines. The competition had the role of bringing to the fore a category of specialists, increasingly difficult to find, but whose work in the vineyard is essential in obtaining a good wine, as we learned from Marinela Ardelean, ambassador of the Open Romanian Wine Program, founder of Wines of Romania and co-founder of the international wine festival called RO-Wine.

It is about an event through which we proposed to celebrate winegrowers and viticulture at the same time in Romania. We often talk about wine, about oenology, less about those without whom we would not be able to enjoy the good wines that Romania has to offer, namely the winegrowers. This is exactly where this idea came from, the need, on the one hand, to highlight a lesser-known world, on the other hand, every action that contributes to increasing the quality of wine and the industry is very important. So, highlighting these professionals implicitly emphasizes an extremely important area when it comes to quality, namely the vine and how it is processed or worked. That is considering that the most important moment, from the point of view of works in the vineyard, is precisely this pruning that takes place at the beginning of the year.

In the summer we took you to Oradea, to tell you about the European Tram Driver Championship. Adrian Revnic, the general manager of the Oradea Local Transport Company, told us:

In Oradea, the 10th edition of this European Tram Driver Championship, and we already believe that this championship has become a tradition. It started as an effort by transport companies in Europe to promote urban public transport, and also to create links between European cities. This year, 25 teams participated in Oradea, 24 from Europe, including Oradea. Others are Barcelona, Basel, Berlin, Bordeaux, Brussels, Debrecen, Dresden, Dublin, Florence, Gotteborg, Hanover, Kosice, Kiev, Leipzig, Malaga, Oslo , Oradea, Prague, Nurnberg, Rotterdam, Stockholm, Szeged, Vienna, Warsaw, Zagreb. As you can see many capitals in Europe, many metropolises, many beautiful cities!

Towards the end of the year we met Alexandru Benchea, the blind Romanian mountaineer who aims to climb the Seven Summits Circuit, of which he has already climbed three. With a fascinating life story, Alexandru Benchea told us how he learned to walk on the mountain:

I learned this walk on the mountain gradually. I would like to say that it was not easy in the beginning. When I went for the first laps, I didn’t know how to use the tracking sticks. Before Mont Blanc, I learned to use them, and it helped me a lot. And many people ask me how I manage on the mountain, how I orient myself. If the path is wider, I walk next to the guide, I hold on to his arm, and with the other hand probe the terrain, using the tracking stick. It’s already automatic, first you feel with the stick, you feel that it’s a path, that it’s something stable, and then you put your foot down. If the path is narrow, I walk behind the guide, hold on to his backpack, and, in the same way, with the other hand I use the stick to balance myself. And, on the glacier, the guide walks in front of me, about 2-3 meters away, we are tied together by a rope, and in this case I use both sticks, to delimit the path, to walk on the path.

We also discovered the most popular YouTubers and vloggers who talk about Romania and traditional Romanian perfumes, but also the special tastes of some traditional products, such as babic, the special dried salami from Buzău.

We invite you to stay with us this year for other interesting stories!