A look back at 2024
Happy New Year, with many interesting topics!
Ana-Maria Cononovici, 07.01.2025, 13:35
We start the new year by reviewing some of the unique initiatives that we presented to you in last year’s episodes. We visited the workshops of tradition keepers; we discovered civic actions, as well as cultural events with a civic and environmental impact; we talked to people who are not afraid to chase their dreams, and we showcased the famous Romanian creativity and spontaneity.
In March, we discovered how the traditional March amulet, Mărțișor, is becoming a good pretext for tradition keepers. Included in the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage, in 2017, following applications filed by Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia and the Republic of Moldova, the “Mărțișor” tradition remains more than a profitable business. This is what Teodor Adrian Negoiță, from Bârlogeni, Mehedinți, told us at a fair in Bucharest. He also described his designs for us:
Teodor Adrian Negoiță: “I’m selling Mărţişoare in the shape of miniature spoons, decorated with Romanian traditional motifs and a word in Romanian; I think it’s nice to remember our native language no matter how many foreign languages we speak, and I thought it would be a good idea for a Mărţişor, so traditional motifs and a Romanian word. I also made miniature versions of hand-stitched leather shoes, also decorated with a Romanian word and which can be tied in different ways. They are all hand-made, without a model, and placed in a small envelope so they can be given as a gift. And then, the third type of Mărţişor I make are crosses with fortune letters explaining the name of the cross, basically an introduction into Romanian traditional art and village culture. It’s up to us to preserve the tradition, so each and every one of us has to do their best, go back to the roots. My Mărţişoare, for example, don’t have fasteners, that’s how they used to make them. I have older customers who tell me that’s how they remember their grandmothers making them. You could either sow them on coats or tie them around the wrist. That’s what traditional Mărţişoare were like.”
In May we discovered details about the shapes of wine bottles, as the shape and colour of the bottles have a special meaning, according to George Ignat, known in the world of specialists as George Wine, a lecturer at the Romanian branch of the Higher School of Sommeliers, and a member of the Wine Lover Romania Association:
George Ignat: “When we’re in a restaurant, or perhaps in the wine aisle at the market, we’re surrounded by a plethora of bottles that come in scores of shapes and colours and display various labels that are a genuine sight for the eyes. Colour-wise, bottles come in a diverse offer. The most common are transparent bottles, used in particular for white and rosé wines. Then there are brown bottles, which are usually used to bottle red and green wines, although they are also used by white wines. For advertising reasons, winemakers also sell wine in blue bottles or resort to other less conventional tones. In terms of size, things get even more interesting. A typical wine bottle has 750 milliliters. I will try to outline the main types of wine that are bottled in atypical bottles. There are many smaller-sized bottles, but the most frequently used has 375 millilitres, which is half the standard volume of standard sweet desert reds from Soter. Why this specific figure? Whereas the typical yield for these sweet wines is 65%, due to atypical production process, the yield is 12%, production is quite small, which is why this type of bottle was adopted. The standard 750-mililiter bottle actually has 770 millilitres of liquid inside, due to the cork and the oxygen in-between.”
Having acknowledged that Romania ranks 13th in the world by wine consumption per capita, with just over 23 litres per year, 30 bottles per year, 2.5 per month, in a ranking led by a long way by Portugal, followed by France and Italy, we move on to another topic: making heritage accessible. With the intention of highlighting the cultural heritage in our country, an association called Designers, Thinkers, Makers created the “Culture and Cultures” programme, aimed at cultural renaissance, with an emphasis on promoting UNESCO sites. Alexandra Mihailciuc, an architect and the coordinator of the Association’s cultural programmes, gave us details:
Alexandra Mihailciuc: “This programme, “Culture and Cultures”, we thought it out as some sort of cultural revitalising we have built in a bid to protect and capitalise on the values of Romania’s cultural heritage. It somehow speaks about culture, about the various ethnic cultures, but also about culture in its basic sense, connected to the ground, that is about the territories around the house, the manor house, the village. This means it’s equally about the care for our nearest, but also about the care for the farthest, since they are tied by an umbilical cord. And the ultimate purpose of such a program, actually, is to use as many means as possible for the creation of a good climate, good for culture, and, at long last, good for the quality of life. Besides, one of the key components of this program is the education for heritage. We realised it matters for all social layers and for all ages. From our point of view, it is one of Romanian society’s emergencies. We see, around us, how much is being destroyed, how little the communities take responsibility for the heritage, how little it is loved and understood and how little it is capitalized on. This programme has several cultural projects. The project we’ve carried this year, “Heritage Lab. Connecting the Dots”, is just one of the projects in this programme, which also has three streams: education, research and design.”
Stay with us this year as well, for many more interesting stories from Romania! (AMP)
