Sweet Transylvania

I was back home, and slowly my soul was catching up...

Because there is the small country here, and the torn-off parts there. When I see the mountains, the wound hurts every single time, "give me back my mountains" , you can never settle for that.
Fairyland fell to them, but they couldn't even live with it, only die. The dirty blockhouses of the big cities, the gutted factory monsters of the brown zones, we don't even look there anymore, we just move on to Székelyföld as soon as possible! You really get home.

And like a soft warm bath, we immerse ourselves in the wonderful landscape, in the kindness and kindness of the people, in their delicious speech, I have no idea how many times already, but I can never get enough of it.

At exactly half past eight, the herd comes from the pastures with the sound of pigeons, the herd is a little smaller, but it is still there, and the people are still standing at the gate and waiting for them, even if there are no more cattle at the house. These peaceful animals come, they bring with them a lot of milk and peace, the soul is smoothed, the war and the political struggle are forgotten, there is only real life. Life.

In the forest region

We have never been to Ordővidék before, and now we finally visited Benedek's wonderful mansion in Kisbacon, in honor of his wife, the infinitely beloved Mária Fischer, to the "Mari lak", where a wonderful great-grandmother guides the visitor. We are shocked to see how much more he wrote in addition to fairy tales, what a huge treasure he left us with his legacy, but we hardly know anything about it, only a fraction of it was taught in the Hungarian department. We walk among the beautifully preserved old furniture, a little boy, one of the youngest descendants, runs into his study, and with the greatest naturalness sits down at his father's desk and picks up his pen. Even the old, pointed pen that had to be dipped in ink and written by hand. On paper. Barely 100 years have passed, but it's like we live in another galaxy today.

We learn that after the Trianon tragedy, father returned here for good in 1921, he didn't set foot here for a year, but then of course he started and organized a cultural circle, he edited and published the children's newspaper Cimbora, from Kisbacon, behind the back of God with two.
The garden is also beautiful, a wonderful harmony, but nothing artificial, just freedom kept in check.

We also visited the cemetery, where his parents and his wife Mari are laid to rest, everything is full of flowers, colors and scents, the lilacs are still in full bloom there, the tulips on the graves, and not a single artificial flower anywhere...

"I was a disciple of Jesus:

I bent down to children,

I lifted it to my heart,

I raised it this way for love"

 

Kássons and Kostelek

Descending from the Nyerges-teto, towards Kézdivásárhely, we reach this hidden region, Kászonok, considered the little sister of the Csíki basin, the seat of the Csíkszék. You can't see the Hargita from here, between the Csíki Mountains and the Nemere Mountains, the tiny villages are hidden: Kászonaltíz, Feltíz, Újfalu, Jakabfalva... in the embrace of gentler mountains and hills. Unspoiled landscape, nature, beautiful little churches, chapels, we just hang out, hang out, sometimes we go back to the same place, but we're not in a hurry, we shouldn't be, we have a coffee in the small shop, which also plays the role of a pub, you can sit almost anywhere. They invite us kindly and everywhere they make very good coffee, we mingle with the locals, they are happy to open up, tell stories, and speak in that inimitable old language and intonation, with words and expressions that have not been heard or used in a long time. Fortunately, they do not yet know this horrible term here: IKSZT-Integrated community and service center, even though these small shops are actually that and fulfill their vocation perfectly.

Likewise in Kostelek, in this small village similar to the csangó village of Gyimes, behind Csíkszereda in the Csíki mountains, 846 meters above sea level, where it is quite difficult to get to, it is said to be one of the most isolated settlements in the Carpathians. After adventurously crossing the snow, we descended with an all-terrain vehicle on impassable muddy forest roads, where tourists don't venture anymore, but we did with our host and his all-terrain vehicle. In the meantime, we met and talked with the shepherds, who live with the herd all summer long, and with their real wolf- and bear-killing herding dogs (mostly Kangals)...

15 dogs were looking after the big herd, that's enough to handle bears and wolves. It's a very hard life. On the way home, over the mountain is the single-seater! in the village, Gyürké, we also visited Zsolt, the hermit in his pasture. The barely 40-year-old young man and his mother are self-sufficient and live up there with the herd in winter and summer, only sometimes he goes down to Kostelek with his horse Zsolt to shop and catch up on news in the big magazine (it's the biggest shop there).

Vaccinate

Paying off Ojtoz's old debt, now we have finally reached this point!

Bypassing Kézdivásárhely through Bereck, this time we only wave to Áron Gábor, we already visited him in 2019, and we know and hope that "There will be a gun". In the south, we head to the Ojtozi gorge, the valley of the Ojtozi stream, on the Southern Carpathians in the direction of Moldavia, to pay our respects to the Hungarian soldiers who died there at the World War I war cemetery in Sósmező.

Sósmező is a border region just like Gyimesbükk, a Rákóczi castle stood here, this is also blood-soaked land, Tatars, Turks, Romanians, Russians invaded our country here... this was the easternmost settlement of historical Hungary, the thousand-year-old border ran through the valley...

Tourists hardly come here anymore, but officials don't visit it often, this can be seen from the fact that in front of the obelisk there are two huge Romanian wreaths, one of which is still fresh, but nowhere is there a Hungarian national ribbon, wreath or anything.
It's a sad sight, shame on us. It's a soulless gray stone desert. The space is covered with concrete/brickwork, which is overrun by weeds... not a single pine, thuja or ornamental shrub, not a single green ornamental plant.

Concrete crosses with names, most of them are of course the Romanian heroes, but you can also find the names of sons of other nations, Austrian, German, Turkish, in the Hungarian plot the heroes of the Sopron regiment, their names can also be read in Hungarian. We know that there was vandalism here as well, the Hungarian names were polished off, but it has now been restored as part of the Hungarian-Romanian war graves agreement. Of course, everything on the obelisk can only be read in Romanian, but Hungarian is also there among the national flags. At least that's all... the situation is not as catastrophic as in the Úz-völgy military cemetery.

Since we "fortunately" forgot the roll of national-colored ribbon at the hotel, we hurriedly took it from our backpack and tied the two pieces together so that we could put it on at least one cross. We wandered in this emptiness with a sad heart. This war cemetery deserves more attention from home as well, one should leave a mark here at least once every year!

Couch

We had already planned to visit here, we passed by it every day. Last time too, well now we finally visited these 54 enthusiastic villages near Csíkszentgyörgy. Its location really looks as if someone had dug in the hills instead of a well-protected one, so that a village could hide there. We came across the remarkable 84-year-old Uncle Dolfi, who spoke for a long time about his village, his family, his life, Life, God and God's Judgment, which appeared last year in the form of lightning and set someone's door on fire. About bears, which really like Turkish wheat, about domestic politics, which he outlined with perfect clarity in just a few words, and while we listened, we felt like we were talking to János Arany.

May God keep you strong and healthy for a very long time!

The Pentecost Mass in the saddle

Underwhelming every time. It was now. Those who have experienced it know why, and those who haven't can't explain it anyway. This year, especially many of us gathered, it was even visible from the moon... and yet, those astonishing silences! When hundreds of thousands sit in silent reverence under God's holy sky... and when even the last shreds of hymns died in the forest, we remained seated for a long time. We gazed, gazed, intoxicated by the Holy Spirit, we admired the sight. Then all of a sudden I noticed that hundreds of thousands of people left the saddle without any kind of herding, instructions, scrambling, or cordons. We looked around. Not even a tissue anywhere. The massive law enforcement officer just stood idly by... Another miracle of Csíksomlyó.

Old Transylvanian Anthem

Oh, my sweet good God,
my protector, my help,
my hope in wandering,
my soft bread in my delicacy.

the swift wings of the Wandering Swallow
, the wandering staff of the Wandering Boy
, the hope of
the Székely Wanderer, Jesus!

Wandering sparrow finds home,
lands on his mother's nest,
We came home, blessed by the
Virgin Mary of Csiksomlyo.

 

Author: Ködszürkáló

Cover image: Fog fan