The Mihai Eminescu Trust is dedicated to preserving local heritage and reviving Saxon villages across Transylvania. From teaching crafts to local children to restoring dilapidated monuments, the trust carries out important work to empower communities in rural Romania. We spoke to founder Caroline Fernolend to find out more.
Slow cycling through Transylvania feels like travelling back in time. Horses still pull farmers’ carts among rolling green hills peppered with deep green oak forests. Ancient villages are perched on hilltops or crouched in the folds of valleys, the steep-pitched roofs of their houses echoing the slopes of the hills beyond.
This distinctive architecture is all that remains of the remarkable building talents of the Saxons. These immigrants of Germanic descent flooded into the area from the twelfth century onwards, and over eight hundred years they applied their skills to creating not only these beautiful villages but more than two hundred and fifty fortified churches; seven of them now UNESCO World Heritage Sites. ‘They were my ancestors,’ explains Caroline Fernolend, founder of the Mihai Eminescu Trust. ‘But following the 1989 Revolution, the Saxons started to move away.’ The magnificent churches they’d built, and those houses which give so many villages here their unique charm, started to fall into disrepair. The skills required to rebuild them had vanished with the departing craftsmen.
‘This was the start of the Mihai Eminescu Trust,’ Caroline says, speaking to me from her flower-filled garden in Viscri. ‘Our dream was to preserve this traditional heritage. And I’m grateful to the English people, because at first, our only support came from the UK.’ In fact, King Charles played an important part in kickstarting this charitable project, injecting both cash and enthusiasm following a visit to the beautiful village of Viscri, with its cobbled streets and its incredible church. ‘His Royal Highness came here and walked with me,’ Caroline says. ‘He was amazed by the rich biodiversity, the open fields with no fences. He loved all the flowers we have here in springtime, and all the mushrooms. But he especially loved the architecture, that it was so simple and untouched.’
The Mihai Eminescu Trust’s first project back in 2000 was the modest restoration of a dilapidated manor house in Viscri. ‘Fundraisers in London raised the money to train our local people in the skills they needed to repair the façades. And then we realised that this made people proud of their village. So now, twenty-four years later, the local people do it by themselves.’ The trust has rescued many traditional churches and houses in this way, iconic among them the splendid 18th century Apafi Manor in Mălâncrav, where Slow Cyclist guests are lucky enough to stay. This palatial home was nationalised when communism arrived, briefly became a village hall, but was latterly a byre for animals. ‘It was totally destroyed,’ says Caroline, ‘No windows, and no doors. That was an amazing restoration.’ Traditional materials and techniques were used in the rebuilding, and then local craftspeople were employed to provide the weavings, lace and furniture filling the interiors. The same meticulous restoration was applied to the village’s church, and its stunning 15th century Gothic frescoes.
Our trust helps people value what they have here, building houses and teaching skills. ‘People move away to work in the construction industry in the UK, for example, and they return to Romania and want houses built in a modern style.’ This explains how visitors are key to this cultural regeneration, bringing income but also their appreciation.
Caroline agrees that tourism helps local people value what they produce. Our tourism is based on agriculture, on the products our families offer to the tourists: cow, buffalo, pigs, and chicken. Someone might make local bread or cheese, or grow vegetables. When visitors buy something in the village, the money circulates to everyone in the villages.’
The main aim now, Caroline explains, is community; creating voluntary projects to teach skills and build pride. ‘Everyone is coming. We might have eighty people, and fifty of them are children! We have planted more than three million trees with 120 schools, showing children how to plant trees and then look after them.’
Children are fundamental to reclaiming this region’s rich cultural heritage, Caroline says. ‘In Romania there were so many crafts, but now people now don’t have trust in working with their hands. So we’re doing crafts with children so they learn to love painting furniture, for example, an old tradition still evident in this part of Romania today.’ Caroline organises summer camps where children work with architects, encouraging kids to build houses with traditional tiles. ‘Children are so important,’ says Caroline. ‘They’re our future!’
Find out more about the Mihai Eminescu Trust here. And if you’d like to explore the traditional churches and houses of Transylvania, including Apafi Manor, you can cycle with us through the Saxon villages. Enquire now to find out more.
