Project financed by the European Commission by the Program GRUNDTVIG 2
Project meeting in Targu-Jiu, Gorj,
Romania
26.06.2008 - 30.06.2008
25-06-2008
Arges.
The parteners arrived at the airoprt in Bucuresti and Oana host them. Departure to Curtea de
26-06-2008Vasile, a friend of the vicepresident, Marcel Cocan,
arranged the accomodation, meal and visit of
the Monastery in Curtea de Arges
Visit Monastery Curtea de Arges. Departure Tg-jiu
Carmen Cocan host the parteners at Brancusi’s Endless Column
in Tg-Jiu and went together for accomodation in Tismana
Dinner at Tismana Restaurant
.27-06-2008
After the breakfast, we all were going by bus to Tg-Jiu, to visit: First of all, because this
project must be recognised and apreciated by the authorities and needs to involve the people, the
Town Hall. Here in The Meeting Room, being supervised by the spirit and picture of Constantin
Brancusi and the Icon of Saints Constantin and Elena, the town’s protectors we met the
vicemayor, Sanda Gabriel and the mayor, Florin Carciumaru.
Every partener had presented the project, the works, the beneficiaries and our commune target,
the unique spirituality of cultural heritage for peace in the United Europe. They presented the
economical and touristical Tg-Jiu, the nationalities situation without violence, living and
working together in such a peaceful and lovely town.
Then we went to the Popular Art School, where the spanish and italian team met a great work of
the manager Viorel Garbaciu, of the teachers and of students to keep a great traditional
spirituality which other people had lost years ago. Popescu Stefan was singing at 36 traditional
popular instruments. The music teacher Moreno Tortora and Francesca Gallo- staff, members of
the italian team, were singing with the accordion and the percussion too, all together with
romanian popular band. Alina Ciorba the third winner of the music contest „Let the culture
travel” of Word of Gorj foundation, Tg-Jiu, Romania, was there for us with her beautiful
popular costume and songs. The project parteners were interested to wear the romanian popular
suit and then we all danced on the romanian traditional music with some of schools’ dancers.
Also the local television was very interested to know more about this project. That moment was
filmed and transmitted. The music showed once more the beauty and true values of spiritualy
concerning that cultural heritage is able to do the union in Europe. The music destroies the hate
and thoughts to separate people by social statute, colour of face, faith, making all of us feeling
the same joy of cretion, of life.
The message of music was discovered also in Constantin Brancusi’s Master Piece- the
Tg-Jiu Triptic: begining with water (Jiu) – the essence of life, we found first The Table of
Silence, that represent the logo of the project, The Gate of Kiss, that reminds us the spiritual
heritage and the Endless Column showing us the unity here and in eternity.
We had all together a traditional lunch at Lexi Star Restaurant, Tg-Jiu.
In the afternoon we returned at Tismana and in the evening we had a work session:
- Eurogems (Italy) had a presentation of their activity of collecting evidences about the
local heritage: photos illustrating old traditions, games of children, poetry, proverbs,
sayings and popular songs heritage always in local dialect, sang by Francesca Gallo
with her fantastic accordion, during their presentation.
- AMV association (Romania) showed us some of the most important monasteries and
cultural heritage of Moldavia and Dobrogea. They offered us the possibility to watch,
read and hear all these evidences, giving us CD. They also participated with winners’
photo reportages contest.
-
Garnikalia association (Spain) presented a power point concerning cultural popualar
Spanish traditions: flamenco, bullfighting, fiestas, folklore, history, religions and
pictures of Barcelona, gastronomy, fiestas and folklore of Zaragoza, Malaga, Aragon,
Andalucia, Santiago de Compostela, Pamplona, Navarra, Sanfermines. They offered
us Cultural Heritage T-shirts, stuffs.
-
Word of Gorj Foundation presented history, pictures of traditional cultural heritage in
Wallachia, (Gorj, Jiu Valley, Women’s Cave, mountain resort Ranca, Ponoare) and
Transilvania, the monasteries, the popular customs, most representative names in
sculpture – C. Brancusi, literature – M. Eminescu, popular art. They had presented an
exhibiton with works of the beneficiaries(paintings, icons on wood and glass, grafics)
and also the works which participated at the exhibition in Treviso, Italy. They offered
CDs and portofolio with touristical, traditional, historical Gorj, presentations.
We walked for dinner at Tismana restaurant through the forest full of fire flies. It is a
magic, natural show of the night in the Tismana forest till 15 July, that light the way to
the midnight holy mass at the little Church Saint Ilie of Tismana Monastery. In the
orthodox monasteries every night from Monday to Friday there is midnight mass.
28-06-2008
Breakfast at Tismana restaurant.
Visit the musem of Tismana Monastery – history, holy tradition, cultural heritage
accomplish by Saint Nicodim 600 years ago.
During the work session we discussed about the brochure – content, covers, presentation,
number of pages, deadline, newsletter.
The beautiful day lead us to a traditional Oltenian lunch at Hanul Domnesc restaurant,
where everyting reminded us about the past, about our ancients, about what we are but we forget
to be.
Because the suport of cultural heritage of Romania as Europe(as we saw the pp.
presented during the work session) is holy tradition, we continue to discover this Truth at Lainici
Monastery after visiting the beautiful Jiu Valley and even try to do rafting but…maybe another
time.
On our way back to Tismana we went to visit the Sohodol Canion, one of the great beauties of
the nature in our area and even in Europe.
29-06-2008
Breakfast at Tismana Restaurant.
Celebration of St. Petru and Pavel, in that beautiful Sunday,
gave us the opportunity to find the peaceful way to believe and to
feel the spiritual unity of various cultures. Because the most of
italian and spanish parteners were for the first time in Romania,
they had the opportunity to see and to taste ‘coliva’
St. Petru and Pavel made and painted by nuns in Tismana Monastery.
In Romania, in Gorj county, every holy day is a reason to be and to enjoy all together the
families, so we decided the same with all project parteners and we went to a Oltenian village,
Rugi, at Cocan Carmen’s family. The sunny day, the great traditional lunch –8 kinds of romanian
cheese, turkey growed ‘at home’ then home made cooked on wood fire by Lori’s mother,
‘mititei ‘, home made cookies made by Dana, fruits from the own garden( pears-the same St.
Petru’s pears for all people, raspberries), elder tree juice, also home made by Carmen,the
ospitality of hosts, the music(instruments, voice), dances (sarba, hora, tarantella, flamenco), were
the foundation for a new great, european family italian-spanish-romanian, as an example for
United Europe.
We can say it is possible and we did it. The winners of the music contest ‘Let the culture travel’,
Rap Laurentiu, Circiu Amelia, Sanfira Valentin, the romanian music teachers, Lacatusu Emil and
Nicoleta with italian singers, spanish dancers, some romanian beneficiaries of Tg-Jiu, with their
families all together, due to this project, we created a magic art moment, where although there
were language differences, different cultures, we all became a communion in community. These
kind of workshop help us to discover our identity, how important and how much this Grundtvig
LLP is involved in.
The guide was Carmen Cocan, the president of ‘Word of Gorj Foundation’, Marcel Cocan –
vicepresident and also Brailoiu Constantin- staff, Spataru Loredana- staff, Gruescu Catalin- staff,
Cocan Anisia – beneficiary, the person who worked and still works during workshops( even in
Rugi), pottery works, painted leflet, icons on wood, glass, paper, stone.
Moreno, italian singer partener dicovered the traditional Italy that they had lost 50 years ago, so
the traditional Romania is the real one, that can be in communion with others states of Europe.
Francesca Gallo did a lot of pictures, being very impressed by the spiritual connection beetwen,
human being, nature and animals in the country side, and this should be an example for people
living in big cities.
We worked pottery with Anisia Cocan during the workshop at Rugi being inspired by the
spiritual unity of various cultures.
We had dinner at Tismana Monastery.
30.06.2008
We had breakfast at Tismana Monastery, with traditional romanian food, ‚zacusca’, made
by vegetables, fish (trout) cheese and cakes, offered with a lot of love by the nuns Veronica and
Teodora.
Departure of the parteners to Bucharest.
Maybe we hadn’t had enough time to rest but the beautiful evenings in Tismana, the joy
to discover other’s cultures and to enjoy all together in the same light of life was so
strong…After this meeting in Targu-Jiu and the others in Bucharest, Cosenza, Treviso and
Castelldefels, one single truth is in our souls – Religion covers all the life aspects, showing us the
great Truth – we are more than population, that means numbers and statistics, we are people, that
means spirit – life, which exists in the cultural heritage, of every people.
So in this order, the most important moments of project meeting…
-
-
Popular School Art (popular costumes, music – Popescu Stefan sang at 36 natural,
traditional instruments, traditional dance)
Rugi - village near Tg-Jiu – at the house of Carmen’s family- all together we felt what
can unite us and all the people, the unique spiritual heritage; we found out that only
together we can feel the emotion while the pleasure is singular and make us feel
selfish.
C. Brancusi - we dicovered the message of Brancusi, which is: ‘We must discover
what was lost’ – and we discovered what we had lost, our natural way to be
Visit a village near Curtea de Arges
Tismana Monastery - The arhitecture, made for the first time in the world by saint
Nicodim, Midnight Mass and the Mass of St. Petru and Pavel.
Lainici Monastery - Holy Miracolous Icon of Virgin Mary and the wonderful
mountain area
Jiu Valley – we saw rafting
Traditional lunches at ‘Lexi Star’ and ‘Hanul Domnesc’ restaurants