Turda, Romania

Turda, Romania

Twenty miles south of Cluj is the brilliantly smutty-sounding town of Turda. There, my friends and guides Mihaela and Adrian had a surprise in store for me, which I knew involved a salt mine but had deliberately not investigated further so as not to ruin it. So, after a peaceful night’s sleep that was pleasingly free of any sign of Transylvanian vampires, we met up in Cluj’s Piața Unirii to make the short journey. At the previous day’s visit to the open air museum, Mihaela had piqued the interest of two middle-aged French tourists who were also keen to come today, though as his wife was unwell, only the man joined us.

Adrian and Mihaela led the two non-locals to the place of departure of our minibus. I was very fortunate to have their guidance, as the bus stop didn’t appear marked in any way, although plenty of Romanians were clearly aware of it and had turned up to await transport to various nearby destinations. For 7 lei (£1.12) each way, the forty minute journey was inexpensive and not uncomfortable. Officially, the bus had about fourteen seats, but the driver made several stops in Cluj to take on passengers until the small aisle of the minibus was also full of people clinging tightly to their handholds to avoid falling over. After this point, numerous people waiting by the side of the road were seen holding cardboard placards, wanting to go to places along our route, but the driver ignored them. Presumably they were later picked up by subsequent drivers who had space in their vehicles.

To the south, the two- and sometimes three-lane highway rises to crest some small hills, and then Cluj disappeared from sight behind us and we were surrounded by great swathes of lush grass, occasionally disrupted by small ponds, a flock of sheep or an isolated cluster of houses. We were in the midst of a huge grassland, on the only real road, save for a few farmers’ tracks and an elevated stretch of tarmac that constitutes part of the city’s southern bypass. This will be further extended to connect with the new A3 motorway, which, though currently only a fifth complete, will link with the Hungarian M4 motorway and connect Bucharest to Budapest when finished. No doubt this will vastly speed up the process of travelling across Romania and provide better connections to major European cities, and perhaps even encourage others to visit the country. It’s worth it.

Cluj seen from the highway to the south

The lush green Transylvanian countryside

The bypass bridge, rather juxtaposed in the green landscape

At Turda, we left the minibus and had a short walk through part of the town to reach the mine. Along the way, we were passed by a wedding convoy. In the UK, this would usually be a fairly stately car decorated with tasteful ribbons and perhaps a bouquet of flowers, followed by one or two other cars carrying the most prominent guests. Not so in Romania. Here, the lead car was also adorned with ribbons, but it crawled along the road, causing a massive tailback, all the while beeping its horn loudly for all around to hear. Those following it were also honking, creating a really unavoidable din. At some point, the wedding guests fizzled out and the later cars were just normal road users, but they were similarly enthusiastic with contributing to the racket. After all, they were being held up by the sluggish pace of the procession, so why shouldn’t they have a bit of fun? Other pedestrians glared at the road and rolled their eyes, whilst overhead, residents of Turda stared angrily from windows. The wedding party carried on, obnoxious. I actually quite liked the whole effect.

Off the main road, the houses were lovingly maintained and very peaceful, with extremely well-kept gardens and small patches of vegetables growing. A couple of horses bearing carts of farm products passed through on their way to a market, and one or two roadside vegetable stalls were being patiently attended by elderly local women, keen to sell their food but unwilling to pay the fees for proper stalls in the official markets.

Some of Turda's roads just run out, and become dirt tracks

A horse and cart, the vehicle of choice for many farmers

Something of a clash of civilisations as transport old and new pass each other

A pretty, carefully maintained property

It was something of a relief to enter the mine because the heat of the summer sun didn’t penetrate underground. A long semi-circular tunnel of stone, just over the height of an average man, extended 900 metres through this hill and out to another access point away from Turda. As we moved further in, the stones became noticeably less distinct and a increasingly white until it was apparent that they were completely coated in a thick layer of salt. At this point, a couple of offshoots of the main path took us to the Iosif Mine, a small gallery with an open but inaccessible shaft at the end, perfectly shaped to create a powerful and sonorous echo.

The entrance tunnel to Salina Turda

Salt deposits coating the stone walls

The rippled top of the shaft known as the Iosif Mine, which produces a powerful echo

A further couple of rooms were connected to each other and contained surviving relics of the mining process, such as a pulley in the ceiling and a section of narrow gauge railway. More interesting was the crivac, a floor-to-ceiling structure of wood built in 1881, and a unique piece of technology that facilitated extraction of the salt from a shaft below. I wasn’t able to figure out quite how it worked, but it involved a couple of horses being fastened to it, and I understood that these pit ponies would then turn the crivac like in a mill. The conditions were dreadful, for these animals as well as for the men who laboured beneath the ground, and the horses were generally put down after six months, although a couple of weeks was all that it took to blind them, because of the effect of the long periods of darkness and sudden exposure to sunlight when they returned to the surface.

Mining equipment

A small chapel to fulfil the spiritual needs of the miners

A mining cart on a preserved section of rails

The unique crivac

At the far end, by the other entrance to the mine complex, was a glass-faced area that looked much cosier than the cool stone and salt passageway in which we stood. Here there was a spa facility where people could come seeking halotherapy. I didn’t get to find out precisely what this involved, because this wasn’t on our agenda, and in any case, was probably prohibitively expensive. The visit had been interesting although not extensive, and I wasn’t sure what all the fuss had been about really. As we headed towards the exit, Mihaela and Adrian muttered something about there having been a little more to see the last time they came, so we had a look for this last feature of the complex before leaving.

Salt deposits seen through a large opening, looking into the Terezia Mine

A small and discreet room had the top of a wooden staircase in its middle, its bannisters plastered with salt that had condensed from the air. Descending down a short flight of salt-coated steps, we emerged into a wider space with a wide, net-covered opening that allowed us to peer out over a vast space below. Clearly, this wasn’t an afterthought but the main attraction. Salina Turda is one of the most highly acclaimed subterranean destinations in the world, and most of the action takes place in the Rudolf Mine. We had now emerged onto a precarious wooden walkway a couple of metres from the ceiling of this huge cavern, with forty metres of open mine stretching downwards until the unforgiving stone floor thirteen storeys below. Each of these storeys was marked with notches and carved year markings as we proceeded down a long and winding staircase towards the bottom. Each snowy-looking salty flight revealed at its bottom a newer year, as the mine had, naturally, been excavated from the top down. Sharply cut diagonal faces of rock formed the sides of this cavern, and thick formations of saline stalactites defied gravity as they clung to the sheer surface.

A salt-covered set of stairs

A forty metre drop to the bottom of the Rudolf Mine

I was astonished. Where up above had been authentically presented artefacts recalling the mine’s 19^th and 20^th century history, this space was bizarrely filled with all manner of leisure facilities. Several table tennis tables, mini golf holes, pool tables, a children’s playground, a small theatre, and a ferris wheel occupied the floor of the cavern. We had stepped into a holiday camp. It was totally incongruous, but somehow it worked. It was, after all, an ingenious way to convert a disused area into an attraction that would bring in visitors, and Salina Turda did manage to balance the historical, educational elements of the mine upstairs with these trivial activities below. Unfortunately, Salina Turda has been losing money since its 2010 renovation and faces crippling debts. I really sincerely hope this doesn’t force its closure, because it is a fantastic place, and very well chosen by Mihaela and Adrian.

Table tennis, mini golf and other such facilities fill the Rudolf Mine

Here, the precariously placed walkways are visible far above the base level, where among other things, there is a ferris wheel

These stairs, dusted with salt, marked the route downwards

Small but impressive stalactites of salt

At one end of the Rudolf Mine, the even deeper, bell-shaped, Terezia Mine joins, and drops away the same height again. At its base, there is a staggering ninety metres of open space before the pointed ceiling far above. Were it not for the modern recreational provisions, the whole thing could have been straight from a fantasy film, on the scale of the Moria mines in The Lord of the Rings. The base of the Terezia Mine was as I had always envisaged the climactic location visited by Harry and Dumbledore in the sixth Harry Potter book. The shaft had become partially flooded and an eight metre deep lake of extremely salty water covered its base, surrounding an island of salt at its centre, accessible via a wooden bridge. (Forget fantasy books, the ubiquity of salt I describe – salt walls, salt stairs, salt formations, salt caves, salt lakes, salt islands – must make it sound like a mouth-dryingly savoury version of Willa Wonka’s chocolate factory!)

Adrian and the French man opted out of going on the water, but Mihaela and I paid a few lei to take a rowing boat and splash about a bit, completing the Harry Potter effect. It was inconceivably alien, and it still sounds rather strange when I tell people that in northern Romania, there is a mine containing a cavern where there is an island of salt, from which one can rent a boat. In fact, although I had canoed and kayaked before, this was the first time I had ever rowed, and I’m doubtful I’ll ever have the chance to row in such a weird environment again. After a couple of mishaps and close calls, I got the hang of the technique involved and the twenty minute timeslot went by pretty quickly. Heaven alone knows what the lifesaving procedures are, and the whole place must be a health and safety nightmare, but the high salinity meant that any men overboard would surely just float on the surface.

This shimmering black lake of saline water is in the Terezia Mine, 112 metres below the surface

Looking upwards within the Terezia Mine makes for an eerie view. The large aperture on the right is the Rudolf Mine, and there is a much higher opening on the left

The perfect environment for a spot of rowing

After a fair bit of time spent in this underground kingdom, we returned to the surface and the long walk back down the tunnel to the entrance, the salty rocks inexorably giving way to plain, bare stone. A wall of heat hit us as we emerged into daylight, suddenly exposed to temperatures almost twenty degrees higher than those inside the mine. Another hour or so later, after waiting for a return minibus to the city and whizzing back through the open countryside, we were again in Cluj.

Marvels of the Romanian roads: this truck is towing a broken down bus

A new cathedral under construction in Cluj

We had a leisurely lunch in Adrian’s student building, where Mihaela prepared a dish of mămăligă, a traditional Romanian staple. Resembling polenta or perhaps a sort of condensed couscous, mămăligă is a thick preparation of corn flour in water, prepared in a porridge-like manner and served with salad and sour milk from Mihaela’s parents’ farm. It’s hardly the fanciest meal, but it was hearty and delicious, and affectionately made by my friend, which always makes a dish that bit better.

Towards the end of the afternoon, we went out to spend a little more time exploring Cluj before I had to leave, and began at the Students’ Church (Biserica Studenților), a very different one to those we had seen previously. This was a traditionally designed church like those that still exist all over the Romanian hinterland, and it was small but beautiful inside. Suspended from a frame on the outer porch was a wooden semantron (called a toacă in Romanian), which is effectively a large plank that is struck like a gong to summon the Orthodox faithful to worship. In its purpose it is perhaps comparable to the lyrical wails of the Islamic calls to prayer, but rather more subdued. The church is in a small park and we were surrounded by trees on a warm summer’s evening, so hearing the toacă conjured a mystical effect of being in a remote wilderness forest with nothing nearby by an isolated monastery.

The Students' Church (Biserica Studenților)

A toacă, seen in the Ethnographic Museum

In reality, we were still very central, and a few minutes later were on a busy street, where we entered another religious building, the Church of St Constantine and Elena (Biserica Sfinții Împărați Constantin și Elena). Here, we intruded upon an Orthodox service, which was no problem as the Orthodox rituals may be joined and left freely, and regardless, this was Mihaela’s denomination. I remained unobtrusively at the back and delighted in listening to the chants of the priest, and the contributions of the assembled congregation, which was only around three people, not counting us. The air was ambient with the sweet scent of incense, and the whole experience quite spiritual. Subsequent visits I have made to other Orthodox churches, in particular the incredible monastery and caves of Kyiv’s Pechersk Lavra in Ukraine, were on a totally different level in terms of spirituality, but this was a worthy introduction into the customs of the Orthodox faith.

This brightly coloured mosaic is above the entrance to the Church of St Constantine and Elena

A Romanian Orthodox priest inside the church

Tonight was Cluj’s Noaptea Museelor, or Museum Night, an evening when many of the city’s main exhibitions opened their doors for free. After the previous evening’s free concert and other small events going on, this was turning out to be the ideal weekend to have chosen to visit this city. The indoor section of the Ethnographic Museum of Transylvania was one of those taking part, and I was once more shown around, with Mihaela and Adrian chipping in to tell me additional information about the exhibits. This was partly augmented by their experiences of their grandparents living and working with agricultural tools such as those on display. The museum was well laid out and each exhibit carefully presented alongside images of rural life in Transylvania. The more decorative items were each individual to a certain county, with particular patterns of carpets or styles of clothing unique to their place of origin.

Traditional carpets

Traditional Transylvanian technology: a trap to catch martens

Various costumes from Transylvania, each representing styles indigenous to an individual county

Back outside, the main square was again thronging with people, and the ground was littered with confetti that must have blasted from several cannons; it covered a huge area and stray pieces of green or red were still wafting yet further on the breeze. As we walked, the two Romanians pointed out a man who was walking past and identified him as Emil Boc, the current mayor of Cluj and a former prime minister for three years from late 2008 to early 2012.

The building of the Rector of the Technical University 

Piața Unirii

The streets in the city centre were beautifully decorated thanks to the confetti cannons

Handcrafted pottery in the market

We perused the market a little more, where there was an impressive range of products being sold, including local honey and jams, pottery, ornaments, clothes and more. The evening ended with a relaxed walk through the city to the north bank of the river, and up the hill in Parcul Cetățuia to admire the dusk view of the city, a large moon in the east above a sky of salmon. We brought with us kürtőskalács, a sweet Hungarian chimney cake rolled in ground nuts and sugar, indigenous to the Székely Land of central Romania, and the source of a variety of other Central European snacks including the Czech trdelník, found ubiquitously in central Prague. An individual one is too long and filling to make a dignified portion, but it can be easily torn up and shared, and made for a nice accompaniment to the twilight view.

Romanian innovations: using whatever is a) sturdy enough to stay in place and b) undesirable enough not to be stolen, in order to reserve one's parking space

Seen from Parcul Cetățuia, the moon looked rather like a small sun as evening fell over Cluj

Shortly thereafter, we walked on to the city’s small bus station to find my minibus that would return me to Budapest. There, I took a few minutes to brush my teeth in the bathroom and evidently committed a severe social faux pas in doing so. A huge, brutish man offered a grunting challenge to my actions. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, and attempted to meekly admit ‘eu nu sunt român’ – ‘I’m not Romanian’ – but slurred my already primitive pronunciation in my efforts to avoid splattering him with toothpaste, which would surely only have increased his considerable ire. The conclusion is of course that some Romanians are impolite and thuggishly aggressive. The same is indeed true of all countries’ citizens. Thankfully, I had had enough positive experiences of Romania not to let this one sour moment tarnish my impression of the country. Mihaela and Adrian recommended a few other places to see, among them the cities of Brașov and Sibiu, and the natural environment of the Danube delta on the eastern border with Ukraine.

It was with a heavy heart that I said goodbye to my wonderful guides and began the journey back north and west. It had been a brilliant weekend and even then, I knew I would be back to visit more of what Romania had to offer. It’s a large and varied country, slightly smaller than the UK, and I had experienced just a fraction of it. I am still yet to make it to the Romania’s neighbour and linguistic twin Moldova, the adjacent Romanian region of Moldavia, the Black Sea coast, the mediæval walled city of Sighișoara, the wooden churches of Maramureș and so, so much more. A third visit will take place sooner or later. The second would take me from Bulgaria to three cities, starting with the capital, Bucharest.

The Someșul Mic at sunset