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Again a sunny autumn day when we arrive in the middle of Transsylvania at noon. How do you explain a cab driver that the street you are looking for is named after a Romanian poet if nobody speaks each other’s language? At least we know now that Eugene Ionesco does not have a street in Târgu Mureş. But Mihai Eminescu has. So now we know two Romanian writers and many non-poet streets in Târgu Mureş.
Ilona receives us in her home for elderly people in Eminescu 28 and we are invited to stay, not forever but at least for two nights. So we enter her world of paintings and elderly people. And plants. Who is watering the 200 plant pots in this house?
A first afternoon talk with Ilona. It’s the Hungarian perspective we get to now first. Jumping through Transsylvanian, Romanian and personal history. Suppression against Hungarians during Communism. Transsylvania is a multicultural region. The clash between Romanians and ethnic Hungarians on the 19th of March 1990. Loosing trust. And today? Ilona is spreading seeds among the poorest.
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Walking in Targu Mures
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Walking with priest Lorincz
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Three churches
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Farkas
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Talking German at the elderly's people home
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Photographer
We spend the next hours with a protestant priest, Lorincz Istvan. Walking around with Lorincz is a great pleasure, its like arriving at the heart of town. Going up to the fortification and we stumble into the choir practice at the old Gothic church. They sing Psalm 1 for us. A Hungarian flag next to the organ is confusing. There seems to be a lot of history still to be written.
It is impossible to separate policy from public space in this town. Different cultural symbols are coming together - Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox churches, Hungarian and Romanian heroes, poets, mayors, an historical urban fabric mixed with socialist urbanism. All cultures left their traces. A city is meant to embrace them all. But how do the people perceive it? Is there a unifying identity beyond?
We return back to our cosy beds in the home for elderly people and sleep between 200 flower pots.
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Equipped with pink tickets we take bus number 15 to the edge of the city on Monday morning. Traffic jam, Botanical garden, Iulius Mall, cemeteries, housing blocks, last stop. Coco picks us up in the morning sun and we meet up with Alex, Raluka and Cristi.
Entering the quarter and we stop at a garden with flowers and many cats. Healthy cats with shiny hair. The old woman is very proud of her flowers. But who will take it over? Human scale, we feel comfortable here at the edge of Timişoara.
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Walking with Alex
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At the edge
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Siri
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This is the edge
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Welcome to Timisoara
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Evening in Timisoara
We continue to the North beyond the city border. Many new big houses here, fences, dogs, expensive cars, conifers. Endless. Is this individualism? Lonely beyond the the city. So different.
We return to the city and pass at the landscape architecture department.
Back into town to the flower leave atelier. You will make it.
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Walking in Timişoara on a sunny Sunday. We reach the historical center from the North Station and meet our friends in front of the opera house. Alex and Coco. Children feeding the pigeons like in Venice. A group of old men on their bench talking about policy like on a Greek agora.
We then head on to the orthodox cathedral located between the old town and the green belt along the Bega canal. Such a relaxed atmosphere all around, few people a this early hour but a wonderful light through the autumn leaves. We get down to the canal and walk along the water. This is the green and blue backbone of the city. Would be nice to take a boat, get down the river, leave the city, pass the flat landscape and continue down to Serbia, to the Danube. But no boat today, maybe the next time.
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Real or not real?
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At the Bega canal
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assertive chicken
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Cubist landscapes
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The love angel
We can not pass further so we have to get up to cross the street. The chicken say hello to us. There are chicken at the edge of the road. Shouldn’t they be here? But this question does not matter any more. They have conquered their place. Assertive chicken pick the traffic.
Real chicken look like sheep and they live in the swimming pool. A real agave imitation is as real as a real agave. Even if you do not want to like it. Benches.
Benches along the Bega canal. Have you ever seen so many benches before? Forgotten rose gardens. Old willows. Benches. Fishermen. But the fishermen will not sit on the benches. Maybe the fish will do later.
Siesta time. Alex and me continue our walk to the factory area. An area waiting for redevelopment. Who will have the power to transform this? Hard to imagine. Piata Traian. Sleeping beauty with a love angel on the roof. Back to our friends along the canal.
Fife landscape architects talking about their future plans.
Finishing the day on a wine festival. Horses fly with two legs. Smoke and corns. Sunset.
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Starting our journey in Budapest
Starting from Berlin and nearby Stuttgart we will meet on Saturday 14th of October in Budapest and then continue by train down to Timisoara.