Eliza Leonida Zamfirescu

Eliza Leonida Zamfirescu (1887-1973) was one of the Europe’s first female engineers.

She was also the first Romanian member of the International Federation of University Women (IFUW) and the first female member of the General Association of the Romanian Engineers (AGIR).

photo: wikipedia, mirror.co.uk

 

She was born in Galati (Bucharest) in a family with eleven children, all very intelligent people. She was the sister of the Romanian sculptor Gheorghe Leonida, that also sculptured face of the Christ the Redeemer (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). Her sister, Adela Leonida was the oftalmolog doctor who performed cataract surgery for Queen Mary of Romania. Another brother, Dimitrie Leonida, founded the Technical Museum in Bucharest that has now his name.

After finishing high school in Bucharest she was rejected from the University because she was a woman. Being confident that she has to be an engineer, she went to Germany where she was the first female student of the Royal Technical Academy Berlin, 1909. There it was also hard to overcome the idea of what a woman could be only “the three K (Kieche, Kinder, Kuche)”.

She married an engineer Constantin Zamfirescu, the brother of the Romanian writer Duiliu Zamfirescu and Queen Mary of Romania attended their wedding.

source: adevarul.ro

 

The little but very beautiful street where she lived has now her name, Intrarea Eliza Leonida Zamfirescu (Bucharest).

Centenary Romania

Romanian people has 2000 years, but 2018 marks 100 years from the Great Union of the Romanians (the unification on 1 December of Transylvania, Bassarabia and Bukovina with the Romanian Kingdom).

The Cultural Organization “Mostenitorii” from an important Romanian village Vaideeni (Valcea county) celebrated the Great Union by symbolic marking of the country borders, as it was in 1918.

source: Asociatia Culturala Mostenitorii (Facebook) – 11 November, 2018

 

11 November (11 o’clock) marked the end of the World War I (Armistice Day)

photo: wikipedia

The K H Zambaccian Museum

The K H Zambaccian Museum, part of The National Museum of Art of Romania, is one of the “must see” places in Bucharest. The Zambaccian Museum is located in the Bucharest central area, in a middle of a beautiful district of houses.

Krikor H Zambaccian (1889-1962) was collector and art critic with higher education studies in Anvers and Paris. He build the hosting house for the Museum as an exhibition area and donated it together with an impressive art collection to the Romanian state.

The Zambaccian Museum was opened in 1947, then closed during the communist period. After 1992 the collection is brought back to its historic location and the Zambaccian Museum re-opened.

The art collection of The K H Zambaccian Museum is composed of art pieces of important Romanian artists like Nicole Tonitza, Theodor Pallady, Stefan Luchian, Oscar Han, Corneliu Baba, or Gheorghe Petrascu.

Besides the Romanian collection, The K H Zambaccian Museum holds also paintings signed by Paul Cezanne, Henri Matisse, Eugene Delacroix, Pierre-August Renoir, Pablo Picasso, Alfred Sisley, or Baptiste-Camille Corot.

Baba Lina – a part of heaven

Going to see Corbii de Piatra Monastery you find Baba Lina (old woman Lina) with her little blue house of loam brick. The little backyard begins at a huge block of rock, from which a little stream is forming a wonderfully waterfall. On the rock, the form of a giant man lain down appears … the legend speaks about a real fossilized giant that many, many years ago lived here.

In the yard, a little brook with his small loft, barrel for cabbage, fire woods … a full household. Around baba Lina’s yard, the village grows anarchic … new houses, modernizations of the old ones, all without rules, patterns … only here, in the yard of baba Lina, the time seems to rest …

Baba Lina has many children and grandchildren but she doesn’t want to go living with them, his place is here where she lived all her live, in her part of heaven, so pure and beautiful through the square of authenticity.

Saying all these might not  seem special, but when you got there you had the feeling of finding a part of everlasting Romania.

Corbii de Piatra Monastery

Corbii de Piatra Monastery (The Ravens of Rock Monastery) is one of the three churches in rock (along with Namaiesti and Cetatuia) from Arges, Romania.

It’s dated around 1512 in the time of Neagoe Basarab. With its originally painting and two shrines in byzantine style conserved, the artistic value of Corbii de Piatra Monastery is priceless … and of this is added something even more important, the spiritual value of an authentic Romanian orthodox place.

Histria – my childhood favorite place

You find Histria, the great lost city, on road between Constanta and Tulcea.

In spring, when the water is raised, the last 3 kilometres are “through” water, the road that is on a dike is really surrounded by water, birds, frogs, water lilies … in the droughty summers, a landscape like in prairie or even desert, all the vegetation burden, only the rests of snakes that throw their skins remain.

I remember I read some time ago that Histria is the first and also the largest archaeological site in Romania, I didn’t find this information now so maybe is just on my head … but Histria was, and this is certain, the first city attested on the present Romania territory. Also, the earliest documented currency was there, a silver drachma with Histria’s symbols an eagle on a dolphin.

Founded by the Milesian Greeks colonists around 657 BC, dates about Histria can be found in Scymnus of Chiros, Eusebius of Caesarea, Strabo. After Greeks came the Romans, than Burebista, than again the Romans. The end of Histria was tragical, the decline was brought by a natural  phenomenon, the clogging of the Black’s Sea bay by the Danube’s silt deposits that formed a shoal, nowadays the Sinoe Lake, so the maritime trade has become impossible. Than the total destruction of the city was probably due to of the Avars and the Slavs invasion.

In Histria you can see the various relics: Temples for Aphrodite, Apollo or Zeus from Greek period, thermals, mosaic, more than 20 kilometres of pipelines, streets paved from Roman period and even an episcopal basilica from the Christian Period.

Near the archaeological site is the Histria’s Museum where are exposed relics found in the archaeological site.

In Histria lives two species of snakes that are on the list of endangered species. Going at Histria in a rainy or cold day, you can see snakes looking for shelter in the Museum, they may look dangerous with their yellow patches, but they are totally harmless and nice. The area Istria – Sinoe, including the archaeological site Histria, is part of Danube Delta Reservation because of the variety of animals and birds. Since 2007, the site of Histria is also part of the European Patrimony.