30 July 2021 

No root canal today.  There are other problems and I have to deal with them first.  I hate the long trip to the dentist, but must endure this long process that seems to know no end.  And then there is the place on my head where the soreness still exists.  I fell and cracked my head on the base of the soba in the patio room about a week ago.  It is still sore and has been bleeding enough to give some concern.  However, no trip to the doctor as there is still the Covid mess that goes on and on and on.  Do not want to get exposed whether or not I have had the vaccine.  It still hurts. 

So today I have decided to use this blog as a way to present so many stories that I have written  most of them long ago.  Here is one that not only may be interesting, it will reflect a bit of the changes that have occurred here since that time.  That particular museum no longer exists!

(Oops. this is a repeat!  Forgetful?  Yes.)

Museum Day in Bucharest

by

Nancy Clayton Rice

Copyright © 1997

 

I saw a little sculpture museum on the tram the other day.  I know the city well enough by now that I could find it again so we drove there after church on Sunday.  The caretaker was walking up just at that very moment.  He let us in for a delightful tour of this newly restored gem of a building.  The entry way is a delightful surprise with its rich marble and ornate design.  The newly polished oak parquet floors were shining and the sculptures were tightly packed but pleasantly arranged in several rooms with elaborate ceilings.  The smell of new paint was a sign that the interior had just been refinished.  This museum is open again after a year and a half of restoration. One room was completely white including the ornate carvings in the ceiling.  It reminded me of a church I had visited once in Disentis in the Swiss Alps.  It was by particular design that these walls were white.  Cornel Medrea broke with tradition in this, we were told.  In addition to his works, there were two fine sculptures by his wife who had also been his student.   One of those, a bust of the sculptor himself, seemed to catch him in mid-speech, full of life.  The roughly textured busts rendered by Cornel Medrea captured the strength and force of personality, some of which were much larger than life.  I enjoyed examining the allegorical drawings and compositions of the monuments and the models for individual segments of larger works as well as seeing larger, smoother sculptures of people in more symbolic and stylistic forms.   We were glad to see this museum after all this time.

Next we went to the Central Military Museum on Stephan Furtuna.  I had thought that this would be like a drill for me as I did not want to see the ugly olive green of military objects of destruction.  What a surprise!  This complex of buildings has displays of objects from the earliest of times.  The medieval castles and fortresses were given the most delightful of displays with maps to show the ruling and warring parties and schematics and models of the fortifications.  

I even recognized a favorite of mine, Risnov, a small fortification just outside Brasov in southern Transylvania.  When we took our friend Liz to Bran Castle some time ago, we hopped off the bus in a drizzling misty rain.  With just one hour before the last bus would leave to take us to Brasov.  We climbed nearly straight up the zigzagging path to explore this small castle.  Within the walls, we found a delightful grassy green terrain undulating between the buildings, some of which had museum displays of former times.  Other buildings were being used, perhaps as in days of old, for chickens, geese, lambs and goats.  It was a scene that gives me a clue as to why some philosophers so praise the pastoral life.  I felt a sense of the security, of freedom to bask in the sun as it broke through for just a moment before the rain drizzled in again.  We looked out over the walls to the village below and the plains beyond where weekend farmers were out tending to the crops.  I was pleasantly surprised at the Military Museum to recognize it in miniature which speaks well of the faithful rendition all of the artistically well documented displays in this collection.

Risnov Castle 

Since there are so many displays and the history of warfare is so complex, we decided that we could not do it justice by trying to examine it all in one afternoon.  We left the main building to see the grounds filled with tanks and planes and trucks and jeeps.  We joked about the armor of the tank being useful in today's heavy traffic.   We could see how miserably uncomfortable it must have been inside those tanks for the very young soldiers who drove them.  The next building was open!  We saw the model of the Monument for the soldiers who died in World War I that we had visited at Marasesti on our way to Tecuci last October.  It is a tomb representing the 6000 Romanians who died in a battle holding the line against the advancing Germans in World War I.  This battle preserved the last unoccupied region of Romania.

Up a flight of stairs there was a most amazing collection of armor and swords and spears of every kind.   The other buildings were closed.  They have displays of the horse drawn carriages and the early airplanes.  We saw three statues.  Two were famous pilots, Traian Vuia and Aurel Vlaicu, who were early aviation innovators.  The other was Henry Coanda, who lived in the United States, where he discovered the principles of turbo reaction.   He returned to Romania, "only to die."

This museum is so full of things.  I cannot describe enough of it.  It is an expansive view over time of how human beings destroy and torture one another as well as how they protect themselves from one another.  In those times it seemed that always the foe was the enemy without - that other coming to take.  Now the ground has shifted.  It is imperceptible.  There are still major forces to contend with, international disputes and struggles against unjust governments, but it seems to me that the major battle line being drawn now is against individual terroristic acts.  Anonymous, erratic behavior presents a new kind of anxiety producing threat.   I think again of the exuberance of walking along inside the wall of the castle at Risnov in Transylvania and of how important it is to have a place where healthy families can grow.  Wouldn't it be nice not to need all these implements of war?  Not to have to fight amongst one another for a place to be on this earth?