Numerous mountain villages in Romania have reached the end of their long existence. Once inhabited by hundreds of people, with schools and churches, the settlements were gradually defeated. Today, although almost deserted, they have become places sought by tourists.
The village of Uricici. Photo: Daniel Guță. TRUTH
Crovered on mountain peaks, surrounded by tens of square kilometers of forests and crossed by forest roads that become impractical to every rain, numerous villages in western Romania could disappear from the map in the coming years.
Without infrastructure and utilities and without real chances of development, they survived only thanks to a few locals who either stubbornly or had no place to leave. And yet, some are often animated by tourists in search of the natural beauty of rural Romania.
Bears, the village with 12 people, hidden among the clouds
Located at almost 1,000 meters altitude in the Șureanu Mountains, the village of Uricici in Hunedoara (video) is among the numerous mountain settlements in Romania that seem to have reached the end of their existence.
The hamlet was established by the shepherd’s families who sat on the Luncan platform, in the old Dacian cities, and in the middle of the 20th century had over 200 inhabitants. In the 1990s, their number had decreased in half, and at present a few families also populate its houses set up on the peaks, at distances of hundreds of meters.
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The village of Uricici. Șureanu Mountains. Photo Daniel Guță. Truth (31) JPG
All the roads in Ursici lead to the place where, in the past, the village school operated, abolished in the late 2000s, when there were no children in the village. Now, the seven -decade old wooden building, affected by the storms too strong for the tree cord that protects it is used only as a polling station. On Sunday, 12 locals voted here, while another 14 voted on the additional lists of the section.
School in Bears. Photo: Daniel Guță. TRUTH
“We did not have a church and we had to go for two – three hours, to the church in Luncani and even further, to the one in the village of Târsa. But it was school. It was abolished, however, because there are about eight families and there are no children. I was here at school. My parents were sent to me with the books and, after finishing the hours, we went to the sheep. There, I was putting the books on my knees and learning”, Recorded an elderly locals.
Locals live as in the time of grandparents
The lack of the church and the closing of the school were not the great problems of the inhabitants of the bears. The village of the Șureanu Mountains has never been electrified, and the few inhabited households receive energy from the solar panels mounted on houses, most through a campaign carried out in 2013 by the Free Miorița organization. Solar energy generally reaches the locals, to light their homes, to charge their phones for radio.
But in winter and stormy periods, it does not help them. And the capricious daughter is a constant of the village in the mountains, often covered, with clouds and fog.
The last 12 kilometers of the road to Bears were also one of the “eternal” problems of the villagers. In recent years, the road of land and stone that climbs into the streams of the Luncan Valley, has been repaired several times, but the interventions were not sufficient to make it fully accessible, during rainy and frost periods. During drought, locals have other shortcomings.
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Satl Uricici from Hunedoara Photo Daniel Guță Adevărul (17) JPG
“The springs from which we take water for us and for animals sometimes dry. Some are so far from home”, tells an elderly from the village.
For tourists, the archaic settlement remains an enticing place. The picturesque households scattered on the peaks surrounded by forests and the open panorama towards the Retezat and Parang Mountains or towards the Strei and Apuseni Valley made one of the most spectacular places to visit in western Romania.
Stories similar to that of the village of Uricici have several villages in the Apuseni Mountains and the Poiana Ruscă Mountains, now and are on the verge of extinction, where the only remaining locals, used to the archaic living, are some older families.
