My subscription is almost at the end. I am so sorry I did not use it as much as I wanted. I had a terrible autumn but beautiful nonetheless. This be told it is time for my last feature.

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    There is a place between the Carpathians, a place like no other, to which my blood belongs.
The heartland of the Dacian tribes, it became home to Latin colonists in the most glorious times of Rome. Dacia Felix gave birth to the Romanian people and language. Invaded by countless tribes at the fall of the Roman Empire, Inner-Carpathian Dacia and the Western Hill lands and steps became home to a multitude of peoples and cultures. But no matter of their strength Transsilvania kept its Latin majority.
    The Sons of Rome stubbornly kept their language and the memory of their roots. Governed by Slavs, Hungarians or Austrians Transsilvania thrived. As a strong, almost autonomous medieval principality, it held a distinct identity.   
    At the dawn of the XVIIIth Century the House of Hapsburg offered the Transsilvanian Romanians the possibility of overcoming their social status by reuniting them with the West. Thus was created the Romanian United Church and the greek-catholic cult. A strong link between the East and the West between Orthodoxy and Catholicsm. By the middle of the century the first Romanian schools opened in the greek-catholic town of Blaj, my hometown. The illuminating knowledge of this institutions and religious schools created the generations of scholars and religious men who fought for the well being of their brothers.
    But it was a time when diversity was poorly understood. Under Hungarian pressure Transsilvanian Romanians sought the help of their brothers on the other side of the Carpathians. With the dissolution of the Hapsburg Monarchy, Transsilvania along with Banat, Crisana and Maramures joined the Romanian Kingdom.
    The rich province became the jewel of the new Kingdom and to this day it remains the most developed region. Joining together the culture of Romanians, Hungarians, Siebenburgen Germans and Jews, Transylvania is one of the most beautiful and culturally rich regions of the World.
And although tensions still burn between Romanians and Hungarians I am proud to be Transsilvanian I am proud of my ancestry on this land, I feel a brother to every Transsilvanian no matter of language or religion. I still look to Vienna as to a Capital of diversity. I still believe in autonomy and self governing of this unique land. Transsilvania is not a piece of land on a table between Bucharest and Budapest. Transsilvania is our home.
Transsilvania is our blood, our identity!! [link]

~The Landscape~





~The Towns~