Hidden Transylvania
Hidden Transylvania
When people think of Transylvania, they mostly have Dracula in mind. For some it is also about the medieval festival of Sighisoara, and for only a few, amongst who Prince Charles, it is all about the wonderful villages around Sibiu.
There is more to Transylvania than these. This book does not want to be a travel guide, but a means to discover hidden Transylvania.
I was born and raised in Brasov, also known as Kronstadt (Crown City). It is a very old and beautiful city where Germans, Hungarians and Romanians live in perfect harmony.
A few kilometres from Brasov, there is a village called Sinca. Here we can find one of the hidden mysteries of Transylvania.
Old Sinca is an old compact village, which was founded in the XII century. There are a lot of archaeological treasures, still buried around the village. But the one that is unique in its own way is the Monastery from the Cave or the Temple from the Cave.
Around 1700 there were five monasteries, four made of wood and one carved in rock, although the village population was of only five hundred inhabitants. All there five monasteries were Christian Orthodox.
In 1762 the queen Marie Therese decided to establish the First Regiment to protect the borders. The villagers were ordered to leave their religion and to become Catholics. Almost all of them decided to leave the village and to withdraw the forest that surrounds the village and to life in huts. As time went by the villagers built new houses and thus, a new village was born, named New Sinca.
Only five rich families had decided to remain in Old Sinca, and later on two of them moved to the new village, losing all their fortune. After several decades the old village was repopulated with Romanians, the life returned to normal. Out of the five monasteries, only one survived the centuries, the one hidden in the cave.
The entrance of the monastery is situated in a forest, where the vegetation is extremely rich.
When people think of Transylvania, they mostly have Dracula in mind. For some it is also about the medieval festival of Sighisoara, and for only a few, amongst who Prince Charles, it is all about the wonderful villages around Sibiu.
There is more to Transylvania than these. This book does not want to be a travel guide, but a means to discover hidden Transylvania.
I was born and raised in Brasov, also known as Kronstadt (Crown City). It is a very old and beautiful city where Germans, Hungarians and Romanians live in perfect harmony.
A few kilometres from Brasov, there is a village called Sinca. Here we can find one of the hidden mysteries of Transylvania.
Old Sinca is an old compact village, which was founded in the XII century. There are a lot of archaeological treasures, still buried around the village. But the one that is unique in its own way is the Monastery from the Cave or the Temple from the Cave.
Around 1700 there were five monasteries, four made of wood and one carved in rock, although the village population was of only five hundred inhabitants. All there five monasteries were Christian Orthodox.
In 1762 the queen Marie Therese decided to establish the First Regiment to protect the borders. The villagers were ordered to leave their religion and to become Catholics. Almost all of them decided to leave the village and to withdraw the forest that surrounds the village and to life in huts. As time went by the villagers built new houses and thus, a new village was born, named New Sinca.
Only five rich families had decided to remain in Old Sinca, and later on two of them moved to the new village, losing all their fortune. After several decades the old village was repopulated with Romanians, the life returned to normal. Out of the five monasteries, only one survived the centuries, the one hidden in the cave.
The entrance of the monastery is situated in a forest, where the vegetation is extremely rich.