Visiting Transylvania is considered a somewhat must-to-do travel for Hungarians.
I will not get into speculations on the Trianon-trauma, on nationalism and on politics, the point is that after a while I started to feel slightly weird not having seen anything there despite having travelled to quite a few countries of the world already. This month I changed the situation and went with my boyfriend for the first time in our life to discover a part of it, on the occasion of the Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF). Since the festival takes place in Cluj, we have spent there most of the time, visiting besides the must-to-see spots– for instance the building in which Mathias Corvinus was born – several cinemas, cultural venues, churches, bars and museums where tourists have apparently a surprising effects on the people who work there.
The film festival’s atmosphere is really open and international, apparently I looked like a local (until opening my mouth), since several times people started to ask me about practicalities of the festival in Romanian and when I replied in English they switched with no problem. Also the location of the festival is impressing. The city’s most central square (Piaţa Unirii) is an amazing venue for film screenings in the evening. If I would see the St. Michael Church and the statue of King Mathias lit up as the background for the film-watching multitude on a postcard – I would consider it pure kitsch. However, being there in this picture was a really beautiful and memorable experience.
Regarding bars and restaurants I was a bit concerned what if people would think I was a local Hungarian and find it outrageous that my Romanian vocabulary was constituted of 10-15 expressions. However, as I learned, it is clear that I come from Hungary, since I am far too loud when speaking to be a Hungarian of Cluj. J Anyhow, we had nice conversations with Hungarians and Romanians, people whom we met occasionally were always friendly and helpful, someone spent 40 minutes to tell us everything about Cluj that tourists would never find out.
To be honest, there is one sphere of tourism in which we did not experience too much openness and trust: the world of museums. In the ethnographic museum of the town the employees just did not get why somebody goes there to watch the permanent exhibition when they have a lego-expo. In the Museum of Fine Arts and in the Open-air ethnographic museum the employees seemed to literally suspect visitors and followed us for all the time.
During our trip we travelled for one day to Târgu Mureş, where luckily we arrived to the Teleki-Bolyai Library (one of the first Hungarian public libraries, founded in 1802) right in the moment when a Hungarian guided tour started. The most striking sights of the city are the City Hall and the Palace of Culture for me, a lover of Art Nouveau architecture. Agnes Kelemen, Nationalism Studies,
Hungary
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