ROMANIA - Villages with Fortified Churches in Transylvania (UNESCO WHS)

In the 12th and 13th centuries, simultaneous with the advancement of the Kingdom of Hungary's border to the east and south-eastern Transylvania, until its stabilization along the Carpathians, Hungarian kings encouraged Germans and Székelys to colonize the areas newly conquered, in essence for economic and military reasons. The German colonists were named Transylvanian Saxons, despite the fact that most of them came from the western Holy Roman Empire. The political, economic and social influence exercised by them in the last eight centuries in Transylvania was a major and beneficial one. Unfortunately after the WWII, but especially after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, many members of this community emigrated to Germany.

3147 ROMANIA (Harghita) - The virgin forest from Tinovul Luci Nature Reserve

Virgin forest is a natural woodland where tree and shrub species are present in various stages of their life cycle and as dead wood in various stages of decay, with a more or less complex vertical and horizontal structures. In virgin forests the dynamics inherent to living systems are connected to ecological properties of the dominant tree species, impact of other organisms and to the impact of abiotic factors related to the substrate, climate and to the complex of topography and water table.

2607 ROMANIA (Harghita) - The Székely Waterfall at the spring of Târnava Mare

The Târnava Mare River (Big Târnava) has its source in the Eastern Carpathian Mountains, in Székely Land, near Vărşag (in Hungarian Székelyvarság), and joins the Târnava Mică River in Blaj, forming the Târnava. It rises from the foot of Şumuleu Mare Montain, at an altitude of 1455m, where seven springs come together and creates a creek. At 300m downstream it forms a small but charming waterfall, named în Romanian Cascada Secuilor (Székely Waterfall), and in Hungarian Csorgókő Vízesés (which freely translated means "the crying rock", or "the dripping rock").

1727, 2548 ROMANIA (Harghita) - Cristuru Secuiesc

2548 Cristuru Secuiesc - 1. The Unitarian School; 2. The town hall;
3. The Petõfi Sándor statue; 5. The Molnár István Museum

Posted on 07.07.2015, 14.05.2016
Located in the Székely Land, an ethno-cultural region in eastern Transylvania, Cristuru Secuiesc (Székelykeresztúr) is the most significant economical-organizational and educational center of the Cristuru basin. Among the main sights of the town are the old building of the Unitarian School (built in late Baroque style on the turning of the 17-18th centuries), the town hall, the bronze statue of Petõfi Sándor (made by András Márkos in 1971), and the Molnár István Museum.

1727 Cristuru Secuiesc - The Molnár István Museum

 

The Molnár István Museum and open-air ethnographic section are one of the most significant country museums of the region. The exhibits include archaeological finds from the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, pottery; ethnography items: folk technical installations; mineralogy items; local fauna specimens, and a herbarium. Established in the building of the former Casino in 1946, it was reorganized in 1960. Molnár István (1910-1997) was a Hungarian teacher, ethnographer and curator.

2337 ROMANIA (Harghita) - Lake Sfânta Ana

Lake Sfânta Ana (Hungarian: Szent Anna-tó, meaning "Saint Anne Lake" in both languages) is the only crater lake in Romania, located in the crater of an extinct volcano, named Ciomatu Mare, in Eastern Carpathians, at an altitude of 946m. With an almost circular shape, similar to a painter's palette, has a length of 620m and a maximum width of 460m, an area of 19.50ha and a maximum depth of 6.4m. It is a complex reserve (natural, geological, floristic and faunistic), linked with Băile Tuşnad by trails.

2233 ROMANIA (Harghita) - The Franciscan Church in Şumuleu Ciuc

Since 1959 a neighborhood of Miercurea Ciuc (the county seat of Harghita County, located on the Olt River valley), Şumuleu Ciuc (Hungarian: Csíksomlyó) was first recorded in 1333, as Sumbov. According to historian Losteiner, the village had its own church and monastery as early as 1208. Settled there around 1440, as certifies the bull of Pope Eugene IV, the Observants, the stricter-to-rule branch of the Franciscan order, built a Gothic church with Virgin Mary as patron, completed in 1448.