3300 ROMANIA - Postcrossing Meetup, Bucharest, 17 June 2018

3300 The sixth postcard of the series
"100 years since the Great Union of Romania" (6/12)
- Pelicans in Danube Delta

The previous postcard of the series "100 years since the Great Union of Romania" (5/12)

The sixth meeting of the Romanian postcrossers in the year of the Centenary of the Great Union took place on June 17, 2018, in Bucharest, and Mihnea Răducu chose for the postcard some pelicans, probable great white pelicans (Pelecanus onocrotalus), in Danube Delta (UNESCO WHS, about which I wrote here). The great white pelican is a huge bird (140 to 180 cm in length) with a 28.9 to 47.1 cm enormous pink and yellow bill, and a dull pale-yellow gular pouch. The wingspan measures 226 to 360 cm, the latter measurement being the highest among extant flying animals outside of the great albatross. It mainly eats fish.

3295 ROMANIA - Postcrossing Meetup, Bucharest, 5 May 2018

3295 The fifth postcard of the series
"100 years since the Great Union of Romania" (5/12)
- "The passage of the Romanian army to Dobruja"
by Henryk Dembitzky.

The previous postcard of the series "100 years since the Great Union of Romania" (4/12)

The fifth meeting of the Romanian postcrossers in the year of the Centenary of the Great Union took place on May 5, 2018, in Bucharest. This time Mihnea Răducu chose for the postcard dedicated to the meeting the lithography The passage of the Romanian army to Dobrudja by Henryk Dembitzky (1830-1906), a Polish artist, graduate of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, refugee in Romania. He made his debut as a lithographer in Bucharest, in 1877, therefore in the very year in which Romania proclaimed its independence, and his lithographs in colors related to the War of Independence are very well known by the Romanians.

1180, 1181, 3265 ROMANIA (Tulcea) - Danube Delta (UNESCO WHS)

3265 Danube Delta - Flying birds

Posted on 13.08.2014, 24.11.2019
The Danube Delta is the second largest river delta in Europe, after Volga Delta, and is the best preserved on the continent. The greater part lies in Romania (Tulcea county), while its northern part, on the left bank of the Chilia arm, is situated in Ukraine (Odessa Oblast). The modern Danube Delta began to form after 4000 BCE in a bay of the Black Sea, when the sea rose to its present level. A sandy barrier blocked the Danube bay where the river initially built its delta. Probably 40 percent of the Delta was built in the last 1000 years. The reserve is vast, with numerous freshwater lakes interconnected by narrow channels featuring huge expanses of aquatic vegetation. 

1181 Birds of Danube Delta

 

This is the largest continuous marshland on Europe, which includes the greatest stretch of reedbeds in the world, which form floating or fixed islands of decaying vegetation. The Razelm-Sinoe complex to the south comprises several large brackish lagoons separated from the sea by a sandbar. The higher ground supports stands of willow, popular, alder and oak. There are also sandy areas covered with feather grass and other steppe species. Forest elements are best observed in Letea Forest (in the postcard 1180) where a series of bands occur along dunes up to 250 m long and 10 m wide.

1180 Danube Delta - Letea Forest

Situated on major migratory routes, and providing adequate conditions for nesting and hatching, the Danube Delta is a magnet for birds from six major eco-regions of the world, including the Mongolian, Arctic and Siberian. There are over 320 species of birds found in the delta during summer, of which 166 are hatching species and 159 are migratory. Over one million individuals (swans, wild ducks, bald coots, etc.) winter here. An interesting ethologic aspect appearing enhanced by the conditions of the Danube Delta (especially by the floods) is represented by egg laying in common nests. Thus, as a consequence of the general lack of egg-laying places, especially at flood time when a great part of the aquatic-species nests are flooded, the birds this way affected go on laying eggs in alien nests either belonging to the same species or to species of the same families.

2266 ROMANIA (Tulcea) - Carol street in Tulcea at the beginning of the 20th century

Founded in the 7th century BC under the name of Aegyssus, the city of Tulcea, laid out on seven hills like Rome, has been, since ancient times, an important harbor on Danube River, not far from its flowing into the Black Sea. The town was successively under Roman, Byzantine (5th-7th century), Genoese (10th-13th century) and Ottoman rule before finally being ceded to Romania in 1878. Once cosmopolitan, it has even today a multi-ethnic flavor thanks to the Lipovans and Turkish minorities.

1612, 1613, 2010, 2011 ROMANIA (Tulcea) - Sulina

1612 Sulina - Waterfront in winter

Posted on 27.05.2015, 05.11.2015
Located in Danube Delta, at the point where the Sulina branch of the Danube flows in the Black Sea, the town and free port Sulina is the easternmost point of Romania. It is not linked directly to the road network of Romania and can be reached only by water, either via the Danube or via the Black Sea. There is a theory according to which Sulina had been founded in 7th century BC by Cimmerians and developed together with the advent of the first Greek colonies on the shores of Pontus Euxinus.

1613 Sulina - Hotel Camberi
at the beginning of the 20th century (now, the hotel is a ruin)

Anyway, during the mid-Byzantine period Sulina was a small cove and in 14th century a Genoese port inhabited by sailors, pirates and fishermen. In 18th century the Ottomans built a lighthouse there in order to accommodate communication between Istanbul and the Danubian Principalities, the main breadbaskets for the Ottoman capital. In 1800, Sulina have 8722 inhabitants and was a cosmopolitan settlement, being formed in equal measure from Romanians, Turks, Greeks, Armenians, Jews, Russians and Italians, reason why the writer Jean Bart called it "Europolis" in his most important novel.

2010 Sulina - Waterfront

 

Thanks to the Treaty of Adrianople, since 1829, that unfettered the Danube grain trade, Sulina, by then under Russian control, became important. Great sailing boats couldn't sail fully loaded to Brăila and Galaţi, which were the main export centres of Wallachia and Moldavia, because of the shallow waters of the river; therefore, they had to tranship at least part of their cargoes to smaller riverboats (shleps). The owners and crew of these sleps were almost always Greek.

2011 Sulina - A view of the port

Even greater development would occur after the Treaty of Paris (1856), which ended the Crimean War. One of the treaty’s terms determined the establishment of the Commissions of the Danube River, which has transformed the city from a fishing village into an important city for European river traffic. The real reason for establishing this commission was that none of the great powers did not want to leave the mouth of the Danube in the hands of one of them.

1865 ROMANIA (Tulcea) - The Danube Delta Traditions

As might be expected, the main occupation of the inhabitants of the Danube Delta, be they Romanians, Lipovans or Hahols (Ukrainians - descendents of Zaporozhian Cossacks), is fishing, which provides the main source of food and income. However is not neglected the animal breeding (mainly pigs and cows), which is made there in a special way: the animals are let loose on the grinduri (oblong strip of land formed from alluvial deposits), where they seeks the food.