Transylvanian horseman

Switching cars using a horse, 1993

I took this unusual photo back in 1993, near the village of Covasna in southeastern Transylvania. The location was, by then, unique in Europe. It was the last place where horses were employed to switch rail cars. It was also the last place to use a gravity-worked inclined plane to move cars.

The upper level comprised the remnants of a once-extensive narrow-gauge logging railway system, worked by a steam locomotive. The lower level comprised a few kilometres of narrow-gauge line running to a sawmill and main line interchange, and was also operated by a steam locomotive. The top and bottom of the inclined plane were each switched by a horse, a cheaper solution than using a dedicated locomotive. The narrow gauge cars are relatively light and easy for a horse to move because friction is much less than with a rubber-tyred vehicle. Switching horses always walk to one side of the track, so that the horse is safe if the car runs forward. The draw chain has a simple link that will slip off if the car passes the horse.

Strangely, it was rare to see railway enthusiasts or heritage buffs at places like Covasna. These places operated, and then closed, barely recorded.

This arrangement continued to operate into the year 2000, when the sawmill closed. The inclined plane has been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, and the narrow gauge tracks at top and bottom still exist although derelict. Tentative plans exist to create a heritage centre based on the inclined plane and railway, so this sight may one day be repeated.

Thoughts on a silent holiday

Dawn came softly through an opaque curtain of falling snow. The herd tramped silently to their hill pasture, awaiting delivery of their morning hay. They would not have long to wait in the cloudy twilight.

As the day grew older, so the weather became kinder. Rays of sunshine pentrated the valley, brightening a quiet, snowy saturday. Above and around, grey clouds merged with the wooded ridges, promising more snow. It is that season when the snow can deepen, falling heavily on the mountain passes, making travel difficult. A good time, then, for those who can to stay at home.

Tudor abandoned the hay put out for him and went foraging, returning to the ways of his feral ancestors. Here and there, dessicated plants thrust through the snow. What they lacked in nutritional value, they seemed to make up in interest for the curious horse.

Back in the stable, Cornel has started to remove deteriorated timbers from a portion of the floor. That is one mark of the rural peasant, the ability to find work and get on with it. The need to be industrious is bred into these people as a survival trait. They are many-talented and quick to appreciate what they can make with their hands. Employing such a person is like having an extra pair of eyes to spot what is needed and an extra pair of hands to get it done.

Today is the National Day of Romania, celebrating union of Transylvania with the old kingdom of Romania on 1 December 1918. The pricipalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, essentially the heartlands of Romanian ethnicity, attained independence back in 1879. Therein lies a part of the complexity of this country, since Transylvania joined the fold to create the modern Romania only after Austro-Hungary was defeated in the First World War. To this day, an identity crisis permeates this nation, raising the question what does it mean to be Romanian? There is a geographical boundary that defines citizenship, of course. However there is a question of nationality too. There are those who define Romanian ethnically, based on mother tongue and cultural affiliation. That is a dangerous defintion, as the Jews of the old Romanian kingdom were to discover. It poses a question too for the two million ethnic Hungarians of Transylvania. Long used to the notion that the province "belongs to Hungary", they find now that the neighbouring Hungarian government does not want them. They would take jobs and require pensions and social security, threatening Hungary's fragile economy. So they can stay as Romanians. I take the view that debating nationality brings little but conflict here on the fringes of the Balkans. Countries like Romania need values rather than a contrived definition of nationality. There are strong values here, amongst the peasants mainly, of hard work, tolerance, faith, hospitality and honesty. These are worthy values to strive for. Attaining them will require the nation to return to its peasant roots. It is a road of humanity rather than nationalism, a path of spirituality rather than materialism. For these reasons, it will be received badly amongst the corrupt government and materialistic nouveau-riche that are together ruining this country.

Still, at least Romania does have a solid peasant tradition to fall back on. Others are less fortunate. Whilst the majority of Romanians were tilling their land, other nations were busy exploiting the subjects of their enormous Empire or killing the native population in an audacious land grab.

Back on the field, the herd eats the hay that we put out. It is silent. No-one is working gainfully on the National Day of Romania. Two of my employees are, however, slaughtering a pig somewhere out of earshot. Being shackled to distant levantine Bucuresti gives nobody in Transylvania much to celebrate nowadays. So why not slaughter livestock on a national holiday? After all, it isn't a religious holiday. People here may tolerate their government and take what is their due, but they believe in God and respect the Church.

Looking southwestward in the late afternoon, the sky is a luminous light blue, nearly maritime in intensity. Distant woods and hills appear as if submerged beneath a tropical sea. North and east, the sky is a dark, almost purplish shade, heralding more snow. The view seems to span a whole range, fom the illusion of southerly warmth to the promise of arctic chill.

Way of the Mongol horsemen, part 2

Sebastian's interesting comment on my 13 October post has set me thinking. So why did the Mongols leave Europe alone after 1241? Wikipedia's entry "Mongol Invasion of Europe" includes the following.

Some western historians attribute European survival to Mongol unwillingness to fight in the more densely populated German principalities, where the wetter weather affected their bows. The territory of Western Europe, with more forests and with many castles along with many opportunities for the heavy cavalry to counter-attack possibly made Western Europe a more formidable opponent. Also, despite the steppe tactics of the Avars and early Hungarians, both were defeated by Western States in the 9th and 10th centuries. A significant number of important castles and towns in Hungary had also resisted the formidable and infamous Mongol siege tactics.

But the probable answer for Batu's stopping after the Mohi River, and the destruction of the Hungarian army, was that he never intended to advance further. He had made the Russian conquest safe for the next ten generations, and when the Great Khan died and he rushed back to Mongolia to put in his claim for power, it ended his westward expansion. Subutai's recall at the same time left the Mongol armies without their spiritual head and primary strategist.

Subsequently, Batu Khan planned to invade Europe as far as the Atlantic Ocean, however Mongol infighting delayed him until 1255. Batu died before having the chance to implement his plan, and his son also died before being able to invade Europe. Afterwards, Mongol ambitions largely were drawn in other directions. However, one further attempt was made against Europe. Again from Wikipedia:

In the mid-1280s Nogai Khan led an invasion of Hungary alongside with Talabuga. Nogai lead an army that ravaged Transylvania with success, where cities like Reghin, Braşov and Bistriţa were plundered and ravaged. However Talabuga, who led an army in Northern Hungary, was stopped by the heavy snow of the Carpathians and the invading force was defeated near Pest by the royal army of Ladislaus IV and ambushed by the Székely in the return. As with later invasions, it was repelled handily, the Mongols losing much of their invading force. The outcome could not have contrasted more sharply with the 1241 invasion, mostly due to the reforms of Béla IV, which included advances in military tactics and, most importantly, the widespread building of stone castles, both in response to the crushing defeat of the Hungarian Kingdom in 1241.

Living in Transylvania, I can testify to the preponderence of post-1241 and post-1280's stone fortifications around ancient towns, villages and even churches. Some of these repelled Tatar invasions into the 1700's, surviving late enough to become bullet-riddled during late medieval sieges. I can well believe how heavy snow could have stopped an army in the Carpathians. The roused Magyars and Szekely would have been fierce opponents, indeed it is still said in Transylvania that "a Szekely's identity card is his pocket knife." It does seem that the Mongols won many victories because of their opponents' mistakes. For example, defenders being drawn out of a fortress by a feigned retreat. Word must have got around about that kind of elementary mistake. The surprise is that it happened so often before the West learnt.

So why did I advance the idea that the Mongols found Europe a poor province to loot? In part, after a week with Tim Cope, the only person within living memory to have ridden the Mongol horde's route, and unusually well read in the history of the Mongols. Tim is, in many ways, a champion of the Mongols, upholding their positive values for a much needed reassessment. Riding their route gave him a unique view of the world as they saw it. I suppose that the Mongol leaders made what, in the modern world, we would call a Cost : Benefit Analysis. There were richer targets located closer. Europe was a costly, time consuming place to raid. The Hungarians had learnt from previous reverses, and that was the final nail in the coffin of a Mongol invasion of Europe. The Mongol Blitzkreig was only really effective against those that failed to grasp Mongol tactics. Once enemy strategy had caught up, Mongol forces were open to defeat. In due course, the Teutonic Knights and the Wehrmacht (to name but two) duly suffered analagous fates. Europe was saved, again and again.

I think that, in our own separate ways, Sebastian and I are both right. We are looking from different angles. Yes, the Mongols must have been well engaged in China. They had campaigns against Bulgaria, Poland, Thrace, etc, too, each seemingly undermanned because of large actions closer to home. However, I think that the relatively small rewards in Central Europe, combined with the risks inherent in fighting a prepared and increasingly efficient enemy, also played their part in Mongol calculations.

How often are even great powers allowed but one roll of the dice?

Way of the Mongol horsemen, part 1

Last week we rode away to the northeast, seeking out the route where the Mongol horsemen rode through in 1241. With us was Tim Cope, fresh from his horseback journey from Mongolia to Hungary.

For me, the week represented not only an exploration of historic routes but an exploration too of the Mongols themselves, with Tim as guide. History tends to cast the Mongols as villains, barbaric horsemen who terrorised Western civilisation. However, the Mongols were an established civilisation, skilfully led, disciplined, meritocratic, open to diplomacy, builders of a vast empire in which trade flourished. Compared to the rival European princedoms whom they conquered, at worst poverty-stricken little fiefdoms run by sedentary despots, the Mongols represented shocking modernity.

The Great Hungarian Plain is the westernmost extremity of the Eurasian steppe, the last nomad territory before the green hills and fertile valleys of Western Europe. Here the Mongols stopped, finding  the poorest pickings of their wide conquest, the least gold and riches. It was this poverty that led them to leave Western Europe in relative peace, not armies, nor fortifications.

The photo looks over the upper Somes valley, through which the central prong of the Mongol army poured in early 1241. This was no accidental route. The Mongols sent out scouts and spies to learn about the lands that they wished to conquer, finding out which tribes might ally themselves with the newcomer, which rivalries to exploit, the strengths and weaknesses of potential enemies, which routes to use, where to give battle. After the scouts came the army, and after the army the baggage train of horses and yaks. It must have been quite a sight.

For us riding high on the mountainside, it was exciting to tread the same turf as had the Mongol scouts over seven hundred and sixty years earlier. History was made here.

Shoeing for the trail

Today was the last day before the trail riding season, making this also the last time that I will be able to post daily for a while. From tomorrow, I shall be out riding, staying at various other places each night (including Castle Dracula). I'll be back at home at weekends though.

I had agreed with one of my agents in the West that I would drive the 160km (100 miles) to Cluj-Napoca airport to meet two guests. Unfortunately, my agent didn't pass this on to my guests, who made their own way from the airport to the riding centre. That left me to drive the truck back on my own, thinking at the time that the guests must have missed their plane. (In fact they had come on an earlier flight. Yes, my agent had given me the wrong flight details.)

I took a back way for the return journey, not feeling in much of a hurry, and prefering to drive on quiet roads. I'd long meant to stop and look at a large, neatly laid out cemetry on a hillside overlooking a quiet section of road. From the road, it looks like a military cemetry (which are quite common across Eastern Europe, though not as large as the First World War cemetries on the Western Front), all the gravestones being alike. In fact, it is a Jewish cemetry. One day in September 1944, immediately before the Red Army swept through, the Hungarian fascist militia rounded up one hundred and sixty two Jews from the village of Sarmasu and, over the course of ten days, tortured and murdered them all. The Romanian language inscription on the central memorial told me this, though most of the text was in Hebrew.

Now I'm at home, I've met the two guests, and we are ready to set off tomorrow morning. The horses have all been shod using Natural Balance techniques. I've included a view of a front shoe, in which one can see the unique form of the Natural Balance shoe (with a slightly squared front and rounded profile that together allow for a natural breakover point). Borium is also visible around the perimeter of the shoe, shiny and slightly irregular, where I have applied it by arc welding so as to protect the nail heads from wear. That way, the shoes will last longer on hard surfaces. The horse has a nice wide heel too, which is a sign of healthy conformation. Incidentally, I don't have different size hands - Danny, Cornel's 11yo son, is helping me to hold up Pintea's foot.

I've added a side view too (which I haven't managed to rotate, since the image software is on Danielle's computer). It's possible to see how the Natural Balance shoe is set back to give a good breakover, like a wild horse would have. I've removed as little of the hoof capsule as possible at the toe. I know that the hoof angle is a bit less than it should be, however this is an 8yo horse that has been here for less than 9 months. His feet are better now than when he arrived here, with shorter toes, better heels, and healthier frogs. There are 3 nails on each side of the shoe, which are sufficient. (Our horses rarely loose shoes, even on steep, stony ground.) The nails are quite small too, in this case E4, on size 2 shoes (that would be size 0 in Europe, I think). I recall that we used E4 slim nails, in fact, which are the same width as E4 (so that they don't split the hoofs) but 2-3mm longer (so that we can get them to come out higher up when necessary).

The Tatar trail

There are many old roads and trails in these parts. Some 20km south of here, a well-preserved section of Roman road cuts across pastures. That was a military road, designed to get troops up to the border of the Roman Empire. About 10km north, the old “Plaiul Moldovei” or Moldavian Path runs east-west across the high open spaces of Poiana Persa. This was more of a trade road, although it had a military function too. More intriguing, however, is the “Tatar trail”, which leads diagonally on a northeast-southwest heading through the mountains.

The Tatars lived on the steppes beyond Romania, in what are now the Ukraine and Russia. The term Tatar describes a wide ranging people, the multi-ethnic descendents of the Mongols of the Golden Horde. In Romania, the Tatars are associated with invasions and raids, the last of them by the Crimean Tatars in the mid-1700’s before Catherine the Great finally annexed their territory in 1783, and this is one reason why so many of the fortified towns and churches of Transylvania and the Bucovina survive to this day. They became obsolescent relatively late in history. No doubt there was trade, too, with these people from the east.

The Tatar trail is the supposed route along which the Tatars crossed the Carpathian mountains to enter Transylvania. Running between the wide valley opening at Putna on the edge of the plains down to the Rodna valley in the northeast corner of Transylvania, this “route” is marked by geographical names such as “Tatarca” and “Turculeta”. “Sant”, too, commemorates a defensive ditch a little up the valley from the medieval fortress of Rodna. Old people are said to retain folk memories of the trail.

A local tale claims that a part of Napoleon's army retreated from Moscow along the route of the Tatar trail, another suggestion of the usefulness of this relatively easy foot and horseback route from the steppes to the Transylvania. Were these disgruntled French soldiers coming to Habsburg territory to desert?

Curiously, the Tatar trail bears scars from a more recent conflict. Strategic passes are riddled with German trenches from 1944, some clearly battered by Russian shelling. The route was well chosen, it seems, for the movement of large armies.

When I have a little time free, I shall explore this historic route, starting on the edge of the steppes, at Putna. I believe that the logical route will become clearer on the ground, on horseback, trying to look at the terrain from the perspective of a medieval traveler. His mind would have considered not just access but security too, avoiding places where he might easily have been ambushed. High, open ground was safest, followed by wide, open valleys. He would have sought day’s marches that led between safe, defensible campsites. (The Plaiul Moldovei is laid out similarly, with a long march over high hills between the safe havens of Sant and Dorna Candreni.) It will be an interesting trip from Putna to the Rodna valley, some four days on horseback. How exciting to live in a country where the historic trails from centuries ago can still be traced on the ground and in the memories of the old.

My old saddlery chest

These last days we – my four employees and I – have been renovating my saddle room. This room forms part of a 1970’s building that we incorporated into the main house when we last extended it. Reading the term “1970’s”, many people might think “nondescript brick box”. My saddle room, however, is solidly timber built with dovetail joints at the corners, and stands on dry stone foundations. The walls had been plastered in the old method, using a mixture of clay and cow dung, and then whitewashed. This finish had, after a third of a century, reached a stage of embarrassing decrepitude. So we pulled the crumbling surfaces down and re-clad the walls in planed timber. Less traditional, but much better for fixing racks for saddlery. To keep up appearances, w e painted the floor in traditional brown and the doors in that light blue that  is so common across Transylvania.

The final touch was to varnish the chest in which we keep the saddle blankets. It is an old pine chest, nearly two metres long, and just over half a metre high. Inside, there are three compartments, and the top closes with a lid. Nothing unusual, so far. This sort of chest is widely used still for storing flour and maize in rural homes. But, penciled under the lid in large figures, strangely formed as if by one unused to writing, is a date – 1942.

Back in those dark days, someone made this useful chest. In Britain, back then, there was renewed hope. Here in Transylvania, times were bad, and soon to get worse. Back at home, the Battle of Britain had been won, and people had heard the church bells ring after Alamein. Here, Hitler had annexed Transylvania and handed it over to neighbouring Hungary. Stalingrad was soon to come, where most of the Romanian army would be lost. Then, invasion by the Red Army, farewell massacres by the retreating Hungarian Army (our local history book records unnatural deaths under such headings as “killed in action”, “deportation to concentration camp”, and “beaten to death by Hungarian militia”), Communism, Stalinism, collectivization, megalomaniac dictatorship. Bad days, indeed. Decades later came the so-called “revolution” of 1989, when the communist nomenclatura took over from a communist dictator.

Finally, just now, in 2004, we shed those corrupt, repressive dinosoars. Well, some of them, anyway. It took fifteen years of “freedom” for a thinking middle class to develop, possessed by the novel concept that it could elect a liberal-democrat president in place of a communist relic.

It’s a good thing that the carpenter of 1942 hadn’t a crystal ball. He would have had to be a serious optimist not to go and hang himself from the nearest tree.