Heritage.....and heritage

Years ago, an East German friend and I planned a new business, tours of the communist "heritage". Our proposed name was Trabant Reisen. We might not have been entirely serious, however others have prospered in this new niche. There are tours around the Park of Communist Sculptures in Budapest. Walking amongst multiple Lenins is a surreal experience if there ever was one. Various former Eastern Bloc cities have tours that take in the old secret police headquarters and suchlike. Given the lives terminated and blighted by those evil regimes, this new line in tourism does seem rather voyeuristic. Still, it does good in maintaining a spotlight on the dark and absurd deeds of those regimes.

The first photo isn't actually from the communist era, as private accommodation was banned back then. It's an early post-communist attempt to "promote" rural tourism. Hard beds, spartan food, harsh serving women: truly, a character-building way to spend a holiday!

So far as I know, there are no kitsch communist tours in Romania. (Parliament might be a good starting point for one. It contains plenty of relics from the bad old days.) There are several tragic museums, including the once-notorious Sighet Prison. However, maybe the time has come for a more accessible, even amusing view? A look focussed on communist mentality and attitudes rather than hardware and buildings. The starting point in Bistrita might be the ex-communist Romanian Commercial Bank. Although privatised, its management maintain the narrow party doctrine that the proletariat should be grateful for every mercy, however small and grudgingly yielded. When I confronted their director today over a mistake, I was told that, no, the bank was not responsible for its mistakes. No, I could not expect their computers to show accurate information. However, I should be grateful that this dinosoar of finance existed to take my money. And keep it in a shoebox in the basement, I expect. I have just transfered my accounts to the new private Piraeus bank, an establishment that understands what the word customer means. What a relief.

Deborah wrote to me regarding a simple harness for her old gelding to use to haul a sled of manure from the barn. Here is another view of a simple breastcollar for ploughing. It's not a great shot, however the position of the breastcollar on the horse is clear. A second shot shows a horse pulling timber, in fact dragging a beech log around the back of our guesthouse. This breastcollar has a leather reinforcing strip around the outside of the canvas. Unlike a good leather harness, which can last for many decades if looked after well, these canvas collars last maybe five years or so. A look at the angle of draught shows that there is tension on both the upper and lower parts of the breastcollar, so the horse is pulling not only with his chest but (to some degree) with the top of his neck. Looking at a number of photos, I'd estimate that around three-quarters of the load goes via the chest. Hence the whole breastcollar is made from a wide, fairly fexible canvas. (However, I would be very interested to see some measurements. This might make a fascinating project for some enterprising engineering or technology students.)

I could not resist including the last photo, showing a sheepdog at Ciocanesti accompanying the shepherd's horn. The two big dogs at that sheepfold are great characters, friendly to people, even sidling up at mealtimes to cast that mournful feed-me eye on the vulnerable. Yet, I am sure, quite dangerous to wolves and bears. Two dogs will drive off a bear by the simple tactic of one going in front of the bear and the other behind. The bear doesn't appreciate having a large, snarling, aggressive creature behind. One cannot blame the bear. But if he turns to face one dog, the other will be behind. So he goes off, in a kind of bear-huff I suppose.

Comments

[Sarah]

Oooh. What kind of Dog is he? Ours was supposed to do that, but wasn't very good at it, so we got him.
Love your posts on the harnesses

[Transylvanianhorseman]

He's a Carpathian Mountain Sheepdog. I think that much of the "guard dog behaviour" comes from training by shepherds and by older dogs. My big white yard dog is a sheepdog, completely soft and useless for defence, however she never was brought up to fight off wolves and bears.

[William Thirteen]

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