Both my wife and I grew up in the country. I was one of the lucky children who spent their childhood in the country, surrounded by the most true and beautiful nature. All the time we were in the fields, on the hills, in the woods, and by the river. If childhood can be considered heaven, then childhood spent in the country was even more than that.

It is an interesting coincidence that we both lived in the north of Romania, my wife in the north-west, in Transylvania, and I in the north-east, in Moldova, the two historical regions of the country.

In Romania, there have been two major population migrations. The first was in the 50s and 60s of the last century, when the forced industrialization imposed by the communists needed workers and the peasants went to the cities to work. In this way, our parents moved to the cities and became city dwellers, and their children, i.e. us, became even more city dwellers.

We were immigrants in our own country!

The second great migration took place after 1990, when millions of Romanians went to work in Spain, Italy, France, Germany, England, Ireland...

My wife and I became city dwellers, we grew up, learned, and worked in Bucharest, the capital of Romania, but the nostalgia for the village where we grew up remained. Whenever we visit the relatives left we are happy to see those places again, even if it doesn't look like it was more than 60 years ago.

Some photos from the green paradise of a small, almost abandoned village in northern Transylvania.

The village is at an altitude of 800 m, with high hills, extensive gardens, and forests.

Most of the villagers have left to work in cities or abroad. Few remained in the village, especially the elderly.

Old people no longer have the strength to work or care for their old houses.

Most rural areas have changed with the country's modernization... except for these villages lost among the hills and mountains.
You can still find the old horse-drawn carts, used by the peasants here.

In these conditions, my small tired car seems a pinnacle of technicity.

Sea of green

Nature feels and acts. No more people cutting grass in gardens, nature feels and conquers everything...

Vegetation has swallowed everything, like this abandoned fountain, and you can hardly see people's things.

Green dominates everything. I saw some blue plastic containers I rushed to photograph in a garden. I don't do it because I like plastic, on the contrary, I'm sorry they are there but I needed another color in the image.

Everywhere there are gardens and old trees bearing fruit that no one picks anymore. Plums, walnuts, apples, and pears...

My wife loves these places and is extremely excited when we get there. Through these gardens, she plays with the dozens of children in the village. Now there are hardly any of them around. They have scattered to all parts of the country and the world.

A little flower for their memory!