Gypsy wedding

I am going back home to London for two days tomorrow. After that I will hop over to Copenhagen for my friend's birthday party and then I am coming back to Moldova, we still have a lot of exciting work to do here.

Today we got invited for a Gypsy wedding. The wedding will take place in July in the town of Soroca, which is home to a large Roma community. They live separately from Moldovans there on a "Gypsy Hill" in the town's centre where they build enormous and bizarre houses. There is almost no intermarriage between Roma and Moldovans. We were told that the groom and the bride will be really young, which is traditional for this community. I tried to research this a bit, but not too much, I like to be surprised when I visit places and not know everything in advance. But below is a taster for you (just first one minute is enough). Yes, the guy you see from the beginning of the video is the groom and the girl is his bride. I bet this little dude will be the coolest when he goes back to school after this wedding and will have all the attention of his buddies to tell them about all the things they really wanted to know.

And of course I will be back with pictures from the Gypsy Hill.

Saint Anne

A couple of weeks ago I had a meeting across the border in the Romanian part of Moldova, in the city of Piatra Neamt. We hope to start a project there this winter. The city is surrounded by the mountains and would also be a nice place to spend some time in winter with all the skiing at our doorstep.

Before driving back to Moldova we visited the Bistrita Monastery just about 5 miles away from Piatra Neamt. The monastery was dedicated in 1402. It's main relic is the miracle-working icon of Saint Anne, which was given as a present to the monastery in 1407 by Lady Ana, Voivode Alexandru I's wife. Apparently the icon was given as a "patronage gift" to Lady Ana by empress Jelena, wife of Manuel II Palaiologos, emperor of Constantinople.



I really liked the church where the icon is located. It was different from the more modern Romanian and Moldovan Orthodox churches and reminded me of the Mount Athos churches. Old monks were sitting randomly on the floor in the darkness reading huge old books in candle light, mumbling something and not paying any attention to us. We were the only visitors at the time.

The monastery also has an important collection of medieval art in its museum.