Mile 23 in 46 hours

I go to the Delta a lot!
I've been at all ages and for all reasons.
I went to the Delta in all seasons.
When I was 8 years old at the newly opened Hotel in Sulina, as a teenager in Tulcea as a student camping, as a youngster at the Anonimul Festival and in later years several times a year at fishing competitions.
I went to the Delta because I felt like a free explorer to roam new lands by boat, for the beaches of Sfântu and Sulina, to photograph Cardon, Sfiștofca, Periprava or Caraorman.
I also went just to sit on the 3rd or 4th streets of Sulina under a fig tree. Most of the time I went there to meet people, other times I went for the fishing. I didn't always find what I was looking for.
I traveled the distance between Tulcea by all possible means of transportation and at all possible speeds, attracted more by the seaward limits. I never stopped at Crișan or Mila 23. They seemed to me to be placed too much in the way, as if on the national highway, destinations good only for a stopover before morning fishing trips.
I am also not part of the generation for whom Ivan was a hero, but I have always admired what he and Teodor Frolu did for Mila 23.
For this issue, I stalked Doru at an exhibition at the MȚR and asked him to write an article about all he does for the Delta. He didn't say yes or no, but he invited me to come to the Bibaniada for girls that was taking place in a few days.

Danube roads

I left Bucharest the way I like to go to the Delta - by train. I know it sounds eccentric, but it's not. The road from Medgidia through Dobrogea, traveled at 30 km/h, through windmills, linden forests and ancient lands dotted with gorse, is a preamble to the delta to come. You can see hawks and falcons hunting in the dry grass fields, storks alongside weed-choked construction debris and generally a landscape where you have time to wander in silence.
Then I love Tulcea train station! For a Bucharest guy arriving by train in a corner of the city, the fact that the train drops you on the Danube bank from where you could get straight on the boat is something very cosmopolitan. It's true that this time I was surprised to find the cliff under construction, with all the dust and noise that any work of this kind entails. I found the long deserted quay very strange. I know it as full of boats of all sizes, tourists mixed with locals, bustling if chaotic. After several hours spent on the terrace of Ivan Pescar restaurant, my favorite place in Tulcea, we arrived at Mila 23 in the evening.

The village or the people

So far I remember all the phases of the journey very well, but after I set foot on the shore, a whirlwind to which I let myself be carried away swept over me and it was only on Monday, when I was already in Bucharest, that I woke up and was telling about my adventure.
I will do my duty as an architect and I will also note here the impression that the village made on me, although I assure you that it is not architecture that Milă is about. My first contact with the place is literally and figuratively abrupt. I'm not used to high banks in the Delta. That platform on which the village was rebuilt after the floods makes it lose that natural contact with the water that I like so much about Sfântu. The sparse vegetation on the shore doesn't help the image you'd expect to see in the Delta either. In the middle of the village, in front of the main marina, is a very ugly building that I was to find out was the cultural hostel, the center of the event that was about to start. I'd rather not mention the paths paved with biscuits, planters and plaster benches. However, I admit that I can get over the architectural cacophony quite easily if people are pleasant. We were met on the bank by two little blonde girls who led us to the teacher's house, where we were to spend the night.

The Subcarpathian farm

We thus discovered a rather more pleasant part of the village, where the houses lead out to a cove on the bank of which, between the house and the water, winds a narrow lane lined with a series of pontoons. Practically everything to do with fishing, fishing gear, equipment, equipment and storage has been removed from the house and moved to the shore of this cove. The picture is by no means idyllic, nor tidy, but it is very fishy.
The whole village was out on the streets and, carried away by the tide, we arrived in the evening in the courtyard of Lucica Buhaev, a sort of general of the armies combined with an efficient housewife. A very experienced hostess and event organizer to boot. Everyone was in her yard, and by everyone I mean the whole universe.
From the village came rows and rows of women helping to welcome and feed the guests, curious children, the girls who were going to take part in the fishing contest the next day, and from the water came the Subcarpathian boys carrying instruments and speakers, other guests pitched tents, children and cats tangled between everyone's legs.
Lucicai's Household is a project coordinated by Teodor Frolu, who has built a traditional oven, dining area and summer kitchen here. The interventions are discreet, designed to complement or develop, with an architect's hand and an anthropologist's mind. The place is roomy, welcoming and very friendly, as evidenced by the late-night eating, singing and storytelling. It is also to the credit of the band Subcarpați, who proposed a jam session with the whole village, setting up their stage between Lucica's clothesline, microphones in the fig tree and inviting all the villagers and guests to sing along. Lucica was also the hostess here, performing real recitals of Lipovene songs.
Girls' party
Although we all went to bed at very early hours of the night, we were on the shore at 6 o'clock in the morning for the fishing competition in teams of two girls: a Lipovanian and a guest. Of course, Lucica and the rest of the women were already on shore. The aim of the contest: to catch as many perch as possible so that they would produce a brine to feed the whole village. The mission was somewhat accomplished and, after 4 hours, the teams came ashore with enough to illustrate a tradition: also under Lucica's baton, a long meal was organized on the shore where the fish were cleaned with the help of all the young girls of the village, who sang all the while.

Uliță Food

The day continued with a series of concerts and dances attended by the whole community regardless of age, with little girls delighted in their little dresses, boys pouting at being asked to dance, shy teenagers, choir ladies proud to set an example to their grandchildren.
I also saw at work one of the Ivan Patzaichin Association's initiatives, the local gastronomy point, i.e. family-run tourist food outlets offering food specific to the area. It was a spectacle in itself this display of forces in fish dishes and especially the participation: the women were cooking, the men were carrying the wheelbarrows with pots, the children were in charge of dessert. The same women who had welcomed us, hosted us, sang in the evening, fished, now organized a street food.

At home in Mile 23

I don't know if the excitement I felt all around had anything to do with the fact that it was the first year without Ivan, but I certainly felt it in spades! I don't even know what impressed me most: the joy with which the whole community got involved, the incredible energy of the women who seemed to be able to change the course of the Danube, those children playing in the center of the village in front of the whole community, their trust in the others around them. At the same time, there was a striking maturity rarely seen in children and a naivety rarely seen in adults.
What I do know is that long after that hours-long visit to Mila 23, I spoke of it as an incredible place, with people like I had never met.
I would go to Mila 23 every year to replenish my trust in people. Because I went to the Delta for solitude or silence, abandoned villages, nature, water, fish, special but rare people. From now on I will also go to meet a whole community in the middle of which I felt at home.