The Romanian museum where you can experience the smells of country life. The smells of hay and smoked sausages, among the “exhibits”

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Did you know that smells and tastes can be associated with certain periods of life? And are they the ones that make us remember those moments most vividly? In Cluj, the smell of hay and smokehouses have become museum exhibits for the townspeople who do not know what life in the country means.

By Alex Prunean on 04/02/2024, 19:57

Visitor: Here the smell of smoke and meat and sausages from grandma’s smokehouse.

There are smells that those who live in the city, especially young people, have no way of knowing. Even if we don’t like all of them, they are specific to country life. And now, after they became a museum exhibit, entire generations can learn their story.

Museum visitors can experience country life through all their senses

Crina Mareş – Cluj Cultural Center: The concept involves bringing together the memories of people from Vad commune, about traditions, forgotten customs. And stories related to the past of the commune, stories that we really wanted to save so that they could be passed on.

Basically, the old tourist center in the locality has been transformed so that you can experience life in the countryside, through all the senses.

Alex Prunean, Observer reporter: This room is called rhythms because it reflects the rhythm of the activities in the village. Here visitors using the castles can discover the sound of mowing, and below the smell of freshly dried hay. Also here you can find out how the flocks of sheep could be heard in the fields around the village.

In another room, childhood was marked. The one from now, but also the one from hundreds of years ago

Balaş Nicoleta – collective memory point representative: Here we have today’s toys, today’s toys and here we have quotes, what the toy represents for them and here we have the games of the past among us. They were the games that were played by the children or what the elders of the village remembered about their childhood and the customs that were practiced.

And because in the countryside not all problems had a logical solution, the enchantments could not be missed either.

Balaş Nicoleta – representative of the collective memory point: In this part of the room we have the song of descant theme, I chose this theme because in the village world witchcraft was also practiced and milk was taken from cows.

The role of the Collective Memory Point is to attract tourists from the cities, but it managed to surprise even the locals.

Another 11 such sensory centers will be set up in Transylvania, within the project called “Remarkable Romania”.