Full steam ahead through Bukovina

Bukovina has been history as a historical region in Eastern Europe for 75 years: the Soviet Union and Romania had agreed in the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947 to divide the former Austrian duchy. The area stretches between the rivers Dniester in the north and the Golden Bistritz in the south, it is about half the size of Saxony.

In the west, Bukovina is bordered by the Carpathians. This mountain range is predominantly made up of beech trees (Slavic: buk), which is where the name Bukovina comes from. It was first mentioned in documents in 1775, when the Habsburgs incorporated Bukovina into their territory. With the Austrians, the economic rise of the previously sparsely populated region began. Just 100 years later, the massive recruitment of settlers from various German- and Slavic-speaking countries had earned Bukovina the nickname Europe in miniature.

Jews made up an important part of the population; at times they made up the largest group of residents in Chernivtsi and dominated the intellectual scene in the capital of the Austrian Crown Land. Strongly multi-ethnic, Czernowitz was considered a model city of the Imperial and Royal monarchy, in which a complicated electoral system (from 1910) was supposed to guarantee the equality of all ethnic groups.

That changed after the First World War, the entire region went to Romania, and a wave of emigration began. In 1940, as part of the Hitler-Stalin pact, which led to another border shift, tens of thousands of German-speaking Bukovinians had to leave their homeland; most of the Jewish residents were expelled or murdered. For 60 years after the end of the war, divided Bukovina was little more than a myth, kept alive in the literary writings of Bukovinians in exile.

Only since Romania joined the European Union in 2007 have there been more contacts between the northern and southern parts; Germany and Austria are also present with aid projects in Bukovina, especially since the start of the Russian attack on Ukraine. With the outbreak of the war, tourism almost came to a standstill - it was concentrated in the north on Chernivtsi and in the south on the Vltava monasteries near Suceava. Most of the refugees from Ukraine now live in the hotels.

For the forest railways in the Eastern Carpathians, a track width of 760 millimeters has been the measure of all things since the times of the Austro-Hungarian Empire - this also applies to the Mocăniţa Huţulca steam railway. When it trundles from Moldovița to Argel through Romania's southern Bukovina, it's like a journey through time to the Danube monarchy: as in the 1880s, the locomotives need three hours for 13 kilometers of track, and in winter the wagons are heated with wood stoves.

But only if at least ten guests get on, otherwise the journey is cancelled; since 2005 the train has been a privately operated tourist train that has to be profitable. In the Ukrainian north of Bukovina, the old rail lines were converted to Soviet broad gauge after the Second World War. The Chernivtsi-Suceava line, opened in 1869, is currently the only railway line between Ukraine and Romania, and every train has to be gauged at the border.

Adam, the first man, wears Bukovinian folk costumes and the heavenly angels herald the Last Judgment with the Carpathian horn – the frescoes at Voronet Monastery, built in 1488, are surprisingly folksy for an Orthodox place of worship. And they stretch like a comic strip across all exterior walls. There are no speech bubbles, of course; illiterate, most locals would have been no more able to decipher them than the Bible itself.

This is also the reason why the monks illustrated the Holy Scriptures and dressed the actors in the style of the time for better “readability”. The pictures are underlaid with blue paint, which the church artists made from ground lapis lazuli. The “Voroneț blue” should have the same tone as the cloudless sky over Bukovina in summer.

"Little Vienna of the East", "Jerusalem am Pruth" - these are two of half a dozen synonyms that were common for the multi-ethnic Chernivtsi until the Second World War. It remains to be seen whether the city will regain its former importance; Düsseldorf, as the new city partner of today's Ukrainian Chernivtsi, wants to make a massive commitment to this.

The contract was signed on September 1, 2022. The city partnership with Moscow, which had existed since 1992, had already been put on hold by Düsseldorf's mayor at the end of February.

The Transrarăul Highway is 28 kilometers long. Expanded in 2014 for tourism, it is considered the most beautiful mountain road in the Romanian part of Bukovina: From the town of Chiril in the Bistriței Valley, it meanders in serpentines through the densely forested Rărau Mountains to an altitude of 1520 meters. There are several stops along the panoramic route and the opportunity to take a short detour to visit the 500-year-old Rarău Monastery with its icons.

The Transrarăul Highway also passes the Pietrele Doamnei, a group of three large limestone pillars near Rarău Peak. Once past it, motorists can continue on the mountain road to Pojorâta in the Moldova Valley - or take the turnoff to the Rarău Ski Resort, which opened in 2019; it lies at 1220 meters on the northern slope of the summit and is considered to have snow until April.

Resistant to cold, strong, frugal - Hucul ponies are popular trail riding horses. The breed got its name from the small, culturally independent mountain farming people of the Hutsuls, who live in the Carpathians of Bukovina. The Hutsuls left the animals to fend for themselves in years of famine.

Only the strongest ponies survived; This resulted in a semi-wild population, robust and resistant, which the locals used as pack and draft animals. And as a basis for horse breeding: To this day, the former Imperial and Royal stud Lucina in southern Bukovina in Romania breeds purebred Hutsuls.

"Green Mother Bukovina Butterflies in Her Hair"

Historical Bukovina remains alive as a place of longing in the lyrical work of Rose Auslander. The poet, born in 1901, was one of the most important Jewish authors in Chernivtsi, along with Paul Celan, Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger, Karl-Emil Franzos, Moses Rosenkranz and Joseph Schmidt.

According to the 1930 census, 38 percent of the 113,000 inhabitants were Jews, 27 percent Romanians, 15 percent Germans, 10 percent Ukrainians, and 8 percent Poles. When the Red Army reached Chernivtsi in 1944, about 17,000 Jews were still living in the city, including foreigners. She died in Düsseldorf in 1988, and her estate is also kept there.

Bizarre, record-breaking, typical: You can find more parts of our regional geography series here.