Number 70, Romania 2021, Sinaia

The ghosts of the past

The Carpathian mountains in Romania are mainly known for Dracula. It is a novel written in 1897 by Bram Stoker. On a business trip, the protagonist, Jonathan Harker, stays in the castle of a Transylvanian noble man, Dracula. After discovering that Dracula is a vampire, he escapes from the castle and returns to England, where he plagues the seaside town of Whitby.

Brasov

The model for Dracula’ s castle is Bran castle near the town of Brasov in Romania. Brasov is a well preserved fortified town at the edge of the Carpathian mountains. From there, the train takes you up into a world of endless forests, one of the few areas in Europe where bears still roam. The line is badly in need of reconstruction. Short pieces of rail are still lashed together with screws and the tok-tok… tok-tok accompanies the shrieking sound of wheels protesting in narrow turns. After an hour of ride the train arrives in the town of Sinaia.

Main square Brasov

In Sinaia, an enormous station building greets the arriving traveller. Even for a mountain resort such an enormous building seems to be out of place for a town of merely around 10000 inhabitants.

Station, Sinaia

Sinaia came into existence in 1695. It is said that, in 1672, Mihail Cantacuzino, being persecuted by the ruler Grigdre Ghica. fled on horseback from Bucarest and travelled the lonely paths in the Prahova Valley. When he arrived in the evening in the Bucegi mountain area, he was hidden by monks in a small hermitage called Molomof. He promised to build a monastery on the place when he would survive.

The old monastery from the 17th century

The Monastery was dedicated to the Assumption and called Sinaia, coming from Mount Sinai, in Egypt. Originally, it also acted as a stronghold for travellers across the mountains and therefore looked like a fortress with high and thick stone walls arranged on four sides around a simple little church built inside. In 1842-1846 the bigger holy trinity church outside the original walls and a second courtyard were added.

Entrance to the monastery and 19th century church

There are still a number of orthodox monks living in the monastery. They also guard the oldest Romanian translation of the bible of 1668. Until 1850 Sinaia was little more than the monastery and a couple of huts.

Street in Sinaia

Until the mid of the 19th century big parts of the Balkan were still under rule of the Ottoman empire. During the Europe-wide revolutions of 1848, Moldavia and Wallachia fell into revolt. One of the revolutionaries was young Alexandru Ioan Cuza. Eventually he was first elected as Prince of Moldavia in 1859 and, shortly afterwards, also in Wallachia. For the first time a union of the two principalities, which would become the state of Romania, was achieved. However, Cuza’s role was not approved by Austria and he still ruled under his nominal suzerain, Abdülaziz, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. The new county with the name of Romania, with Bucarest as its capital city, only was accepted for as long as Cuza’s ruled.

Cuza was liberal and began reforms to modernize Romanian society. One of the reforms involved the expropriation of land of orthodox monasteries, who so far were not liable to pay taxes. This raised the suspicion of a conservative alliance and eventually Cuza was overthrown in 1866.

Since the unified country was accepted by the Ottoman empire only for the time of Cuza’s rule, his abdication threatened to disintegrate the young state. The Romanian politicians had to find a replacement who was acceptable for the European powers and the Ottomans. At first they invited Philip of Flanders, the brother of the Belgian king Leopold II in the hope that he would turn Romania into a little Belgium. But Philipp already had refused the thrown of Greece and also turned down the offer to rule over Romania.

Prince Karl Eitel Friedrich Zephyrinus Ludwig of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was born on April, 20th 1839 in Sigmaringen. He was the second son of Prince Karl Anton of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen and Princess Josephine of Baden. His father had been the prime minister of Prussia, but his family was also related to the Bonaparte family and therefore enjoyed good relations with the emperor Napoleon III of France. Karl also was the brother in law of the Belgian Philip.

France and Prussia were supporting Karl’s installation on the Romanian throne. However, Prussia was almost at war with Austria, and therefore Karl had to secretly travel to Romania. In 1866 he was first installed as Domnitor (prince reigning for the Ottoman Sultan) and in 1878, as a consequence of the participation of Romanian troops under his command against the Turks in the Turkish Russian war, he became Carol I, the king of independent Romania.

Carol I ruled for 48 years. He was married to Elizabeth, princess of Wied. Romania therefore was ruled by an entirely German couple. Carol never forgot his German roots. In 1866 he had visited the magnificent mountain scenery at Sinaia and in 1873 the construction of his summer residence, Peles Castle, began outside the town on 5 square km of land called the Royal estate of Sinaia.

Peles Castle

The idea of the castle has a lot in common with Bavarian king Ludwig II’s fairy tale castle Neuschwanstein near Füssen in the Bavarian Alps. Both are examples of Neo Renaissance or Gothic Revival. However Neuschwanstein was never finished whereas the construction of Peles castle went on quickly. It was the world’s first castle fully powered by electricity produced in a power station built for that purpose on the premises. Another new feature was its central heating.

Courtyard, Peles Castle

During the construction the royal family lived in Foisor Villa closeby. Today the villa is the Romanian presidential residence. For Carols successor, Ferdinand and his wife Marie, Pelisor castle was built next door in 1883.

Pelisor Castle

The Romanian dictator Ceaucescu was not interested in Peles castle. After it had been open for visitors for many years, it was closed for the public between 1975 and 1990. After the revolution it was restored to the heirs of the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen family in 2007, who lease it back to the Romanian state.

One of the additional buildings, now a hotel

During my time of visit a long caravan of blinded black cars of official visitors leaves the premises. In the time of King Carol the railway was the fastest connection between the capital Bucarest and Sinaia. As was common at the time, a suitable station was built to accommodate the important visitors such as the Austrian emperor Franz-Josef but also artists like Sarah Bernhardt. The first station was finished in 1913 by the Demeter Cartner Company and was exclusively used by the Royal family and their guests. It now is the station serving the ordinary traveller. Next door, a new ceremonial station was built for the Royal family in 1939. Maybe the royal family did not want to use the other station any more after Prime minister I.G.Duca was murdered here in 1933. As late as 1975 dictator Ceaucescu arrived at the later ceremonial station with American President Gerald Ford. Other visiting politicians were Richard Nixon, Muammar al-Gaddafi and Yasser Arafat.

Entrance hall, Sinaia station

The new Sinaia station built exclusively for the king 

On December 29th 1933, only 45 days after he became prime minister, Mr. Duca was summoned to meet the king in Peleș Castle. On the return trip, at night, Duca was shot to death on the platform of the Sinaia train station. This was done in revenge for the actions taken by Duca against the Iron Guard, a fascist organisation, and because he had allowed for increased Jewish immigration while blocking that of Aromanians to Dobrudja. Duca’s assassination was the first major political assassination in Romania since 1862.

A line inspection car

Next to the station is a little railway exhibit. The steam engine on display, 230-039, is a copy of the Prussian class P8 built after 1906. The material used in these times by the Romanian railroad reflects the close relation of Romania with Germany: many of the engines were either built in Germany or were copies of a German design.

Prussian P8 steam engine

The presence of the royal court attracted many people and adequate accommodation had to be built. The town of Sinaia became a popular resort with big hotels, a casino, and numerous chalet style alpine villas. A cable car brings tourists to the top of the mountain towering above the town and to neighbouring ski areas. The royal castles see half a million visitors a year.

Hotel Stavilar, where the bears roam

I stay in hotel Stavilar, very close to the Royal estate of Sinaia. It is a beautiful, old wood frame building next to a creek splashing down a narrow valley. Even in the main season it is not full. Maybe people are scared of the chance of the odd bear roaming the parking lot in search of food in the garbage bins. I keep my ears open during the night, but maybe, now in summer, the bears retreat from the crowds into the remote parts of the rugged mountains. Or, the owners have had too much of the local beer. It is called “ursus”. The label shows a bear.

The grand hotel of Sinaia

Many of the magnificent old buildings of Sinaia today are in disrepair, empty or for sale. The big old restaurant and hotel next to mine is empty. Like in similar old resort towns like Semmering in Austria the attention of the tourists has turned to other destinations which became accessible by cheap and fast transport. The grand time of Sinaia has lasted not much longer than 50 years, from the construction of Peles castle to the begin of WW II.

Sinaia Casino

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinaia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_G._Duca

Link to the previous post

https://h-s-coronastories.blogspot.com/2021/07/number-69-africa-america-1994-2019.html

Corona walks number 7 Ijmuiden

A strange attraction

The port of Amsterdam always had a problem with its access from the North sea. In the Dutch golden age of the 17th century the Zuiderzee was shallow even for the merchant ships of the VOC and WIC coming heavily loaded from Asia or the Caribbean. Ship camels were used to help these heavy ships up the Zuiderzee into Amsterdam. Otherwise the cargo had to be unloaded onto smaller ships off the Reede of Texel to get into Amsterdam.

Ships leaving Sail Amsterdam by the lock in Ijmuiden

The construction of the Noordhollands Kanaal between Amsterdam and Nieuwediep, later Den Helder, starting in 1819 brought some improvement. In the original design the width of this long canal was 37.60 m at the top, and 10 m in the canal bed at a depth of 5.70 m. The smallest lock at Nieuwediep limiting the dimensions of the ships between 1823 and 1860 was 53.30 m long and 14.10 m wide.

The lock f 1896 

However, the canal had serious draw-backs. The many bridges and locks made the long passage very time consuming. In the beginning, when ships were pulled by horses along the canal it took around two days to pass through. Soon the size of the ships increased and the depth of the canal became insufficient. Although some improvements were done between 1856 and 1876 and a new lock of 110 m long was opened in 1864, a more permanent solution had to be found. Starting in 1864 a new canal was constructed which connected Amsterdam with the North Sea west of town. In 1876 the Northsea canal to Ijmuiden was opened and the longer Noordhollandsch Kanaal up north became obsolete.

Freighter in the lock of 1896

Initially two locks of 110 m long were built at the mouth of the canal in 1876 with a width of 20 m resp. 8 m and a depth of 8 resp. 3.5 m. They were soon too small for the increasing size of ships and already in 1896 a new lock of 225 by 25 by 10 m was opened. All these old locks still exist. However, even the new lock was caught by development. This time, the planners thought big. The next lock, which opened in 1929, at its time with 400 by 50 by 15 m was the world’s largest.

The sliding gate of the lock of 1929

A popular science magazine wrote in 1930:

“BIGGEST CANAL LOCK OPENED IN HOLLAND

The world's largest canal lock, a quarter of a mile long and capable of raising the biggest ships, was opened recently at Ijmuiden, Holland. It marks the ocean end of the North Sea canal, which enables

ocean liners to reach Amsterdam. Despite its great size, the lock can be filled with water in twelve minutes. Its three gates, which weigh nearly 1,500 tons apiece, roll into place on rails. Measuring 1,312 feet long by 164 feet wide, it dwarfs all other structures of the kind. Its closest competitor, now under construction at Bremerhaven, Germany, will be 1,155 feet long.

Freighter entering the lock of 1929

The locks in Ijmuiden are a popular spot for boat spotting. There is usually a crowd of people in easy chairs seated next to their cars who wait for the next ship to pass. When I came to Ijmuiden for the first time in 2006 there were basically no barriers between the on-lookers and the rim at the side of the lock’s basin. Only the area where the ships were actually moored while being lifted had signs to keep off. The rounded, metal upper edge of the retaining wall of the lock would be slippery when wet, so practically permanent under dutch weather conditions. Still, some people sat right on the rim, fishing with their kids, even upon approach of a behemoth of a ship for which the lock was just wide enough. The big lock does not have the usual double gates swinging open and close but one big sliding door at each end which disappears in a shaft perpendicular to the basin when open. One guy was actually standing on the end of the gate when it opened and smoked his cigar.

I don’t know whether somebody actually fell in and was squashed between the wall and a moored ship, but all the locks now are protected from the tourists by high fences and barbed wire. A close encounter with the water in the lock is finally made impossible.

Fishing from the rim of the lock wall

Closely watching a big tanker getting into the lock of 1929

On July 5th 2004 at 10:45 am a strange accident happened in the lock of 1896. A barge folded in half lengthwise and partially sank. Nobody was hurt. The vessel was on its third trip with a load. It turned out that the ship had been constructed far too weak for the load allowed and the inspection of the waterways had not recalculated the construction. It is worth to look in the link below to see the picture of the wreck. Another accident happened in the morning April 23rd, 2016. The big Ro-ro carrier CITY OF ROME collided with the seaward gate of the big lock in IJmuiden because the vessel couldn’t stop on time. The gate suffered a 3-meter breach, but they continued to use it until the regular maintenance was due.

 

The basins of the locks of 1929 and 2021

The lock of 1929 served its purpose for a long time. However, the size of ships has increased. The biggest container ships now have a length of 400 m and can carry up to 24.000 containers, although they hardly never do. There were several oil tankers which reached a length of up to 458 m, however, they were all scrapped. Therefore the authorities decided that a new, bigger lock was needed for the north sea canal. The new lock will be ready to use end of the year. The new sealock was squeezed in between the enormous north lock and the smaller older locks. It is 500 m long, 70 meters wide and 18 m deep.

The bridges across the old locks of 1876

The gates of the two big locks also serve as road, bicycle and foot path to cross the canal. The closed side always serves as road connection while the other is open. Since the old locks have conventional swinging gates, the road uses scenic rotating red steel bridges at both ends of the locks. Depending on which gate is open the route from one side of the canal to the other can turn into a long zigzag path. At this moment some of the bridges are removed for renovation and the gates serving as road are only open for cars and pedestrians.

The big pumping station

Besides its use as a shipping lane the Canal also serves water management. Since most of Noord Holland is below sea level, surface water has to be collected and constantly removed to the sea via the canal. When the water level in the sea is lower than in the canal the water can just flow away. Otherwise it has to be pumped out by the largest pumping station in Europe. 3 billion cubic meters of water leave the canal that way each year or 95.000 liter every second. The canal has become vital for the groundwater management of the Western Netherlands.

The steel works

The construction of the canal led to the founding of a new town, Ijmuiden. Due to its location at the mouth of the canal it soon became an important port in its own right and an industrial location. In 1918 a steel mill was constructed next to the entrance to the canal. Until 1996 it was run under the name of Koninklijke Nederlandse Hoogovens en Staalfabrieken (KNHS), since that time it follows the rules of capitalism and changes names regularly. At the moment it is called Tata steel. First iron was produced, later steel and also Aluminium. Ijmuiden was chosen since it allowed the import and export by sea, since the Netherlands could not rely om own resources of coal and ore. Two harbors were built. The outer harbor allows access of big bulk carriers right to the steel mill without having to use the locks.

Big bulk carriers unloading at the dock of the steel mill

Environmental issues become more and more critical for plants like this. The steel plant in Ijmuiden has to deal with numerous complaints about poisonous emissions. Employees and residents in the surroundings complain about health problems. GP’s in the area clearly have more patients suffering from tightness, headache, nausea and chest pain. The concentration of cancerous compounds in the towns around the plant is 50% higher then elsewhere in the Netherlands. The frequency of skin cancer in these places is between 14 and 57% higher than in the rest of the Netherlands, lung cancer is 25% more frequent. The dutch RIVM, the public health institute, refuses to draw a connection between the steel plant and the health situation. Former employees have sued the owners on grounds of cases of lung cancer caused by asbestos. The owners deny any responsibility. However, you don’t need a lot of research to realize that the air quality around the plant is poor. When I visited a couple of weeks ago an acid sulfur stench hung in the air and even on the photos you can see the plant behind a blueish haze.

Blue haze in the air around the steel mill

A plant like that attracts other enterprises which take advantage of byproducts. Coal tar can be used by chemical works, coke oven gas was used in the site's power plant and in nearby municipalities and to produce fertilizer. Eventually also a cement factory joined the bunch. Its enormous plant lines the cycle path and road leading towards the locks.

The cement factory

On the other side of the canal a conventional harbor was built. An enormous ferry leaves from here to Newcastle. It dwarfs the houses of the town by at least four floors and is visible from almost everywhere. The port is also used by cruise ships. It is probably much cheaper to move the guests from here by bus to Amsterdam for sightseeing than to pay the fees for locks, canal and port in Amsterdam. The rest of the port is mainly used as fishing harbor.

The fishing harbor

During the German occupation in WWII Ijmuiden was declared a fortress. Houses were torn down to provide a free shooting range and bunkers being part of the Atlantic wall were built into the dunes behind the beach to prevent an invasion from the sea.

Bunkers of the atlantic wall in Ijmuiden with a cruise ship in the port in the background

As access point to the Channel the port was the base for an armada of speedboats designed to fire torpedoes at allied ships passing by. These boats, being able to travel at a speed of 65 km/h for 1500 km, were built from wood and very fragile. They needed protection from the increasing air raids. Therefore, since 1941 Ijmuiden harbor had a big boat shelter with a 2 m reinforced concrete roof. Hwever, the increasing destructive force of the bombs needed a stronger bunker.

The big speed boat bunker

Therefore in 1943 the Germans started to built a new, stronger bunker with a roof of reinforced concrete 4 m thick. The bunker had space for 12 boats and additionally another 4 docks for repairs.

Open day at the speed boat bunker

The construction of the bunker was delayed by the constant air raids. Damages which occurred from bombs hitting before the ceiling was finished can be seen inside the bunker. Finally, in 1944 the roof was finished. Meanwhile the allies had developed new bombs. The “tallboys” were bombs of 5 kiloton and the idea was to let them explode right next to the outside wall of the bunker to destroy the foundations leading to the collapse of the supporting walls. These tactics indeed led to the destruction of the older speed boat bunker before the new one was finished. The speed boats now were spread out in the port to minimize damage.

The inside of the speed boat bunker

The new bunker still exists. It is on the ground of Cebo, a company storing and selling minerals and can be visited on special occasions. On the walls of the then new bunker the damage done by tallboys still can be seen.

The basins for the speed boats were never dug out and filled with water

The torpedoes to arm the speed boats were stored in a separate bunker a distance away from the boat shed. Also this bunker still exists and serves as a practice room fr musicians. The rails of the narrow gauge railway used to bring the torpedoes to the boats still lead into the entrance.

The torpedo bunker

In 1944 a new secret bomb called the Disney swish was used. Its name was inspired by a propaganda cartoon by Walt Disney. The bomb was accelerated by a solid fuel rocket engine, which gave it an impact speed of 1590 km/h - much higher than the speed caused by gravitation of an ordinary bomb. In 1944 a Disney swish hit the new, unfinished bunker in Ijmuiden. It penetrated the 4 m reinforced concrete roof, left a neat hole in the underlying ceiling and ended up stuck in the ground. Without exploding.

Damages by the Disney swish in the ceiling of the bunker 

After they learned that the allies now had bombs which were able to enter even the new bunker, the works were stopped and the bunker was never finished.

Fish restaurant in the port of Ijmuiden

When I first visited Ijmuiden the town center was in a deplorable state. The old town houses were in bad repair, some were boarded up. The scars left by the war were still visible. Abandoned railroad tracks led into a town of deserted streets. In the meantime a lot of the town center has been reconstructed. New attractive residential buildings have filled the scars left from the war. But in addition the town has become something like a tourist attraction.

View from the dunes separating the popular beach from the steel mill

South and north of the mouth of the canals are beaches. A beach and vacation park with a marina has been built at the southern end of the port. It is crowned by a pretty lighthouse on a hill with a couple of old cottages. To separate the northern beach from the steel plant, a kind of dam has been piled up. You can lie on the beach and ignore the industrial site behind you. If the wind blows in the right direction and drives the cancerous smell inland.

The lighthouse of Ijmuiden

The coastal dunes south of Ijmuiden have been declared national park Kennemmerland. Hiking and bicycle trails across the dunes lead to empty stretches of beach. The stench and noise of the industrial landscape seems to be far away. But from the beach you can see all the ships from and to the locks.

Sailing vessel moving towards the locks

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noordhollandsch_Kanaal

"Biggest Canal Lock Opened in Holland.' Popular Science Monthly, September 1930, p. 29.

https://www.onderzoeksraad.nl/en/page/842/sagging-of-a-barge-middensluis-lock-in-ijmuiden

https://www.rivm.nl/nieuws/vaker-hoge-concentraties-fijnstof-en-meer-acute-gezondheidsklachten-in-ijmond

https://www.ggdkennemerland.nl/nieuws/2020/06/GGD-Kennemerland-rapporteert-over-kanker-in-de-regio

Link to previous post:

https://h-s-coronastories.blogspot.com/2021/07/corona-walks-number-6-oudenbosch.html