How a group of Bucharest volunteers developed a community orchard in their neighborhood

A group of volunteers’ dream of a community garden came to life this year, when the Tudor Arghezi Memorial House in Bucharest opened its doors to host the Urban Community Orchard. A project of the local initiative group Acțiunea Comunitară Tineretului ACT, it is meant to aid in the regeneration of the orchard that is part of the museum, with the neighborhood community carrying out various activities to tend to the green area. Volunteers get to spend time in nature, developing a green thumb, and one part of their neighborhood is looked after.

Writer Tudor Arghezi, a canonical name in Romanian poetry, lived starting in 1930 in a house in the southeastern part of Bucharest. Known by the name of Mărţişor, it sits between the Văcărești Nature Park and Tineretului Park. The poet and his wife are buried there, as well as the family dog Zdreanță, made known to generations of children in the poem dedicated to the fluffy mutt. After Arghezi’s death, the house was turned into a museum, today one of the several memorial houses that are part of the National Museum of Romanian Literature (MNLR) in Bucharest.