A portal to the past: The first living museum in Romania set to open this summer

The Cultural Association Groove ON launched in December 2015 a unique project in Romania: the Living Museum at Tecsesti. The Living Museum is located in the Apuseni Mountains. The special thing about it is that it offers people the chance to live in a space that reconstructs the history of the land, from its origins to the present. According to Ionut Onea, president of the Groove ON Association, the museum “is like a time tunnel through which you can travel if you fancy history and the legends about the Dacians, the dragons, and the werewolves.” “It is complex because it is a form of social entrepreneurship, as it helps the small remote village in Apuseni - where only 14 elders live today - to stay alive, it highlight the area's natural resources, perpetuates the area’s culture, and produces a sustainable economic, cultural, and social impact,” Onea added. The Living Museum at Tecsesti will reproduce circular and square houses from the Neolithic period, with a wooden structure, walls made of clay, and thatched roof. The medieval period will be reflected in the houses dug into the ground and homes built of stone, with a fortified watchtower. For the modern period, the village’s school will be revamped, as well as a 200-year old house and barns with thatched roofs. The museum will also include a garden with vegetables, herbs, mushrooms, and fruit trees, which will be the museum residents’ source of food, a pond, a basin, and spring that will supply the water necessary for animals, and the kitchen area. It will also have a ceramics workshop. The museum is to be opened this summer, but the project still needs EUR 6,000 to be completed, and the Groove ON Association is currently seeking to raise these funds via the Indiegogo crowdfunding platform. Those who want to be a part of this project can make donations of between EUR 15 and EUR 1,000. In return, the donors will have access to various events and workshops organized in Tecsesti or even the opportunity to live in the Living Museum for a while – this means that they will have to take care of their houses and to live like in the old days. Find more about the Living Museum here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ39b6oO1ss Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com