The clattering of a horse and carriage can be heard through the main street of Viscri. This village is hidden in the hilly landscape of Transylvania, in the heart of Romania, where nature is still largely untouched and agricultural harvests are harvested by hand. The region is known for its traditional way of life. But as soon as the sound of the horse and carriage dies down, a blue tour bus chugs down the street.
Viscri is not just a village in Romania. It is the village where King Charles of the United Kingdom owns a house. The first building blocks date back to 1717. For Charles, Viscri symbolizes rural life, which is close to nature and traditional crafts. He supports this cultural heritage through various foundations.
Since the coronation of Charles last May, that age-old way of life has come under pressure. The once idyllic village sighs under the throngs of tourists. The 255 houses are bought one by one by people from outside the village who start guest houses and restaurants there. A house in Viscri is four times more expensive than a comparable property in surrounding villages, residents say. And on weekends the main street, a gray gravel road, is full of cars. While parking in the village is prohibited.
“I have no problems with Charles,” says the elderly Emil, King Charles’ neighbor across the street. He does suffer from the many parked cars in front of the wooden green gate of his house. “I can’t get the hay into my house because of all those cars.”
And that is exactly what the tourists come for.
Specially decorated room with roof tiles
In the main street of Viscri, Charles’s house is unobtrusive. It is hidden behind some large trees and looks exactly like all the other houses in the village: a low farmhouse with a colorful facade.
Inside, there is an exhibition on traditional crafts, painting – with two watercolors by Charles himself – and botanics. On the walls hang a lot of pictures of King Charles. How he feeds chickens, sows plants and makes a roof tile – which can also be seen in a specially designed room full of roof tiles. You can also visit the bedroom where Charles would have slept. “Yes,” giggles Greek tour guide Anastasia Karouti (35). “I touched his bed when we changed it.”
When King Charles is not there, his home can be visited. Also his bedroom
Charles did not just end up in Viscri. The village has been fighting for years to preserve the traditional life and above all against the exodus. First there was the Second World War, as a result of which a large part of the village – which mainly consists of a Saxon minority – moved to Germany. This was followed by the brutal regime under the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who had many Romanian Saxons do forced labor for the Soviet Union. And finally, Ceausescu introduced a ‘systematization policy’, in which at least half of the villages had to be demolished and the inhabitants had to move to new buildings in cities.
The hammer blow for Viscri only came after the fall of Ceausescu. Due to the uncertainty at that time, poverty and the promises of mountains of gold, the Romanian Saxons moved en masse to Germany, at the invitation of the German state. Ursula Radu-Fernolend, a child at the time, still remembers it well, she says on the terrace of her house in the village. “Each evening the lights remained off in a different house. About 90 percent of the people left.”
Part of her family also left for Germany, but after they had visited her mother decided to stay. “We saw our relatives crammed into refugee camps in Bavaria,” says Radu-Fernolend. “My mother said: no way that we leave Viscri.”
In the village of Viscri, the harvest is still brought in by hand.
Romain Chassagner/Flickr Vision Handmade souvenirs are displayed in Viscri for the many tourists who visit the rural village.
Photo Andreea Campeanu/Getty Viscri is a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its medieval architecture. Tourists, here during a tour by horse, also visit the village because King Charles has a house there.
Photo Andreea Campeanu/Getty The Romanian village of Viscri is a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its medieval architecture. Tourists also visit the village because King Charles has a house there. Handmade souvenirs are waiting for them. But residents are also fed up with the nuisance.
Foto’s Romain Chassagne/Flickr Vision, Andreea Campeanu/Getty
ghost town
The village slowly turned into a ghost town. Radu-Fernolend still finds it hard to understand that almost everyone left the village in the 1990s. “We have lived here for 850 years, speak our own language and have our own costumes.”
The remaining villagers repaired the abandoned houses, the facades were restored to their original colorful condition and Radu-Fernolend’s mother decided to become a teacher after the last teacher had also left for Germany. The turnaround came after Viscri was designated a Unesco World Heritage Site in 1999. “Everyone thinks that everything changed with the arrival of Charles,” says Radu-Fernolend. “It is the other way around: because the residents renovated the village, the prince came here.” Only in 2006 did Charles buy his house there.
Also read how Charles’ model village in the UK, Poundbury, celebrated his coronation
The first years were quiet. Back then Prince Charles came by every year, took a walk with the local residents, visited the vegetable garden and looked for flowers and plants that only exist in Romania. And when he was not there, he opened the house to visitors. They came, but not en masse.
His last visit was at the beginning of June this year, his first foreign visit after his coronation. The consequences were immediately noticeable. “Normally we receive two to three hundred visitors a day,” says tour guide Karouti. “In the days surrounding his visit, there were a thousand a day.” Karouti fears even more tourists, because soon the airport of the nearby city of Brasov will open.
We try to preserve the authentic way of life here, but tourism is uncontrollable
Ursula Radu-Fernolend resident of Viscri
The village is now in danger of being destroyed by its own success. House prices are rising, the center is full of cars and villagers have to build illegally to provide homes for their children. Radu-Fernolend: “We try to preserve the authentic way of life here, but tourism is uncontrollable.”
It is especially bad on the weekends. “If the tourists could, they would park their car in King Charles’s bathroom,” says Radu-Fernolend mockingly. “It is absurd that they destroy what they come for with their parking behavior. They want to see cows in the gardens of the houses, but the cows can’t get there because of the parked cars.”
2023-08-06 17:56:21
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