When the non-profit Tășuleasa Social launched the project of Via Transilvanica, it was looking at a ten-year time frame to have the first long-distance trail in the country completed. Instead, the trail was inaugurated in 2022, after four years of work involving local communities and over 10,000 volunteers. It was in keeping with the project’s commitment to put communities at the core of its mission, one recognized at the 2023 Europa Nostra/European Heritage Awards, where Via Transilvanica was among the winners of the Citizens' Engagement and Awareness-raising category. At the time, the jury of the awards recognized the trail “as a vital connection between the community and diverse facets of heritage.”
The project was launched in 2018, the year Romania celebrated 100 years since its Great Union, when the historic provinces inhabited by Romanians united with the Kingdom of Romania, creating the modern Romanian state. It came as an answer to the need to have a national project that put union at its core, hence Via Transilvanica’s tagline of ‘the road that unites.’ The trail showcases the ethnic, cultural, historic, and geographical diversity of the regions it crosses, which are home to 12 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. It is dotted with signposts and andesite milestones, individually carved by Romanian and foreign artists.
Last year, a plan to expand Via Transilvanica to other historical regions of the country was unveiled. The first segment inaugurated was Terra Borza Teutonica, in Brașov County. This is the first of several extensions, called Via Transilvanica minor, covering the trails adjacent to the main artery.
As part of ongoing efforts to develop the tourist infrastructure along the trail, Tășuleasa Social inaugurated this year an accommodation module, the first in what is to become a network of rural hospitality spaces. The network will cover areas along the trail that are isolated and lacking tourist infrastructure or communities with an aging population where there are no other accommodation options. In partnership with ADV Romania, the non-profit also announced a program aimed at supporting social businesses along the trail, the Social Enterprise Accelerator on Via Transilvanica. More recently, it launched Terra Memoriae, a series of cultural residencies exploring the stories, traditions and heritage of the communities along the trail.
At the launch of the project, Alin Uhlmann Ușeriu, the president of Tășuleasa Social, spoke to Romania Insider about the trail’s expansion, about why sustainability is important for Via Transilvanica, and the significance of its recently-acquired status of trail of national interest.
Last year, at the launch of the Brașov segment of Via Transilvania, you spoke of a nationwide expansion of the project. How has this been shaping up so far?
I used to believe it, but now I know it: last year, it was a part of my vision, but whenever people ask me, I always tell them that "vision" and "fantasy" (vedenie) reside in the exact same place. It's only after people join you and this process of building that fantasy actually begins that it turns into a vision. Now I know that every historical region should be connected to the Via Transilvanica project. And Via Transilvanica doesn't need to change its name when it reaches Dobrogea, Moldova, the Republic of Moldova, or Oltenia.
There will be an extremely strong need to slow down and take our time with the experiences we have, especially when it comes to travel.
It is clear that Transylvania is the best anchor in a place where, for the time being, there will be an extremely strong need to slow down and take our time with the experiences we have, especially when it comes to travel. I believe Romania, with its rural areas and this ethnographic landscape that we have as an inexhaustible source and material to offer, is in a very good position for the next 30 years. Because surely, the digital speed surrounding us will eventually force us to hit the brakes and seek out the kind of experiences Via Transilvanica offers.
Romania is a very attractive country, and people from more than 64 countries have already experienced Via Transilvanica in its first three years. So, we could easily have hundreds of thousands or even a million people from all over the world, and it is crystal clear they won't all fit on what we have at the moment. And that's actually a good thing, because right now we have chosen Bucovina, but what does Oaș or the historical Maramureș have any less of? What would Oltenia de sub Munte or Dobrogea, for example, lack for a project like this? It would be very hard for us to launch hundreds of different projects and maintain that same sustainable momentum; sustainability is crucial. If it's not sustainable, a trail will become overgrown, thorns will cover it, as they do, and eventually it will disappear. Whereas Via Transilvanica has this chance to become a gateway to international tourism.
If it's not sustainable, a trail will become overgrown, thorns will cover it, as they do, and eventually it will disappear.
That is why I believe we can now clearly say we are moving forward. We already have several milestones ready, because that’s another unique thing about this trail: the Via Transilvanica milestones are virtually impossible to forge, because the moment people see one, they instantly recognize it: 'Ah, that’s Via Transilvanica.'"
If I may briefly digress: our partner organization, Johanniter [e.n. Johanniter-Unfall-Hilfe], wanted a Via Transilvanica milestone marker in Nuremberg for their 75th anniversary. We offered to feature their logo on it, and they said, 'Yes, include our logo, but also the Via Transilvanica one.'
Essentially, we're placing milestones around the world more and more often; there's one at the ambassador's residence in the United States, another at the Romanian Cultural Institute in Rome. So, this was truly the cornerstone for the project we have today.
We’ve already done the scouting for Valea Jiului, which I love with all my heart; when we think of Valea Jiului, we only think of the miners coming [e.n. to Bucharest during a series of protests and violent altercations in the 1990s], and so there’s almost a sense of hesitation... until you realize there’s this mind-blowing landscape there that just leaves you speechless. We crossed the Vâlcan Mountains and caught sight of Târgu Jiu from up there. It would be unthinkable for us not to reach Brâncuși’s homeland with Via Transilvanica, so that the Endless Column could probably become one of the final landmarks on this trail. People are waiting for us; many local initiative groups have already mapped out paths for us. We need to prepare as many routes as possible, because this is becoming extremely attractive on a global level.
You’ve mentioned Valea Jiului. Are there other areas you are looking at?
We're quite far along in Valea Jiului. We want to head into Țara Oașului and the historic Maramureş area as quickly as possible, where we are already well advanced.
Because, again, we also need to have... the locals, the trail travelers, the local hosts, the trail parents; this kind of regional federalization is absolutely vital. We at Tășuleasa Social won’t be able to coordinate thousands of kilometers of tourism infrastructure indefinitely. We’re looking at northern Moldavia, in Botoșani, and again, people don’t expect it to be a tourist area, but it is one of the most magnificent regions. I left my heart there. In a single visit, I learned more about Botoșani County from this perspective than I did in the four months I spent doing my military service there. I probably just didn’t have eyes for it back then. But now, coming prepared for this journey, I had a really beautiful surprise.
What matters to us is that when someone takes a step in Putna, or at any starting point on Via Transilvanica, a loaf of bread gets baked 1,000 kilometers away.
We don’t want to create endless kilometers of trails, on the one hand, and on the other, we have to make everything sustainable. There’s no point in simply creating trails. Trails are being built; almost every region wants to have its own path now.
What matters to us is that when someone takes a step in Putna, or at any starting point on Via Transilvanica, a loaf of bread gets baked 1,000 kilometers away. Essentially, what we’re interested in is creating this social circuit so needed in our region.
Could you elaborate a bit on the notion of federalization?
‘Federalization’ may sound like a political manifesto, but I’m absolutely convinced that the future of major projects lies in every region bringing its best version to the table.
For someone from Bistrița-Năsăud, as we are at Tășuleasa Social, to coordinate all of the tourism infrastructure is impossible. We don’t even want that. My culture in Bistrița-Năsăud is a particular one, specific to the place I come from. Things are done differently in Oltenia or Moldova. And in terms of the number of people, the people working for this ambassador [e.n. Via Transilvanica], there needs to be a permanent local presence on the ground, rather than us representing it from the center, so to speak.
Everything needs coordination; everything needs to fall under the same brand or identity - although I think “brand” sounds a little more complex. Everyone needs to make their own polenta, because every ethnic group, every village is unique, yet it forms part of a region; the region is part of a historical province; and these historical provinces make up this fascinating Romania. That is what federalization means to us.
There’s a social dimension to Via Transilvanica as it supports communities along the path. How did you see this reflected in the journey you undertook on Via Transilvanica last year?
Romania’s rural area has been neglected because it lacked a social contract. From what we could tell, probably the last one was established with Queen Marie through the agrarian reform, through the way she interacted with the inhabitants of rural areas, the way she gave them visibility and genuine representation.
Since this social contract is currently missing, also because neither statesmen nor Parliament, and sometimes not even the local representatives themselves, represent them as they should – you cannot run a locality if you don’t also love it, and if you love it, you know it – the people along Via Transilvanica began to believe in things that are good for them. This "doing good" has many nuances, because even a villain thinks he is doing good for his locality or for the forest he clear-cuts, as long as it gets turned into timber.
I don't want to dwell on this, but in the 26 years since we started Tășuleasa, our vision has been that every individual can change the place where they live for the better. And the sum of these places makes up a country.
This process of doing good needs to be carefully designed so that we can see what works. From this point of view, we have the Tășuleasa campus, where we essentially develop all our projects. As long as we have a deep understanding of what is happening and see that something is working well, we go back and say, “This works. Let’s see how we can scale it up.” That is precisely why Via Transilvanica works regardless of the region. You wouldn’t say that it works better in Oltenia or that it works better in Bucovina. Because it works equally well everywhere. Why? Because there are these ingredients that we have discovered: having rules, appreciation and appreciating others, having the freedom to act, and having trust. Once this appreciation begins, it leads to trust. This process of trust leads to action. And the actions are very simple.
Entrepreneurship, for example: a woman living alone, in a very disadvantaged area, whose children have left and she is alone in old age. Suddenly, hikers start passing by her door, and if she brings some cherries from the cherry tree in her backyard, she becomes an entrepreneur. Essentially, a commercial exchange takes place.
So, for us, the social circuit is the project of Tășuleasa Social and less the tourist project Via Transilvania. We were happy that it turned out to be a tourism project, but I think many researchers set out to create one thing and ended up with something else that became far more famous.
Via Transilvanica has been named this year a trail of national interest. How has this helped so far?
There is a very vehement reaction whenever we take a photo with a minister or with any politician. We have a community of sincere fans warning us we’ll pay the price if we get involved in politics. ‘Watch out because that's an unimaginable boogeyman.’ Given the fairly constant disappointment that politicians and political decision-makers have delivered, this is understandable.
Yet Via Transilvanica does not run through Alin Ușeriu's private backyard. What I, as the founder of the Tășuleasa Social organization, was able to do is ensure that one of the core principles upon which the organization was built is not to use public funds, and to remain critical, constructively critical, whenever we build a project.
But we still need to have a relationship with the authorities, because I can't personally go to a shepherd to take away his dogs. Animal welfare enforcement has to do that. For that, we need an institution to represent that authority. Tășuleasa Social, with just Via Transilvanica, wasn't enough.
Now, Tășuleasa Social has carried out a project and manages Via Transilvanica, a trail of national interest and the first officially certified long-distance trail in Romania. It has become an institution with equal standing to any other institution in Romania: the mayor's offices, animal welfare enforcement, the Ministry of Agriculture. It is a mechanism that should be understood, because if we are constantly stuck between opposite extremes - we make the laws and don't care about those who criticize us - then we get to a place where, after 36 years and a bit more, we haven’t achieved very many positive results from this perspective of cooperation.
This interview has been conducted in Romanian and translated by Romania Insider.