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National Geographic : 1969 Jun
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National Geographic, June 1969 That I have married The daughter of a king. That at my wedding... I had for guests The firs and the aspen; For priests, the high mountains; For minstrels, the birds A thousand birds And the starsfor torches! In the western Vrancei we spent the night as guests at a government weather station. Dick Durrance had caught a cold and was treated by the kindly director of the station, who made him sit with his feet in a bucket of hot salted water for half an hour. Amazed to find himself better after the strange treatment, Dick rewarded the director with a taste of peanut butter, pulled from deep within his pack. In 10 minutes the jar had been emptied and a second one almost finished by the meteorologists, who took a hearty liking to their new discovery. At Comandau, a village deep in the Carpa- KVUAt KUMtANt tlKIAU.KUM. (UYU5llt) BYUICKUURRANCEII ) N.U.J. Backpacking a sheaf of oats, a farm girl helps with the harvest near Magura. Most farmers have joined collectives and state farms. But in the moun tains men cling to their small holdings and their traditions of independence. thians, we were intrigued by an atmosphere of the early American West. The surrounding hills reminded me of the Sierra Nevada. Rut ted roads, horse carts, wooden boarding houses for workers and their families, out houses and blacksmith shops, the local cafe all seemed part of a Western film set. At the railroad station, a 100-year-old narrow-gauge steam engine puffed smoke from an old fashioned bulging stack. Mindful of regulations against photograph ing railroads, Chris and Dick turned their backs on the engine, with its sooty-faced crew throwing split logs into the firebox. Instead, Chris focused his camera on some nearby buildings. He was promptly arrested and charged with taking pictures of a lumber yard off to his right. North Vietnamese Work in Tractor Plant Long arguments ensued with the local Communist boss and the pudgy mayor, until Mugur finally turned their suspicion into will ing cooperation. Soon we were riding in the mayor's jeep toward Covasna to catch a train for the city of Brasov, north of the Prahova Valley. This is Rumania's second-largest pop ulation center (after Bucharest), with more than 260,000 people, many of whom are em ployed in Bra§ov's truck and tractor factories. One day we visited the Uzina de Tractoare Bra§ov, a sprawling plant that yearly pro duces 21,000 machines in 18 different models. The factory proved to have its own form of censorship. With the plant's chief engineer as guide, we walked along the assembly lines. "Take pictures of anything you like!" he in sisted. But whenever Chris or Dick focused on a tired or grimy worker, the engineer would intervene, "No, no, not that man; this one over here is better," indicating a smiling, spotlessly uniformed employee. At one production line we noticed several decidedly Oriental-looking workmen. "Where are they from?" I asked. "North Viet Nam," the engineer answered. "They are here for a year or two of industrial apprenticeship." Between Brasov and Ploie§ti, Rumania's Proud craftswoman displays earthenware at the Maidens Fair. Families make pottery, carpets, em broidered shawls, and sheepskin jackets; Ruma nian museums collect such folk art, acclaiming it a precious and authentic national heritage. 826
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