A SOLAR TOWER IN HUSI

Text and photos Andrei Dorian Gheorghe
Design Florin Alexandru Stancu

In 2017 August 8
I crossed the zone of Husi,
placed close to the Prut River,
which separates West Moldova (former Moldova Principality,
now part of Romania)
and East Moldova (former Basarabia province,
now Republic of Moldova).

The locals cultivated many vineyards on its hills in history,
developing here one of the excellent Romanian “wine lands”.

The most plausible variant about
the denomination of the town of Husi is connected
to the appearance over here of a group of Hussite refugees
(protestants coming from Bohemia and Hungary
because of the Catholic persecutions against Jan Hus’ adepts)
in the 15th century.

Then, for the next four centuries,
Husi became one of the most advanced towns in Moldova,
with a Magyar-Saxon-Jewish majority for a while,
a residence of more Moldavian-Romanian rulers
and the seat of a Christian-Orthodox Episcopate.

Now Husi has 33,000 inhabitants
and I stopped a little in one of its historical places,
where I saw a few interesting old buildings
and a restaurant with medallions including
Romanian great personalities born in Moldova:
Dimitrie Cantemir, Mihail Kogalniceanu and Alexandru Ioan Cuza.

Then I remarked a bell tower and the Saints Voivodes Church
(a Christian Orthodox one,
made in the 1850s by the local traders),
which unfortunately were surrounded by block of flats
made by the communist atheist regime after 1960.

The decoration of that tower
gave me a special feeling.

If I am wrong,
I’m sorry:
The bell tower of Husi seems like
A solar observatory!