A brand new risk inside the mountains of Transylvania

The subculture of transhumance - the seasonal motion of sheep - remains practised in Romania. However shepherds say a regulation limiting the variety of sheepdogs they're allowed to use could threaten their manner of existence.

Do you want to look my house?" asks Ion at the door of the cowshed. I'm a chunk nonplussed. We might just been interior his house, at the sofa inside the fine room ingesting cake and poring over picture albums.

No, no!" he says noticing my confusion. "I mean my real residence!" He lifts a shaggy gray fleece off a wooden peg and throws it over his shoulders. The sleeveless sarica, as it's called, is product of 4 sheepskins sewn together. When I attempt it on, the cloak comes all the way down to my ankles and is so heavy i will barely stand. However unexpectedly i am proof against the knife sharp wind blowing off the mountains. "I slept in that even when it become snowing," says Ion. "Very snug.

Ion and his wife Lenuta describe the lengthy-distance walks they used to head on every year with their flocks of sheep between summer season and iciness pastures

I'm surprised to see so many bright, top-of-the-range motors in this far off part of Transylvania. Ever due to the fact communist instances, Poiana Sibiului and Jina had been well-known for their wealthy sheep farmers. Those isolated upland villages escaped collectivisation and a few taxes beneath Ceausescu while the authorities assured charges for the farmers' milk, meat and wool. So that they flourished even as most Romanians needed to put up with empty keep shelves and energy cuts.

 Lenuta shows me images of donkeys carrying cooking pots, camping tools and canvas luggage with small woolly heads peeking out. The newborn lambs get a free experience as their legs are too wobbly to keep up with the flock.

A shepherd walks with his flock of sheep close to the village of Cudalbi in Romania

 Dumitru can also love his flock however he is based on his puppies for protection. The Carpathians are domestic to the very best wide variety of brown bears in Europe and they frequently fancy snacking on sheep. As soon as a bear came at night and knocked him down but before it can rip him aside with its claws, the sheepdogs scared it off.

 Remaining December up to four,000 indignant shepherds in sheepskins, waving their staffs and blowing horns surrounded the parliament in Bucharest. As they started hiking over the partitions into the courtyard, mounted rebel police sprayed them with tear fuel.

Dumitru boasts the shepherds may want to have stormed the constructing but constrained themselves. "Our MPs are like the ones mean and harsh bears," he says. "we've got this announcing: 'Bears move by way of and puppies bark' meaning politicians do something they want while unimportant human beings like us can best make a scandal.