I don't know about others, but when I am forced to take a longer break (always for reasons greater and stronger than my will) and stay away from Hive, i.e. my colleagues and friends, I return with difficulty. With all the desire and longing to be together again, I have a beginner's hold and stage fright! I feel like I don't know where to start, how to start. Then I remember the communities here, where I post the most, in line with my passions and competence. Again I find it hard, hard to decide which one to choose for my first post.
Sitting like this for hours and trying to find the best solution... I did find the best solution, the answer just sort of insinuated itself.
I need to post in Silver Bloggers, I definitely need to post in SB first. The funny thing is that I post quite rarely, too rarely, in this very welcoming community but now I realize that this is my home too. I've earned my membership by living so far...
The title of the post I took from a saying of a great Romanian writer, Ion Creanga, totally unknown outside Romania. A former monk and teacher, he lived at the end of the 19th century in a region of Romania called Moldova and was the best friend of Romania's national poet, Mihai Eminescu.
The saying I am referring to is taken from Ion Creanga's book called "Memories of Childhood", a book loved by all children, even if it is written in the dialect spoken in Moldova. For this reason, I have translated only a small part of the saying, because most of it is difficult to translate and understand, referring to a certain geographical area, customs, and little-known names.
I don't know about others, but when I think of the place of my birth, of my parents' home... /..., my heart still leaps with joy!
Spring is here! Now I have no doubt, the signs are everywhere. It was a very beautiful Sunday, the first of the spring just settled upon us.
I live on the outskirts of Bucharest, the capital and largest city in Romania. Good fate gave me the opportunity to live on the ground, not in a block of flats, with many other people, as it usually happens when we live in big cities. I live on land, I have a palm of a yard that I have the audacity to call a garden, and I have a lot of greenery around. Nature, greenery is never enough for us and that's why I went this Sunday, together with my wife and a good friend to look for more...
Mogosoaia Palace is located in a small town called, naturally, Mogosoaia. This town is so close to Bucharest that it can be mistaken for a district of it and, fortunately, it is right next to where I live, so it took me ten minutes by car to get there.
Mogosoaia Palace was built by one of the important rulers of Romania, Constantin Brancoveanu. He was an enlightened ruler who supported a lot of culture and faith. During his reign, dozens of monasteries and palaces were built in a new architectural style, which was called the Brancovenesc style. The Mogosoaia Palace was also built in this style. Constantin Brancoveanu had a tragic fate, he was beheaded together with his four boys in Constantinople at the command of Sultan Ahmed III. He could have escaped this misfortune if he had agreed to leave the Christian religion and switch to Islam, but he did not accept this.
History also that the smallest child, Matei (12 years old) was so frightened after seeing the bloodbath and the heads of his three brothers that he started crying and asking his father to let him renounce Christianity and convert to Islam. At that moment, Constantin Brâncoveanu said: "Of our kind, none have lost their faith. It is better to die a thousand times than to leave your ancient faith just to live a few more years on earth." Matei listened and offered his head. After Brâncoveanu himself was decapitated, their heads were impaled on javelins and displayed in a procession. Their bodies were left before the gate and later on thrown into the waters of the Bosphorus.
Source
Life in the past has been harsh and cruel. The powerful, rulers of empires (in this case the Ottoman Empire) and large and powerful armies (in this case Russia and Putin) have tried (and long succeeded) to dominate, through violence and cruelty, the smaller and more peaceful peoples. What I am telling about happened in the seventeenth century but we see, with amazement, that it is happening in Ukraine, in the twenty-first century! Ukraine borders Romania, but fortunately, Romania has the NATO shield and the European Union on top of it!
Off, I've strayed far off-topic, I can tell I've missed writing. I want to show my little tree hunt on the Mogosoaia Palace grounds. Around the palace are a huge park and a lake. The park was built on the site of a large forest, of which there are still many trees, now several hundred years old.
Because today is Tuesday, I was reminded of 
This walk had another purpose. One last look at the leafless trees. I love seeing the silhouettes of bare trees, the slightly spooky beauty of their twisted branches, resembling the hands of witches in fairy tales or movies.
There are evergreen trees in the park, especially pine trees, which mingle with the bare bones, the ones that are stripped bare in early winter. Now the gap between them is slightly narrowing, but soon, when the leaves grow, everything will turn into a dense forest.
The park has a large clearing in front of the palace. It is a favorite place for picnics, rest and relaxation, or children's games. Being a large open space, the large trees are easier to see and admire.
There is a similar place on the lakeshore also called Mogosoaia. Beyond the lake, there are many imposing villas and houses, holiday homes of the rich and many of Romania's stars, as well as journalists, writers, and painters.
Trees are not only branches, in this case without leaves, but also their fruit. Visually important, they are good subjects for photography.
Spring is here! I feel like coming back to me, even if the tests I take don't entirely agree with me. The beauty of spring can be seen here, or rather, especially here!
I walked more with my head back and my eyes up. Because of the trees. My companions too. They were as impressed by the beauty of the place as I was.
Oh, how I longed to tell my stories again from a distant country in Eastern Europe, and I tell them in the hope that one of my readers will ever get to Bucharest and know how to look for Mogosoaia and its palace. Now I have only shown what is outside, a part of the huge park but the palace is also an extremely beautiful and interesting place. Inside, beyond the great architecture, you can visit different exhibitions.
I end with a symbol of spring, a beautiful flower. I only know the local name, "toporas", which means a small ax, I don't know where it comes from because it doesn't look anything like it.
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