Historical Data
The town was built on the foundation of a feudal settlement dating back to the XIV-th century. The first documents about the town come from 1332. In 1668, when the Turks attacked Moldavia, 300 Armenian families left the Moldavian towns and took refuge in the Oriental Carpathians. In 1672, when the battles against the Turks took an end, the greatest part of the Armenians went back to Moldavia, but a certain number of them settled in the region for good.
In 1707 and 1708 the Labanc set the Giurgeu basin on fire. The town of Gheorgheni suffered great human and material losses. An even greater loss occured between 1716 - 1719, as a result of the parch and famine. More than 45% of the town's population died in this period. After 1721 the town started its development.
The Roman - Catholic church ( picture nr 1 ) was built in 1498 and was rebuilt in 1756. It has a portico and a crsytalline dating from the XV-th century.
The Armenian church was built in 1730.
In the vicinity of the church there was a Monastery for Nuns and a Girls' School ( St. Vincent of Paul ) where theatrical arts, dance and music were taught.
The Reformed church was built between the years 1895 - 1899, for the 200 local people of Reformed religion.
The Armenian Catholic church was built in the Baroque style between the years 1730 - 1734.
The building of the Armenian Catholic Parish, built in the XIX - th century, appears together with the Armenian church as monuments of architecture in the Official Register of the Monuments of Harghita County. The Museum is situated in a building erected in Baroque style by the architect Istvan Vertan between the years 1770 - 1787.
The museum gives home to exhibitions that show the traditional crafts of the region, the exploitation, transport and traditional processing of wood, the local history, folk art and fine arts. The founder of the museum, Marton Tarisznyas left as heritage an institution with a very rich thesaurus, especially with regard to the "ethnography of the forest" as he liked to call it.
The town of Gheorgheni was destroyed in its greatest part in September 1944 by the German troups in their retreat. In the years that followed the town started to be reconstructed in conformity with the parameters of a modern town in full economic swing.
From 1900 on the town has had a Botanical Garden, founded by a lawyer - Dr. Dénes Csíky. It has a surface of 16 hectars and it gives home to 185 species. At present the Botanical Garden is the place where the Faculty of Tourism functions, which is a branch of the Babes - Bolyai University in Cluj.
The Bicaz - Chei village is situated south -west from the Ceahlau Mountain, in the valley of the Bicaz river, an affluent of Bistrita river, on the eastern part of the P.N.C.B. - H.
Bicaz has a history with roots that penetrate deeply into the millenniums close to the stone age. The greater part of the neolitic tribes gathered in the lowlands of Neamt district and only isolated groups temporarily penetrated and reached as far as Bicaz. In the XVII - th century there appeared compact settlements. Their inhabitants originated from the runaway serfs coming from Moldavia and Transsylvania. It is certain that the number of inhabitants in these settlements grew after the peasant uprising lead by Horea, Closca and Crisan had been defeated in 1784 and after serfdom in Transsylvania had been abolished. by emperor Joseph II in 1785.
After the Great Union of 1918 and until 1933 the village of Bicaz - Chei was part of Bicazu Ardelean. In 1933 it separated from Bicazu Ardelean and formed a village of its own., Bicaz Chei, that also included the settlement of Damuc. Damuc, in its turn, separated from Bicaz - Chei and formed a separate entity in 1937.
The Lacu Rosu resort
There are very few examples of how natural disasters, instead of leaving destruction and casualties behind, have as a result changes capable of embelishing the geography of a place. It is from such an example of exception that the Lacu Rosu resort came into being.
Its formation took place in one single day in July 1837, after a series of storms and heavy rains. A rock from the Ucigasu mountain got loose and fell, blocking the Licas, Oii and Rosu brooks. The spruce stumps still rising from the lake stand witness to those events. The name of Lacu Rosu ( the Red Lake ) comes from the purple reflection on the water surface of Suhardul Mic, which is 369 meters above the water, and the presence of reddish alluvions carried along especially by the Rosu brook and the reddish limes around it. It was the shepherds who came up with this name.
Legend has it that a beautiful young maid was kidnapped by a rascal and taken into a cave in the Suhard mountain. The maid, with her tears, was able to persuade the mountain to avenge her. She made the mountain throw its rocks upon the ill - doer rascal and kill him. In the month of July a piece of rock fell from the mountain and it killed both the rascal, the maid and a shepherd with his flock. The name of the lake comes from the water reddened by their blood.
It was only in 1857, after 20 years had passed from the event, that 3 tourists from Gheorgheni stopped at the banks of the lake. Amazed and fascinated by the wild landscape and beauty of the lake they said that they had discoverd there a corner of heaven. From then on, many turists have trodden the paths of this region, being attracted by the natural beauty of the place and the richness of its flora and fauna.
The first chalet of the resort was built in 1925.
In 1910 there began the building of the road from Gheorgheni to Lacu Rosu, which was finished up to the place called Gatul Iadului ( Hell's Throat ). It was only in 1937 that the road connecting Moldavia to Transsylvania could be finished.
The town of Balan lies at the bottom of the Hasmasul Mare mountain, in the southern part of the P.N.C.B. – H. park. Documents point to the existence of this region as early as the 1500s., as shown in the registers of the village of Sandominic. Balan separated from Sandominic in 1825 and became an autonomous miner colony.
In 1894, the settlement was given back to Sandominic from an administrative point of view. This situation persisted until 1968, when the settlement was declared a town. Prior to 1967 Balan was part of Sandominic, being exclusively inhabited by Hungarians,. The second category of inhabitants came from different parts of the country and was Romanian by nationality. Many people of that second category have been living in Balan since 1967, and some others moved in the region once that the mining activity started to develop.
The people of Balan have survived, and have been able to cope with this centralised type of economy performed through the social network systems, the mine becoming a kind of corporation that each individual fully trusted. The social ties have lost their well - defined roles and their efficiency has considerably decreased once the mine stopped its support and assistance and many people lost their common cultural identity.
Specific features of the local customs and traditions
The people in the region are great artisans in woodwork, ceramics weaving and knitting.From the oldest times the women have been good houskeepers and they have been hardworking in matters connected to houskeeping and to port costumes in racks.The women make folk costumes and other objects destined to decorate the house.
The specific folk costumes are:
- Seckler - for the Hungarian inhabitants in Gheorgheni and Balan
- Moldavian for the Romanian inhabitants in Bicaz.
Each year in Bicaz on the first Sunday of the month of May one organises the field festival "Armidem". The folk dances specific to the region are : invartita ( the spinner ), the sarba ( a lively dance ) and hora ( a round dance ) These dances are accompanied by witty couplets and shouts.
The land exploitation in the past was strongly influenced by the relief type of the region, by the succession of civilisations and settlements and by the opportunities connected with geographic position.
The main activity of the dwellers of Gheorgheni was the primary exploitation and processing of wood, its rafting on the Mures river, animal raising and agriculture.
With the arrival of the Armenians Gheorgheni became a commercial town ( in the beginning it was exchange of materials ) In 1890 there appeared the first factories for wood processing and they laid the foundation for an up - to - date processing of wood and a flourishing trade. Thus, in 1935 there existed a timber and chest factory. After 1970 important economic units have been created in the town: the Factory for casting ( foundry ) the Factory for wood processing., the Spinning mill for flax and hemp, the Factory for chequers,, furniture and technical tissue. the Mixed factory for local industry and the Center for wild fruits.
The first train left the station of Gheorgheni in the direction of Miercurea Ciuc in September 1907 and the Gheorgheni - Deda - Targu - Mures railway segment was built in 1909.
On the territory of Bicaz - Chei village there has been discovered human existence dating back to the paleolythic, in the form of a great number of weapons used for hunting.
In the next period, when agriculture started to play an ever greater role in the social life, the lack of fertile soil lead to a decrease in the population of the region. The specific economic activities of the villagers are determined by the extant natural resources : the forests which covered the greatest part of the village and the pastures and hayfields.
The main activity of the local people is the raising of animals and work in the forest. Besides the raising of animals,and the exploitation and processing of wood, the main occupation, going back to the 1800s was the lime-burning. Maize flour was and is obtained by the milling of the grains in mills activated by the water of the Bicaz and Damuc rivers. Besides these mills there also exist some organizing places in which the housewives of the village washed their carpets. Another main activity was work carried out in the industrial units : the Cement factory, the lime quarry, and others.
Along its entire existence the destiny of the inhabitants of Balan was determined by the copper mine. The main activity, starting with the 1600s, was mining. At the end of the 1700s the copper resources of the region have become an important sourse for metals for the Austro - Hungarian Monarchy. The town is small and mono - industrial. Its inhabitants do not grow plants and animal raising is done only on a small scale.