Once we were through at the Archive Building and Phyllis was able to drop off her laundry next door, we made a short 10 minute drive south of Chernivtsi to the village of Koroviya (Corovia in Romanian). This is where Lydia and her husband were in the process of building a new home and she wanted to stop by there and introduce all of us to her husband. As we got on the road south out of town, we all couldn’t help notice the shear number of HUGE, and I mean massive, brand new homes that were going up all over the place. Lydia told us that many, many people from Voloca and surrounding areas were doing quite well for themselves since the fall of communism. I had heard yesterday that the vast majority of people that were selling things in the market place were people from Voloca. So I figured they were industrious and producing a lot from their farms, but I couldn’t believe my ears when I was told that most of the wealth being generated from this region was from the wedding industry. And that everyone in the area was doing something in the wedding business, mostly creating beautifully hand embroidered wedding dresses that were being exported to places around the globe. And it was all this incoming money that was funding the construction of all these new homes. Amazing to me to even imagine.
Lydia’s house was no exception. It was going to be beautiful once it was finished, but I think we were all a little stunned when seeing some of their construction techniques. The homes were all made of brick and solid cement, but no reinforcements or supports to ensure they remained standing. But they sure did look nice once the final coast of stucco and paint went on. From Lydia’s house, we drove up a few bad roads from her house to the local Church & Cemetery in Koroviya where many people from the village had turned out for a funeral. There were people just gathered everywhere outside the church. We were reluctant to enter and disturb the services, but Lydia assured us it would be alright if we just went passed the church and into the cemetery yard. We could see that the inside of the church was jammed packed, standing room only with mourners, which explained why there were so many just standing around outside the church. There was just simply no place for them to get inside.
So as we started to work our way downhill past the first row of headstones we came to, both Karen and I began to recognize some the last names. I don’t think we walked past 20 or 25 markers when we came upon a couple of old women sitting if front of a plot there. There was a lot of interest from everyone from the minute we drove up to the church from the townsfolk wondering who we were and what we were doing there. We had stopped in front of a plot when Lydia walked towards the women and asked them if they recognized some of the names that Karen was looking for. Well I don’t think you could have asked for better luck from the first person we spoke to, but the lady knew exactly the people Lydia had asked about and proceeded to tell us some stories and walked us over to the opposite end of the cemetery where she was able to point out several other relatives that were laid to rest in the church yard there. There was some further converstion that went on between the women and she had invited Karen to her place for dinner this week where she would be able to find more of that family and could share more then.
While all this was going on, I was trying to go up and down as many rows and take as many pictures of recognized names as I could while we were there. Since I was tagging along on this tour, I surely didn’t want to be the cause of holding it up at any point. I let them visit and just went about my business of gathering as much info as I could and figured we would all get together later and share what we found. As we made our way back toward the entrance of the cemetery to leave, I think we all were a little stunned at the stroke of luck this was that we had decided to visit this cemetery first and that so many from the village would just happen to be here for a funeral at the same time. Had we gone somewhere else first, and come later, the funeral may have ended and everyone would have been gone. We would have walked into an empty cemetery and met no one.
We piled back into the van and drove East about five minutes on the other side of the highway to the village of Chigor. We went straight to the old cemetery in that town as well where there was a beautiful church there built in 1884. There were so many graves in this cemetery and the grass and trees made parts look like a jungle. But we spent at least an hour venturing through the overgrown brush, hoping to discovered some long lost relatives. Again, there were many, many names that were familiar to us all but no idea of who any of them were or if they were related. I just kept snapping pictures and figured I would ask questions later.
When we finished, we walked across the street to a small café where we sat for a small lunch and some beers. It was here I had experienced my first unisex-bathroom that was simply a ceramic hole in the floor. It was quite convenient for me, but my first thought was for the women and if they’d come across one of these already or not. When I returned to the table it was Phyllis who had to go next so I gave her a heads up for the experience that was about to await her. She returned with a little smile on her face, but said that she managed alright.
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