Beşalma

This Monday, I went with some European volunteers to a village about 20 km outside of Comrat called Beşalma. We went because this village is home to Gagauzia's ethnographic museum and we wanted to check it out. I took some pictures because it seemed like a nice example of a Gagauz village to show everyone.

Disney movies...they are everywhere, including the gates in Beşalma.

To quote one of my students, "I never saw such interesting cars before I came to Moldova." These Soviet vehicles keep on truckin'.

The village's medical center.

There are crosses and shrines like this everywhere in Gagauzia.

Ah, agriculture.

A lot of villages and towns in Moldova depend on well water. This is one of the less picturesque wells.

A small store with a tile pattern that I found interesting.

I don't really get how these villages depend on well water but have fountains! But here's a nice fountain. They really loved building fountains in the USSR.

A super-cool fish.

A much more picturesque well.

This one is for my dad: Beşalma's city hall. The flag on the left is Gagauzia's, the flag on the right is Moldova's.

A statue outside the ethnographic museum.

Beşalma's church, which was built in the 1840s. Beşalma isn't a large village, but it still has a gorgeous church. I am always impressed by Gagauz churches. They have great paint jobs.

I love these cupolas, it's so cool to see them as you look at the country landscape.

The museum at Beşalma was really great. It is normally closed on Mondays, but they were awaiting a delegation (which never came) so they were open. The museum was founded by the work of one man who single-handedly decided to put construct a museum in this small town. We got a great tour from a very competent guide and learned a lot about the history of the region.

Now I am cursing myself for not taking pictures of the cool ethnographic displays, but rest assured that they were pretty sweet. It was really interesting to see things like a pair of shoes that were handed down from generation to generation because real leather shoes were so rare among the peasants. It was also interesting to see a traditional stove, which people used to cook, keep themselves warm, and sleep on. Another nice display for me as a former knitter was a large loom and several examples of homemade textiles. The amount of work that had to go into one dress was amazing.

We also learned about events in the 20th century here. Moldova was a battlefield between the Nazi-allied Romanians and the Soviet army. They had a display of German helmets and other accoutrements found in the fields here after the war and a pair of shoes that were worn by a concentration camp escapee who ended up in Beşalma. I didn't know that collectivization affected this region so much. More than half of the residents of Beşalma died in the artificial famine caused by a drought and the appropriation of food by the Soviet government. Then there was a display about the second half of the 20th century, which our guide said most people remember fondly because they felt economic security. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the entire agricultural system collapsed and still hasn't really recovered. During Soviet times people didn't have to leave the villages to go на заработке (na zarabotke) abroad in order to make money. There were also pictures and articles from the times when Gagauzia gained its autonomy (they declared independence, but it never really caught on).

I think it's a great thing that such a museum exists to preserve Gagauz history. It's definitely a treasure for this community and I was glad to have visited.