Imagine it is morning and you wake up at the „House from the river meadow” (in Romanian: „Casa din Luncă”) guesthouse in the village of Trebujeni, Orhei district. Through the window of an 80-year-old house, even in your bed, the sun's rays penetrate, which tickles you on the face. Stretch out lazily, without hurry, then go out on the porch of the house to admire the ancient rocks on the banks of the Răut river. You don't have to think about what to cook this morning, the hosts already bring you breakfast – a platter of cheeses from the village's farms, baked pies in the oven and strong coffee or tea from the herbs picked from the wooded hills.
As you catch power, ride a bicycle or get on a horse-drawn carriage, explore the canyon carved over thousands of years by water and wind. In the evening, pleasantly tired, you will return to the guesthouse, where a dinner with traditional Moldovan dishes awaits you. You will not be able to abstain and eat everything: sarmale, homemade bread, butterscotch, a stew can. You will hardly accept that the time has come for you to leave home, but you will easily and quickly return to your pension. Here is the heart of Moldova – warm and welcoming, with people in one piece, chosen cuisine, spectacular views. There's no time here.
I asked for pies, one of the days, at the pension. This is not the case here. If you enter the gate, the host will necessarily invite you to the table. Nobody comes out of the yard hungry or with lusts. I spoke with brothers Adrian and Oxana Benzing, but also with their mother, Ala Benzing, about this flourishing guesthouse, always visited by tourists, regardless of the season.
You three are indistinguishable, you always hold together. The pension connects you, you spend a lot of time here. Adrian is busy with wood carving, furniture manufacturing or on the masonry site. My mother is in the kitchen or with the tourists, and Oxana is busy with business plans and accounting. These would, in short, be your pension responsibilities. Why would a 35-year-old geography teacher, accountant and economist with clever carpenter hands want to do rural tourism? What served as an incentive to launch this family business?
Oxana: It was a soul project, a pleasure for parents. Three or four years ago, my brother and I got involved. Then we decided to develop the project, to become a business, otherwise, we risk to stand for another two years. Our pension started with a house, my father's parental home. We had two bedrooms, a traditional room called a "big house", where we received guests and a living room. In 1990, our yard was flooded. The house, built by parents in the 1980s, suffered and needed repairs. Then we decided to renovate the house and open a guest house to welcome guests. I didn't know what that meant. We were the first.
How did the history of the „Casa din Luncă” pension begin?
Oxana: My father was a farmer, and my mother was a geography teacher. My father, Mihai, was a very hospitable man, people loved him and liked his company. Mom welcomed everyone with tasty dishes. So the tourists came to us before we founded the pension. They came as a family, in celebration. And then the mother decided that she would like to try to open a pension here, in Trebujeni, on the banks of the Răut river, in the Orheiul Vechi cultural-natural reserve.
Ala: We were the right partners, because the location is successful: in Trebujeni, on the banks of the Răut river, in the Orheiul Vechi cultural-natural reserve. My husband, Mihai, gave up farming, sold the land, and I, being a geography teacher, considered that our places would conquer tourists. The Orheiul Vechi reservation is historically interesting. Trebujeni Land is a treasure. Nature, the rocks covered by the forest, the river meadow, the animals and the birds lure those looking for peace and hiking trails. Not in vain has a bird's path been made. You can do birdwatching, meaning you can watch the birds with the binoculars: the gazebo, the cuckoo, the eagle, the swallows. Also in our region, you can see squirrels, foxes, wild boars. Even the wolf sometimes comes here.
Oxana: The years 2016–2017 have come with a new motivation for us. We received subsidies from the Agency for Intervention and Payments in Agriculture, which allowed us to build the terrace we are on now. Then, huge support came from the Competitiveness Project in Moldova, funded by USAID, Sweden and UK aid. The financial and logistical support from the project has become a turning point for us. They told us: „You have huge potential in Old Orhei, but improvements are required.” And it followed a list: the conditions of accommodation, the extension of the area for serving the table, we were suggested to install an air conditioner for the comfort of the tourist. The people in the kitchen were trained on how to make food, how to serve wine. The Competitiveness project made us a connection with foreign journalists who came to know us and told us about the pension. The financial support amounted to 26 thousand dollars, but just as important was the moral support. For the first time, an authority said to us: „Good on you! You are good, you will succeed”.
That is if you are smart, hard-working and knocking on the doors, is it good to do business in rural tourism in Moldova?
Oxana: No doubt there is demand. We were visited by tourists from all five continents. Travellers from Latin America, North America, Europe, Asia and Australia visited us. Most often we break the threshold of Italians, Russians, Romanians. Lately, I have been welcoming the Chinese and the Japanese.
Ala: We work 24 hours a day, around the year, of course, at the request of tourists. We are also asked for meals at one o'clock at night. If the tourists arrive, for example, at the airport and they call us to tell us that they arrive over two hours in the pension, we receive them. In 10-15 minutes, as the tourist walks the territory, we put everything on the table.
Adrian, let's get you involved. I understood that you have golden hands and that you did not learn the woodwork somewhere. I understand that it is not from the textbooks that you have learned to manually make furniture, doors, wooden washbasins, mirror frames and much more.
Adrian: As a kid, I like to hit targets. I learned on the go-to process the wood. Oxana, as a rule, is the designer, and I - the carpenter who executes the work. As for the pension, it brings me great satisfaction. In Trebujeni I grew up, I made school, here are my friends. I had the opportunity to go to the UK, I worked as a restaurant manager. I was able to see a business inside, which allowed me to come up with improvements to our guesthouse.
Oxana: We happen to work together on our own, adds Oxana. For example, we put the brick in the bathroom one night, in two. If we have to install the heating system in a house, that's not a problem. We already know how to do it. We work as a team and assemble it. We saw this in the family, that everything is done in a team. Mom and Dad were always doing everything together.
Newer, you have a newly restored old house. Whose idea was it to buy when you were in the process of building a terrace?
Oxana: I was just passing by and dreaming of a guesthouse. We had no money to buy it. The childcare allowance saved me. I worked as a chief accountant, and the money I received for prenatal and postnatal leave I invested in this old house. I found it in a deplorable state because it is 80 years old. Initially, the roof of the house was covered with pots. Unfortunately, the pots have been replaced with slate. Inside, I even kept the beams as they were. I replaced the windows, but they have the same texture, they are also made of wood. The cellar I think is 60 years old. There we keep the preserves, the wine, the compote. We opened it on December 13 and we already had many tourists who stayed overnight.
Therefore, the pension „Casa din Luncă”, today, means hospitality, kitchen as a grandmother's, but also: an 80-year old old house, seven accommodation rooms, watchtower and two rooms for dining (for the cold time of year, a covered terrace, overlooking the rocks and a fireplace, and from spring to autumn, guests can descend to the terrace covered with reed). When you think that it all started with one house, you understand that you worked, not a joke.
Ala: It is true and we are glad that we are not the only pension in the village. We, the Moldovans, have a proverb: „With a swallow, it is not spring.” Here we have shown the opposite, we brought spring to the village. We were the first to open a pension, and now, in Trebujeni, we have eight pensions and two others are about to open. At first, people didn't think we could develop rural tourism. The villagers were very sceptical.
The pension requires a lot of sacrifices. Most importantly, to me, is time. Time is neither bought nor sold and cannot be recovered. Not many, but you provide non-stop service. That means you have to be at the pension all the time. What about your family, your personal passions, your vacations, your travels?
Oxana: We are here and we do our job smiling because of the tourists. They give us power and motivate us. Then, I personally consider myself patriotic, you don't get me out of this country with one, two, that's why I like the thought of doing something that benefits many people from us. I try to influence my friends in the village, I encourage them to develop various projects at home. My childhood friends, with small exceptions, are here in the village. They didn't leave town. We want to do something good in our country. In a pension it is important every man, no one is easy to replace, and tourists come back also for communicating with us.
Ala: But tourists are giving us the energy and joy to continue. A few days ago, I accommodated 20 French tourists. All 20 were satisfied. Each one of us embraced us. One cook exclaimed: „Look! Guests came, friends left.” You know, this pension is first and foremost, out of love. Tourists will not allow me to lie; we do not trade here. We want to give positive emotions, as those who choose to stay with us give them. Then, the pension „Casa din Luncă” is the symbol of the family. That's the value we believe in.
And this feels full. Guests entrust their most important events in life: wedding requests, weddings, marriages, anniversaries. Also at the „Casa din Luncă” boarding house, I arrive without a special occasion: to rest, to replace the noise of the city, the crowds, the bells, the nervousness that floats in the air next to the dust, with the smell of freshly cut grass, the trill of the viewers, the air clean and spring water.
* I made this article for the magazine „Altitude”, which you can find onboard the „Air Moldova” aircraft.
The source: Aici vii oaspete, pleci prieten. „Casa din luncă” – prima pensiune turistică din Moldova [online] [citat 14.03.20]. Disponible: apostrof.md
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