Hometown Wine Festival

We arrived back home from PST on a Saturday night, a little disappointed that we had chosen to miss the wine festival in Chișinău.  The festival is a pretty big party in the city but we felt the need to get back to our town.  Walking home from the bus station, we noticed some tents or booths being erected in the central plaza.  A stage had also been built and it appeared that there was going to be a festival of some kind.

The next morning, Sunday,  we strolled over and found hundreds of people wandering through the plaze which was lined on all four sides with booths each of which had a name of a village on it. 

There was a large sign behind the stage that said Toamna de Aur or Golden Autumn.

The musicians were warming up and it wasn’t long before dance groups were performing in the plaza.  There were speeches of course by all of the local authorities.

We wandered around and were chased off from a booth from the local winery after being told they were waiting for the “VIPs” to come first.  Thinking nothing of it we moved to another booth where we ran into Andrei and Lilia. 

We all downed a large shot of samagon and tasted some of the produce from the village whose booth it was.  Doamna Vera from the Raion Council informed us we were invited to lunch at a local restaurant later in the day so we decided to go home and exchange jeans for some more appropriate event wear (slacks and a blazer for me, skirt and jacket for Marilyn).

Returning to the plaza, the president of our raion immediately took charge of us saying “come with me”.  For the next two hours we worked our way from one booth to another, escorted by the raion president and his entourage (6 to 8 men all wearing black).  In fact, we visited every single booth (more than 30).

At each booth we were all poured a cup of wine or cognac or samagon and encouraged to eat something. 

Presentations and toasts ensued, followed by, in most cases, dancing a little jig (the hora which I cannot seem to master). 

As we left the president was presented with a gift of bread (colac) and fruits or vegetables which he immediately handed to us.

  By the time we had visited five or six booths the members of the entourage were acquiring shopping bags and helping us carry all of the food.

As you can imagine, 30 booths means 30 drinks (an probably 60 kilos of food items to carry).  By the time we were halfway through we knew we had to start leaving half full glasses of wine behind and to stay away from any further cognac or samagon. 

After all, we had a formal luncheon to attend.  We weren’t sure we would make it through although we and the entourage were having a great time laughing as the president tried to saw the ear off a cooked pig with a dull knife and dancing with the village representatives.

Everybody was interested in meeting the Americans.

The last booth we visited was the local winery’s booth.  When they saw us with the president and his entourage they were shocked and immediately began apologizing.  We told them not to worry we understood and once the president had the situation explained to him everybody relaxed.

We staggered home under the weight of all the food we’d been given, dropped it off and turned around to go to the restaurant. 

At the restaurant we found perhaps a hundred people, the mayors of the villages and local authorities.  We were seated next to the chief of police and had an enjoyable chat with him and our other tablemates during the luncheon and the speeches of course.  By six p.m. the luncheon was breaking up and we were exhausted.  The festival had been beautiful and we made some new friends while having a wonderful time.

What a way to experience the agricultural riches of our new home and get to know more of her generous,  interesting and enjoyable people.