Rezina is a town where you will become aware of the land underneath you.
You walk down one street, up another and then down again, noticing the houses and apartment buildings stand at different heights, and sometimes you can look across the roofs towards the hills and the Dniester below.
It also means that when you see somewhere interesting down the hill, there is one thing worth remembering:
You have to come back up again. ;-)
The settlement is first mentioned in written records in the 15th century, and its position beside the Dniester naturally became important for movement, trade and everyday life.
Today Rezina is a small town where People are going to work, cars are
passing, somebody is carrying shopping home and people are sitting outside when the weather allows it.
Nothing unusual about that.
But then you look between two buildings and there is the Dniester and it happens several times while walking around.
You see trees, houses and streets and then you notice an opening
and there it is..
The river is below you with the green opposite bank rising behind it and you stop for a photograph, walk a little further ahead, then stop again and you will realise that you have taken considerably more photographs of the same river than you
thought you would ;-)
You will find your way down towards the Dniester and perhaps you stay there for some time and finding shade under a tree, sit down for a while and just watch and observing what is happening around you.
Maybe someone is fishing, people are talking, a family walks past, somewhere behind you, life in Rezina continues as normal.
There doesn't always have to be something to visit or something you are supposed to do and sometimes sitting beside the Dniester for half an hour is enough and make you perhaps makes you feel a part of the town.
If you happen to arrive during the Fishermen's Festival and are so lucky to exsperience it, then simply forget everything about sitting quietly. ;-)
The Festivalul Pescarilor de la Nistru is held beside the Dniester in Rezina and suddenly the quiet riverside isn't particularly quiet anymore.
Tents go up, tables fill with people, there is food, music, fishing, local
producers, handmade products and children running around while the adults attempt to keep track of them.
There are people in traditional embroidered clothes, paintings standing beneath the trees and stalls where you inevitably stop to look even if you weren't planning to
buy anything.
Naturally, there is fish, actually quite a lot of fish. ;-)
The festival has been held annually since 2022, with fishing and cooking competitions forming part of the programme.
Across the water, on the opposite riverbank is Rîbnița.
It is close enough that you don't need a sign or a map to understand where it is but you simply look across the river.
From higher parts of Rezina you can see the opposite bank and parts of the town and far beyond it.
The Dniester separates the two sides, but when you are actually standing there, the physical distance doesn't look very large at all.
Rezina isn't particularly tidy in the way it has been placed across the landscape.
That is what makes walking around interesting, especially because a building can be above you from one street and below you from another.
Trees hide parts of the town.
Small roads disappear downhill and you occasionally take a road simply because you want to see what is at the bottom and sometimes the answer is another road.
Well... now you have to walk back up. ;-)
The buildings in Rezina follow the terrain rather than reshaping it.
They rise where the land allows, forming layers that shift with elevation. It creates a town that is not uniform, but varied, where perspective changes with every turn.
Sometimes the best part of the day begins completely by accident.
You stop beside a table, ask about something being made, make a comment about the food or simply smile and say hello.
Then someone asks where you are from, you answer and then another question followsv naturally.
Somehow you are no longer a visitor standing on the outside looking in.
You are talking about Moldova, where you come from, family, work, life, the festival - perhaps even things you never expected to talk about that day.
Someone laughs, someone else joins the conversation and maybe your Romanian isn't very good and maybe their English isn't either.
It doesn't really matter, you find a way and when you finally say goodbye, you realise that the people you have just spent half an hour talking and laughing with were complete strangers when you walked over.
That is the kind of welcome you don't book in advance, but sometimes you just have to say hello.
And perhaps.. No one knows beforehand, but the seeds of an acquaintance, or a friendship - may have been sown here.
Then there are the things you didn't come to see.
Storks standing in a huge nest above the road, flowers growing beside the
street, people sitting under the trees, a view appearing between houses and the Dniester showing itself again when you thought you had already seen the last of it.
Those are often the things to remember from a town, not because somebody told you to look at them, it just happened to be there.
Rezina este un loc în care să te plimbi, să privești în jur, să îți dai timp să
întâlnești oameni și să te bucuri de priveliște și atmosferă.
Poate vii pentru Nistru și pleci amintindu-ți de o conversație pe care
nu ai plănuit-o niciodată.
Festivalul Pescarilor🎣
Festivalul Pescarilor de la Nistru se desfășoară la Rezina din 2022, aducând împreună pescuitul, mâncarea locală, meșteșugurile, muzica și familiile pe malul Nistrului.
Vino cu poftă de mâncare - și nu fi surprins dacă rămâi mai mult decât ai plănuit.
-
Rezina is a place to walk, look around and give yourself time to meet people
and enjoy the view and atmosphere.
You may come for the Dniester and leave remembering a conversation you
never had planned.
Fishermen's Festival 🎣
The Festivalul Pescarilor de la Nistru has been held in Rezina since 2022, bringing together fishing, local food, crafts, music and families beside the Dniester.
Come hungry - and don't be surprised if you stay longer than you had intended. ;-)
