Gurghiu Valley ethnographic area

The Gurghiu Valley is the ethnographic area formed by the villages along the Gurghiu river, a tributary of the Mureș, east of Reghin. The lower valley has clustered settlements: Solovăstru, Jabenița, Adrian, Gurghiu, Orșova, Cașva, Glăjărie, Hodac, Toaca, Ibănești and Ibănești-Pădure, while the upper valley, towards the Gurghiu Mountains, has scattered settlements such as Bicașu, Dubiștea de Pădure, Arșița, Uricea, Blidireasa, Zimți, Dulcea and Brădețelu. For centuries the villages of the valley were tied to the fortress and estate of Gurghiu, documented since 1358. Typical of the area are the peasant technical installations (mills, oil presses, fulling whirlpools and sawmills) and crafts: carpentry, flute making, wheelwrighting, blacksmithing and pottery. The manufactories that appeared here from the seventeenth century marked an early stage of industrialisation. Objects from the Gurghiu Valley are kept at the "Anton Badea" Ethnographic Museum in Reghin. In the village of Gurghiu, 14 km east of Reghin, are the ruins of Gurghiu fortress, on a wooded hill of about 500 m, the Rákóczi-Bornemisza castle, a hunting lodge built in the 1640s by Prince George I Rákóczi and later enlarged by the Bornemisza family, the dendrological park laid out from the 1830s and the Reformed church of 1756. At Lăpușna, in Ibănești commune, stands the wooden church of St Nicholas, built in 1779 and moved here in 1939 from the village of Comori. The best-known custom of the valley is the annual girls' fair at Gurghiu, once the occasion for young people from several communes to meet. The valley also keeps the "Udatul nevestelor" (watering of the wives) custom at Hodac.