Introduction
Lodging & Eating
Tours & Activities
Kálnoky Castle & History
Restoration Works
How to get there
What to bring along with you
Prices & Reservations
Press, References, Awards & Links
More Pictures




Home Page

THE RETURN

Tibor Kálnoky"It was 1987. Ceauşescu and his Securitate still had Romania in their clutches; in fact most Romanians at that time probably could not remember life to ever have been different from what it was then.

But some elderly people in the small Transylvanian village of Kőröspatak (Valea Crişului) could, all of a sudden. A face had brought back memories long buried, the face of my father entering the local catholic church at 6.30 in the morning. Surely it could not be, they must have thought - not the Count, he couldn't even have gotten into the country, could he, and if he did why would he choose to attend the early morning mass at sunrise. Yet word got around in the village and they crowded in front of the church entrance.

When we came out, dozens of people first stared, then started weeping, grinning, kissing my father’s hands, and thanking the Lord for having kept them alive to witness this moment. Not that they knew him. They knew my grandfather. My father, his son, left the country at the age of eight.

Yet they recognized him for what he was - the son of the last Count Kálnoky to live in Kőröspatak, trying to carve out a living amid ever worsening economic conditions, trying to keep the village alive, until he had to flee when Nazi Intelligence realized he was working against the fascist regime. Later, the communists expropriated everything he had owned and my family had to leave Central Europe for good, as it then seemed. But back to the events in the village in 1987: As half of the village had gathered around us and accompanied us to have a look at our former home which then was used as grain storage and local Party headquarters, word came that a column of cars was approaching the village from the district capital, Sf. Gheorghe. This could only mean one thing: The Securitate came to check what was happening. Following an almost imperceptible gesture of my father, the villagers vanished into their houses and we hopped into our 4x4 and left the village by a forest track through the hills to Miklósvár. The Securitate questioned the villagers repeatedly for several months, but nobody seemed to know who these mysterious foreigners had been.

I now know that this was the defining moment of my life. I was twenty years old then, a student in Germany, but not German; there were languages I spoke in, countries I had lived in, but none I could call my own; and an undefinable yearning for somewhere to belong to. Maybe that is why I patiently talked my father into visiting his home village in spite of all the difficulties. And finally, on that day in 1987, I found my home.

That is where I live today. I suspect I may have done everything I did since that day to be able to finally pull it off. I went to Budapest in 1992, allegedly to work on my Ph.D. but in fact just to get closer to Transylvania. I found a job as a manager in a pharmaceutical company, then in 1996 got a position in Bucharest as head of the Romanian branch of a German multinational. I married my wife, Anna, a Transylvanian of a family who had not left the country, with whom I have three sons.

Ever since 1987 I had pondered the question how bring back the family to Kőröspatak, were my ancestors lived for 750 years (before that they were more in the west, near the town Sebes). After having had 200 guests from all over the world stay in the village of Miklósvár (Micloşoara) at the occasion of our wedding, an idea began to take shape - what if I could use the family's cultural heritage (mainly two former mansions, "castles" as they are called in Hungarian, and the surrounding parts of the village), to attract visitors interested in our region and its culture? Not mass tourism of course, but rather something for such visitors as would appreciate the unique qualities of life in a place where the Middle Ages are still very much part of the present. Where there must be a witch and a few ghosts in a village worth its salt, where kids make their own sleighs come winter, where the priest throws a loaf of bread with a candle in it into the river if the corpse of some drowned man is to be found.

Dreams may shape destinies, but reality must be mastered. Romanian reality, and that of rural Transylvania, turned out to be quite a challenge. Looking back at the past 20 years, I sometimes wonder how it all came together in the end. It took ten years efforts to finally get back, buy back or lease back some of the most important parts of the cultural heritage my family had created, such as the family's mansion in Kőröspatak, a beautiful renaissance building in the picturesque village of Miklósvár (Micloşoara) and several decrepit remains of village houses. We started restoring a couple of these houses, as this proved easier than the castles. They now have received their old spirits back again: furnished with old painted furniture and heated by large ceramic stoves or open fireplaces. We just added a little modern comfort like stylish bathrooms with running, warm water in a village barely provided with electrical power (forget gas or running water).

And then I took the plunge. The guesthouses were ready, and my idea was to start a small, exclusive tourism business to finance the restoration of the castles. But that demanded all of my time. I quit my job in 2000 and have since devoted all my time to "Count Kálnokys Guest Houses" and the work on the mansions. Although we can only receive a maximum of 20 guests at any given time, visitors keep coming - mostly from Britain. They enjoy the unique, cozy atmosphere, the daily "cow parade" (as some guests put it) at 8 pm, our wildlife, trekking through hills and forests or sightseeing (Saxon and Szekler cultural treasures abound in the region).

I try to show them why we live here. We tell the story of my family, show them the painstaking work of art historians to discover the original looks of the castle in Miklósvár, and the careful, slow restoration of such parts of the house as we think we can faithfully reconstruct. In Köröspatak, the problem is first saving the building from further decay. We have just finished putting up a new roof - half a hectar of tiles, all handmade in the village of Nagybacon ("Big Bacon" for some of my guests and Băţani Mare in Romanian).

Some people in our village must think I'm crazy, others, though, slowly start realizing that the reason why all these foreign guests come here is precisely because of the rich rural heritage we still have. And this is how we can preserve it.

Every day there are a hundred details to attend to. Architects insisting that in Romania there are more rules to abide by than, say, in Germany, and more expenses to cover than in Switzerland. Workers demanding their wages for themselves and their colleagues, only to disappear with the money to the next bar without giving the others their share. Art Historians trying to impress, but also to badmouth other art historians participating in the project. Tons of documents, files, paperwork, accounting, correspondence. E-mails and mastering the website. Dealing with craftsmen to restore furniture, textiles, or other artefacts. Then all the care for the guesthouses, and often, meeting with the guests. That is something I always look forward to, not only for they are mostly interesting people, but also because their acknowledgement of our deeds gives me the strength to continue.

The whole story of this enterprise, I am often told, is completely impossible. Maybe so, but no-one told me that what I am trying to do cannot possibly succeed."


Go to top of page

tumblr hit counter