The saddle that perhaps carried the ensign before Horthy – today it carried me

-I rode in the same place where someone once did the same for the country-

There is a village on the edge of the forests, where the trees not only grow, but also remember. A place that does not shout, but only whispers. One does not arrive here as if to a tourist paradise – one just asks to be here. In silence, with humility.

Gyimes stands in the arms of the Eastern Carpathians, where the hills do not rise gently but suddenly break towards the sky. The mountainsides rise steeply from the valley, as if time itself had carved them this way – over centuries, with patience.

The mountains flow into the streams with a rapid, almost defiant fall, and these stream valleys seem to hide the rest of the world within themselves. As the water meanders, the settlements stretch out for a long time: each one fits into a valley, quietly, humbly. Görbe-creek, Boros-creek, Antalok-creek, Tankók creek and I could list more. – These are not only place names, but also stories. They have become family names, identities. Because here the streams carry not only water, but also destinies. I felt this as soon as I arrived at the first accommodation, but it was as if the silence had reached there before us.

The next day, the walls of the Gyimes house breathed back the cool night air, but it was still warm inside. Not because of the stove. The smell of morning smoke, the crunch of fresh bread, the crowing of the rooster echoing from the stacks filled the room. The hostess didn't ask if I wanted a latte, she just set it in front of me. Just like my grandmother did, when she still had time to know what I needed before I asked.

Outside, the pine trees were looking at the sky, but as I passed by them, I felt they were watching me too. Csángóland has a way of looking that neither history books nor songs teach. You just stop, and if you don't hurry, something starts to speak.

The pine tree doesn't speak words. Rather, it says something that your soul reads from it. Like runic writing. It's there on the gate, it's there on the beam, it's there in time. Many people walk past it, stop, take pictures, and move on. But it tells something to those who try to understand it.

An old woman stood in front of the church, under her headscarf was the weather, on her face rains, drought, war and baking bread. She looked at me, but she didn't smile. She just nodded. I didn't greet her, I didn't ask. The moment didn't want it. Somehow we understood each other.

Here, people speak Hungarian, but somehow differently. As if the words had more weight, as if the quiet memory of centuries echoed behind the sentences. Their names are Hungarian, but their facial features are harder than down there on the plains. They are not looking for quick results, they are not clinging to the future, but they live in the present. Their world is not the online space, but the forest, the meadow, the rain, the sky. They do not produce graphs or reports, but food. They do not manage projects, but animals. They do not live between deadlines, but between the times of day.

These people work hard for everything, but by the evening there is no tension left in them. Because what they do has meaning. It is tangible. A stable that is ready. A field that is sown. An animal that is fed. A loaf of bread that is baked. There are no awards for it, no bonuses. Just satiety, warmth, home.

In the morning the smoke was quietly billowing again, the essence of chamomile, yarrow and thyme well-soaked in the tea was pouring out. After breakfast, the horse was quietly saddled. The path led along the stream, and someone walked ahead of me on every stone. I don't know who. Maybe it was a former carrier, maybe a deserter. Maybe it was the one whose name is now only on a dusty headboard on the roof.

As I think about all this, a farmer comes out of the gate to greet me. He stops, strokes the horses, praises them, and then starts telling a story out of nowhere. He says that his grandfather served as a border guard during World War II. On the other side, there were Csángós standing guard, only they were under the Romanian flag. They were called Vlachs, but in the evening, when it was quiet on the front, they would sometimes get together to play cards, laugh, and exist as human beings – as if there was no war, just a long autumn in the mountains. Until one day, the friendly visit was replaced by a military order, and the gathering ended in captivity. They almost left their teeth there, but in the end they escaped – and the Szekler, from Ghimes received a hero’s medal. Miklós Horthy himself signed the donation letter, on the back of a contemporary map of Hungary. One hectare of land – symbolic, but eternal – on Heroes’ Square.

As he tells me, I can already see the old barracks in front of me, still guarding the pains of the past. They were not simply made of beams – of orders, silences, frosty dawns. These walls have seen the nights of the thousand-year border. Here, even the planks keep a secret – the shadows of soldiers, the clang of weapons, the tense silence of another era.

The musty walls are not silent – they dream back the archaic prayers whispered in the evenings, as if time itself were murmuring with them:

I lie down under seven crosses, I rise under seven crosses,

I will lie down on my bed, in my physical, earthly coffin.

May the angel guard me, mark me with the holy cross.

My house is Saint Anthony, four angels in four corners,

There is a table in the middle, and a letter on the table.

Come, Holy Spirit, Lord God, enter my heart.

Guard, protect from fire, from water,

from pagan hands, from accidental and unknown death,

Hell for a man, from his mouth and intentions.

I believe in a God, I trust in God,

May that trusted God dwell in my soul.

Gyimes doesn't talk much. But those who listen can hear him. The silence of the valley, the secret between the trees, the barely dying heartbeat of the past.

The narrow-gauge railway line still snakes along silently, slowly, grimly, as if it itself were thinking before each bend.

I think about how privileged I am to be here, in this silence, in this still beauty. Then, as I dismount from my horse, my thoughts settle into a pleasant toil.

Because here, at the end of the day, you don't look away from the screen, but from the fact that under the weight of your actions, it feels good to sit on a low bench, to admonish the dog, to wink at the cat. Here, the world doesn't spin, it breathes. Time doesn't rush, it lasts. The storm doesn't bother you, it just cleanses. The sun doesn't blind, it just illuminates. And the evening - the evening doesn't close, it lets you in. The stars aren't for decoration, but for guidance. Everything has its place, and every day finds its way back to order. Here, simplicity is not a lack, but a virtue.

And if you ask what you take home from this world – not the objects, not the postcard, not the souvenir from the tourist shop. But the strange peace that cannot be explained. Which you only understand once you have stopped by a pine tree and not searched for its name, but for its voice.

This is the place where nothing spectacular happens, yet something moves you deeply. A feeling that doesn't fit on your phone. It doesn't generate posts, it doesn't ask for likes. It just gets stored somewhere in the back room of your soul, and when you think back on it, you don't see the landscape, but the person you became there.

I didn't take a picture of it. I just took it home.