«The New History» of Moldova is to be shown in a documentary series about the Dniester

Any historian tells you that the brightest pages of the human chronicle were always attached to the banks of big rivers. People have settled along the rivers for ages. Rivers have been worshipped, treated as cradles of life. Even the ideas about the universe have been connected to them. The brightest monuments of human history are also situated by the rivers.

Thousands of years passed, but rivers still remain national symbols accumulating every significant event their banks have ever witnessed. In this sense, the Dniester doesn’t make an exception. This river is sacred for Moldova, as the TV project «The Dniester As the Territory Of Life» team believes. It is still to be discovered in the future – it is the opinion of those people who took up the research of the Dniester’s past and present.

«Tiras» Catamaran. Crossing the estuary

The TV project has been run already for three years. It is a documentary series project about the main river of Moldova. The idea is to show the Dniester at the turn of its past and present, the philosophy of its inhabitants and the cultural variety on the banks of one of the nine biggest rivers in Europe. A KP journalist visited the shooting sites of the film.

THE TERRITORY OF LIFE

To tell you the truth, one can’t immediately understand what in fact this TV project is about. The first impression is that it is about everything. The shooting crew is interested in present-day inhabitants of the Dniester and its distant past, its nature and underwater world. The project crew involves historians and archaeologists, anthropologists and travelers, divers and pilots, those fond of historical reconstructions and journalists. The concept of the project presents the Dniester as one whole organism in which everything is interrelated: cultural and historic landscapes and the philosophy of present-day inhabitants, animate nature and a true outdoor museum of times.
So what is this film about? «Our basic idea is that, frankly speaking, we know nothing about the Dniester. This is why we are interested in everything” says the project leader Alexander Burean, “while drifting down the river one has a different perception of the territory. One becomes an outside observer. It is the idea of the travel that helps to show the multifaceted nature of this river. We need such large-scale expeditions to understand, first of all, the way such a film should be made. As for our multilateral crew, it is favorable for unexpected ideas and creative decisions.»

A look from the outside – this is what the project initiators want to achieve. A look not biased, not stereotyped by the notion of this river and Moldova on the whole. In this case it is really interesting.

AT THE TIME-BORDER

What surprises does the Dniester have for its «new discoverers»? By the number of its archaeological monuments, historic events, the diversity of the peoples that have been living on this territory, the Dniester is highly competitive with the biggest European water-ways.

«The whole Eurasian continent has not any other territory with so many points of contact of different ages in human history, a vast number of cultures and peoples. For more than a thousand years this territory has seen a dialogue of the Mediterranean, Central Europe, Asia Minor with the Eastern Europe, Near East and peoples of the Great Eurasian steppe. And the chronicle of this dialogue lies under our feet. The inhabitants of the Dniester banks underestimate the unique centuries-old heritage left by the past», thinks the professor Andrei Dobrolubskiy, an archaeologist from Odessa.

The Dniester is really an outdoor museum of times. There are half-destroyed castles and fortresses, numerous settlements of different ages. One can find traces of remote times by every Dniester village. There is everything here: from the Paleolithic to the «early Moldavians» as the crew members joke. One single place lets tracking down whole epochs.

Well, for instance, Belgorod-Dniestrovsky. It is here that the Greek colony Tyra was centuries later alternated by Slavic Belgorod, Italian Moncastro and Ak-Libo of the Golden Horde, Moldavian Cetatea Alba and Turkish Akkerman. Such a vast number of names speak about the history of the region best of all. 

Belgorod-Dniestrovsky Fortress

The opposite bank of the estuary has another Greek colony of Niconium. Archaeological expeditions are not regarded as something new here. And it has been so for a long time.

Not far from Belgorod there is a site of ancient settlement Mayaki. Five thousand years ago there lived contemporaries of the Egyptian pyramids here. It is late Tripolje culture as the archaeologists called it. They built two- and three-storey houses, created the masterpieces of painted pottery. Some scientists believe they also invented a wheel.

The steppes of the Lower Dniester basin have a great number of tumuli in which bellicose nomads of different times have been buried: from the Scythians to the Nogays. They all have come here from the Mongolian steppes. «The population has never been homogenous here» tells us the professor and historian from the High Anthropological School Nicolay Russev. «Nor it is now. Local cultures have successfully coexisted with alien ones. These territories have been accumulating the experience of peaceful coexistence of different cultures and peoples for ages. The situation has not changed a lot. There are Moldavians, Bulgarians, Gagauzes, Russians, Ukrainians, Armenians, Poles: for many of them the banks of the Dniester have become their home, their territory of life».

A DAY WITH THE CREW

The mouth of the river on the Dniester estuary became a starting point of the new shooting season. It’s morning. It is still dark. We are sailing to the Belgorod fortress by catamarans. The day before, they had just ended shootings there for the sequel to «Three Musketeers» with Mikhail Boyarsky, Dmitriy Kharatian and other Russian cinema stars. We could still see some traces of staged siege. Some parts of the fortress walls were emitting smoke, some decorations were left.

Today our own staging awaited for us in the fortress. Warriors with medieval armor were clanking their shields on the fortress walls. They expected the whole day of battle scenes to be shot in the fortress citadel.

Shootings for the Dniester as the Territory of Life TV Project

Instead of a break for lunch they had a battle on the burning field. It was difficult to shoot because of the scorching heat. Even without any fire on the field the temperature was 40 degrees above zero! In spite of the intolerable conditions the warriors showed true enthusiasm. The battle looked so realistic! Nothing but the video cameras reminded that this all was taking place nowadays.

In the afternoon the warriors with some thirty kg of armor each are being shot running across the hills on the other estuary bank. The sight is very impressive. I don’t know whether it impressed the warriors themselves.

The sunset came very quickly. But it didn’t signal the end of the working day. The project shooting crew is sailing off to meet the ship of the «Peoples of the Sea». It was a replica of the ship which was contemporary with the Troyan wars. According to the famous traveler Igor Melnik, one could see such ships in the mouth of the Dniester in 12-13th c. BC. As professor Dobrolubsky said, the peoples of the sea, namely the Phoenicians, were among the first colonizers of this region. The Greeks who founded their colonies here – the legendary Tyra and the victorious city of Niconium – followed them much later. Even the Greeks thought these lands were full of mysteries. For them it was the end of the earth and only some of the very courageous travelers would go there. The Greek historian Herodotus (the fifth century BC) said this territory was the motherland of the god of war Ares and the north wind Boreas. He inhabited these lands with half-mythic tribes: the Neuri whose lands began with the source of the Tyras (the Dniester of nowadays) and who turned into wolves once a year; the Melanhleni who wore black clothes, one-eyed Arimaspi, coddled and greedy for gold Agathyrsi and bellicose Amazons…

Shootings for the Dniester as the Territory of Life TV Project

Such stories by the fire marked the end of another day with the expedition.

MOLDOVA SHOULD BE REDISCOVERED

It appears that the Dniester remains really mysterious for us. It is as mysterious as the history of the land washed by its waters. Discovering the Dniester one feels that our «historical self-esteem» is groundlessly understated. We know little about ourselves. And therefore we can’t tell anyone a lot about our country. But the World As the Mirror For Moldova crew is sure: the Dniester can make us think in a different way. And this is what helps us rediscover Moldova.

Leonid Reabcov // «Комсомольская Правда»