The Long Night of Museums, or the Night of Museums, and, since 2005, the European Night of Museums, is a cultural event in which museums and cultural institutions to remain open late into the night to introduce themselves to new potential patrons. Visitors are given a common entrance pass which grants them access to all exhibits as well as complimentary public transportation within the area.
The first Lange Nacht der Museen took place in Berlin in 1997. The concept was very well received. In 2005 the Council of Europe, UNESCO and the International Council of Museums joined to promote this event with the goal of improving access to culture.
Museum Night takes place on the third Saturday of May. Most recently in 2021, some 1200 museums in 120 cities throughout Europe, as well as other nations including Argentina and the Philippines, welcomed nearly 2 million visitors to their collections. source
Last night took place another edition of the Night of Museums. The event was celebrated all over Europe. It is a huge event and of utmost importance for many because learning about art, culture, history, science and other things is important. With this occasion entry to museums is free and as the quote above says, museums are open till midnight or in some cases even till 3am.
This is a big help for quite many as entrance fees can be high in some cases, so getting a free pass is more than welcome. However, I was thinking what one would do in a big city like Paris for example, or London, where are so many museums, you can't visit them all in one night.
This year I was in the Transylvanian city of Mediaș, which can't be called big, so we had six museums to visit, or six venues to be precise as not all were museums. The tour of museums included the Municipal Museum of Mediaș, the Memorial House of "Stefan Ludvig Roth”, the Stonemason (Steingässer) Tower, the Hermann Oberth Memorial House, the Evangelical Church "St. Margareta” and the Synagogue of Mediaș.
Some of these places were small and even so, it took us almost all afternoon and night to visit all, so I don't know how visitors in big cities can manage.
Today I'd like to share with you the most disappointing point of our tour, which is the Synagogue. The building is not new to me, I've seen it several times but never from inside as it is not open to the public. This is one of the reasons I wanted to visit as there are high chances there will not be another occasion.
The Synagogue, built in 1896 is close to the historical city center and close to the reformed church as well. It is situated at the Mihai Kogălniceanu street Nr. 43.
According to Wikipedia Jews in the 20th century were German speaking people. Another important detail that I've learnt from Wikipedia is that in the second world war there were no Jews deported from Mediaș. This is almost unbelievable but it's good news. However, after the war the majority of the Jewish community emigrated to Israel and at the end of the 80's other the Synagogue was officially closed.
I've been always looking at the building and thinking what those, who built the Synagogue and used it as spiritual home for so many years would feel seeing in what condition it is. Every year it gets worse and worse and the worst thing is that it's not going to be renovated as there's no community to do it.
Last night there was an art exhibition there, but to tell you the truth, I went more for the Synagogue and less for the art. Today I'm going to show you both the art and the Synagogue.
Andy Ciocan is a self-taught artist and painter from Sibiu, a city he admires, loves and talks about with passion. He doesn't remember when he started drawing, he always says that he was born with drawing "in his blood". His paintings are strong expressions of characters and entities using a kind of contemporary pointillism. Andy works with a variety of techniques, charcoal, pencil, watercolor, pastel, acrylic and oil. He uses themes that make up a wider range, from portraits to landscapes, from realism to abstraction. translation source
The artist was unknown to me, I've never heard of him before but I'm glad I got to meet him throughout his work, even if the conditions were not suitable for an exhibition and I believe every artist deserves a fair representation.
The artworks were great, I mean obviously we all have our preferences, but I liked these portraits.
I could only take these three photos because the other two or three were in the other corner of the hall and I preferred not to go there because of the mess.
When we entered, there was music in there, which was odd as we knew there's no service and no concert either. It turned out there were some young adults, playing music. Was it appropriate? The synagogue is no one's now, so there are no rules there, I suppose it's up to each individual. One thing is for sure, I would have not played music in there.
This photo was taken in 2020 and have to use it again as the one I took last night, in the dark looks terrible.
And these are the photos from the Synagogue.
I'm going to leave you with the photos as I don't know what I could say here. I mean there's much to say and I could express my feeling, but I'd rather be silent this time and let the photos speak.
There were a couple of artworks displayed inside the Synagogue as well.
