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Maria Matios
glares like a wolf. Beyond the
meadow, where the people’s
livestock
grazes,
along
the steep, sheer precipice
rises a really long dam – a
fortification,
constructed
from good river stone from
times when this side was
still Austrian, partitioning
off the meadows from the
water. More precisely, it’s
not even like that. The dam
doesn’t so much partition
off, as it supports the steep
cliff that sharply demarcates
the village boundaries ten
meters from the border.
Old folks say that the
fortifications were built over
an entire year, and then it
took them a long time after
that to fill in and even out
the place between the cliff
and the dam, where bushes
now bend under the wind
and livestock grazes. The
dam beneath the cliff till now
doubly protects the greater
part of Cheremoshne from
floods, whereas on the other
side suddenly rising water
often floods the gardens
and even houses. But the
opposite shore is more gently
sloping, more of a plain, and
therefore it’s harder for the
dam to keep the water away
from it. But maybe, simply,
there’s no one to organize a
good effort.
The Austrian dam on the
Romanian side was not
only old, well packed and
reinforced, but for some
reason had an unusual –
arched form. From the
other side of the river it was
reminiscent of a somewhat
deformed horseshoe that was
bent a little from each side.
They say that the
gazda
who
organized its construction
here was at one time not
only a great landowner – a