“Danube Delta: A Decade at Dusk.” In 2016, I received a scholarship for civic journalism that took me to the remote villages of Romania’s Danube Delta. My host was an elderly woman from Sfistofca — a village of Old Believers, descendants of Russians who fled the 17th-century church reforms and settled here to preserve their faith and way of life. They spoke a mix of Russian and Romanian, a language born between two
worlds. The Danube Delta is not only home to several ethnic communities but also the best-preserved delta in Europe — a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There’s something about this place that shifts constantly: at times serene and golden, other times eerie and violent. The forests, waters, and skies can turn within minutes — from bathing you in light to engulfing you in what feels almost apocalyptic.
Over the years, I returned again and again — to Sfistofca and to Sulina, the small city across the river, caught between the Danube and the Black Sea. Many villagers eventually moved there, including my host. Sfistofca began to empty, its houses left behind as if their owners had simply stepped out one morning and never returned. It’s been almost a decade since I began documenting the Old Believers of the Delta. At first, I felt a quiet sadness watching the village dissolve — homes collapsing, walls turning into mounds of earth. But over time, I understood it wasn’t disappearance, it was transformation. What ended in Sfistofca began anew in Sulina.