SIEBENBÜRGEN (2) - Overview and in-depth view of Kronstadt

In the exact same sense in which the connections of our actions and works with all their consequences can only be grasped from an appropriate distance or even better from a height that can be called sublimity, we grasp the whole or at least largely the whole of a specific place or landscape only when we have the opportunity to look down on it from above. With the Telecabina Tâmpa, the cable car to the local mountain about 900 meters high, we have the opportunity not only to look down on Brașov but also to have an overview of the so-called Burzenland, as the region around Brașov is now called in a historical sense. Remarkable in this view of Brașov is the fact that the historical old town is not usually located in the center here, but seems to have grown into the mountains like a side arm, somewhat apart from the rest of the sprawling settlement area with around 275,000 inhabitants. Of course, this is absurd because the old town was there before, and the rest of the sprawling and sometimes far from edifying settlement area has grown out into the flat basin landscape of the Burzenland in the 19th century and later during the extremely unfortunate socialist period. Therefore, Brașov may appear to us in a very dualistic way as a whole. However, how we view and sometimes evaluate Brașov will depend heavily on where we are in the city, analogously to the positions and perspectives we take in life.