Women on Matasari Street, reloaded

A vibrant late spring event has changed the face of Bucharest

Ana-Maria Cononovici, 06.06.2023, 14:00

A cat drawn on a T-shirt, dutifully scratching
a vinyl record, under the motto When the Cat is at home!. Another T-shirt displayed
a motivational slogan Bee the sun! And, just as expected, there’s another such
slogan, Dream Big! painted on a shirt: craft ice-cream, colored cotton candy,
Indian, Asian dishes, burgers, home-prepared beverages or cocktails, but also
Prosecco, have made, as usual, the regular stuff in the last weekend of May on
Matasari Street. A street that, for 11 years now, has been giving the go-ahead
for the summer events happening in Bucharest. It changed its meaning and
purpose of three decades ago, when it was a drug-trafficking area where street
workers were soliciting. That is why the phrase Women on Matasari Street
changed its meaning thanks to a genuine urban festival, invented a decade ago. From
the very early editions of the event that made it possible for a complete makeover
to occur in the area, in people’s courtyards on Matasari Street painting workshops
were staged, but also tailoring or handmade jewelry workshops.
Areas for antiquaries and conferences have been created as well.

Merry people are jostling about on Matasari Street, braving the
flippant May weather, with quick spells of rain or brief periods of sunshine,
with winds blowing and older or newer participants providing local color to the
place. For starters, we spoke to the vice-president of Kola Kariola, an association
that brokers the adoption of puppies, Marius Chirca. With datils on that, here
is Marius Chirca.

We’ve been absent from the
events for a couple of years now. The pandemic
prevented us from participating. We mainly came…well…not to raise funds, we
turned up to socialize with the people who support us in the online environment,
since we have over 400,000 followers and for each such event, we participate in
a bid to meet those living close by, in Bucharest, in Ilfov, some even came from
outside Bucharest to see us, to have a conversation about certain cases. As on Facebook, on Instagram, where we promote our activity, we cannot
just post absolutely everything. We come with promotional articles, we also
have puppies for adoption. We work, we don’t have weekends, we don’t have our days
off, as there is no such thing as closing time when it comes to animals and for
us that comes as an opportunity, going out, being outdoors, having a bit of
fun, we laugh, we crack a joke on and off, ’cause otherwise, there is more like
sadness and pain in what we do. That is what we get to see! We have already had
contact data from people who want to adopt, tomorrow we bring other puppies to
promote them, and if we spend at least two days here, if there is one single
dog we send home, that means we haven’t been here for nothing.

At the Festival, Ilinca Andrei can be found behind a stand with
bracelets inscribed with Morse code messages.
Here is her story.

We’ve got a brand making bracelets, each bracelet
has a word written in the Morse code, and on the little card that goes with the
bracelet we have the word, in the language we use, but also its transcription
in the Morse code, with lines and dots. The idea sprang from the wish to have a
bracelet with a personalized message that cannot be accessible to everybody but
which can only be known by the person wearing that bracelet. We have explored several possibilities,
and the Morse code seemed the most ingenious way to code a message, especially
on a bracelet. Clients seem to be most interested in messages from the family
area, like mother, father, brother, sister, but there are also words in English
that our clients chose, such as love,
hug, hope, faith, so we sold those very well.

Women and men on stilts were making their
way with difficulty on the crowded street, the children tried a more unusual
pastime, that of entering a circle and staying closed for a few
seconds in a balloon of soap. Also for children, we discovered a candle making
workshop. There we talked with Andreea
Şerpe, who had a very special stand, full of cake-looking candles, of shapes and
colors that made one think they were in a confectionary.

I make candles from soy
wax, in the shape of sweets. We have all kinds of stand-alone candles, candles
in a jar, wax melts for aromatherapy lamps, we use perfumes and ingredients as
natural as possible. We also organize workshops for children, we have pots that
they can decorate with flowers, with all kinds of fruit, pieces of chocolate,
candies (made of wax), we use cold wax,
so that it doesn’t burn and everything is safe. I had two or three children who
actually bit into the Macarons and they were very upset, they started crying,
even though I’d told them they were not edible; they couldn’t understand that,
but they were very cute!

Cezar Proca participated in the Festival
with natural products for external and internal use, but also with decorations
inspired by nature

We came to Women on
Matasari primarily with skin-care products, all organic, therapeutic, based on
oils obtained by cold pressing the seeds and organic medicinal plants. We get
the oil drop by drop, it is a medicinal product for the skin. We also have
plant terrariums, wooden decorations with plant terrariums, wood and ceramic
decorations and hand-painted ceramics. The Digestive and the Bitter are drinks
obtained from herbs macerated in fruit brandy from Satu Mare, the teas are made
of pressed herbs, we can get two liters of tea from one medallion. The digestive drink helps to calm the nervous
system thanks to the mint and lemon balm it contains. It’s very good for digestion, after a rich
meal, especially in the evening, it also disinfects the oral cavity and we
sleep better. And the Bitter is the
recipe of Dr. Engineer Iuliana Barbu from Farmacia Naturii, a recipe tested for
more than 20 years.

At 6:00 p.m., the street became more animated,
as every year, with live music, and the spectators enjoyed the experience to
the fullest, despite the rain that this year chose to appear from time to time
at Women on Matasari.