Calling Home – A Pay Phone In Zimandcuz (The Lost Lands #145)

Have you ever been on a journey that goes so long and so far, that you cannot remember where it started? I am having that experience while developing my itinerary for the lost lands beyond Hungary’s borders. For several weeks now, I have only had the vaguest recollection of where this journey began. I thought it must have started in Satu Mare, the first city on the itinerary. I just checked and found it started not too far from there on the border of northeastern Hungary-northwestern Romania. That seems like several lifetimes ago, though it has only been five months. I am now leaving Banat for the Crisana, located in the far eastern portion of the Great Hungarian Plain. While my next destination is known, what I find along the way is still undecided.

Habit Forming – Going To Town

The drive between Arad and Oradea (Nagyvarad) takes over two hours. Because I want to extend my lost lands journey for as long as possible, I am looking for anything of interest that will delay the inevitable. This means making more stops. I had originally intended to travel in a straight shot to Oradea. That would be taking the easy way out by visiting cities while ignoring towns and villages along the way. I must resist the nearby charms of Oradea. The allure of that magnificent city chock full of architectural treasures, including some of the best Art Nouveau architecture in Europe, is magnetic. There are some places I can’t get enough of. Oradea tops my list of must-see places in Romania. It is still that way despite, or because, I have visited the city twice. Whereas I have not visited any of the towns or villages between Oradea and Arad. I am entering what is for me a blank space on the map. This is an opportunity that does come around very often. Oradea can wait, The question is can I wait? The answer depends upon what I find in the villages and towns along the E461 road that I will be taking north.

As a rule of thumb when a journey’s start and end points are bookended by two cities, it has been my experience that anything in between gets overlooked. Besides stopping for petrol, I usually ignore those towns and villages that from the highway look as though they have nothing of interest. Everything looks the same from the highway. Groups of houses, a road disappearing into them, and a church steeple or two rising upward. There has to be much more than that. Romania’s towns and villages are not just worth visiting due to interesting historic sites or folk festivals. They are also where half the country’s population lives. Maybe I should know better by now, but some habits are hard to break. My intention has been to break with old habits on this journey and see places so new to me that I have never heard of them before. For instance, Zimandcuz, which is a 15-minute drive north from Arad and my first stop.?

Dial Up – Making The Call

What could possibly be of interest in Zimandcuz to a foreigner who cannot speak Romanian or Hungarian? To my knowledge there are no guest houses. If there are historic sites, then I have not found them yet. Looking at online photos of the town I did come across a singular object from the not-so-distant past that still calls Zimandcuz home. A reminder of a world that was left behind as the transformation of telecommunications proceeded at a lightning pace. ?I am usually not interested in historic artifacts from my own lifetime, let alone those that were still in use a decade ago. The object that caught my attention in Zimandcuz is different. Five years ago, a gentleman by the name of Tamas Kuc took a picture of a pay phone booth in front of some small trees. Referring to a pay phone as a historic artifact seems ridiculous. Until the question is asked, who uses them anymore? I can visit Zimandcuz to find out the answer. Seeing that photo gave me a sense of déjà vu. One of the only pay phones I have ever taken a photograph of was on a cold winter’s day in Oradea ten years ago. That was also the last pay phone I can remember seeing.

The pay phone has gone out of style, but not completely away in Romania. Whether the one in Zimandcuz still works is something I intend to find out. It doesn't really matter whether it does or not. The important thing is that a pay phone and its booth still exist. At best, modern relics like the pay phone get neglected. At worst, removed and discarded. The pace of technological change has accelerated to the extent that what is considered history is being redefined. I find it interesting that the pay phone in Zimandcuz looks to be in good shape. The blue trim on the booth is sharp, the plexiglass doors still attached. The orange phone looks ready for dial up access. This could be a scene from fifty years ago, but it was just five. I imagine that someone left the booth not long before the picture was taken, perhaps the photographer. They might have even used the phone. That is, if it still works. My goal is to find out.

Transformative Effects – A Technological Revolution

Mr. Kuruc probably decided to take the photo as a novelty. It is bizarre to think that a smartphone, the technology that made pay phones obsolete captured this one for the sake of posterity. I wonder if the phone still exists now that it has been five years since that photo was taken. Looking for it will give me a chance to explore Zimandcuz more in depth. There is no telling what I might find, from the banal to the brilliant, the village is likely to have other attractions to stimulate my intellect. Towns and villages like Zimandcuz are thought to be the places where nothing ever changes. The pay phone shows otherwise. There is not a town or village in Romania that the current technological revolution has left untouched, but one thing has not changed. No matter where you are in Romania, you can still make a call.