Alin Uhlmann Ușeriu: “Via Transilvanica “
Alin Uhlmann Ușeriu, Romania
Bio: Alin Uhlmann Ușeriu is the president of Tășuleasa Social Association – a Romanian NGO that has been involved in environmental, social, educational and cultural activities in the country for over 23 years – and the initiator and main coordinator of Via Transilvanica, Romania’s first and longest long-distance trail.
About Via Transilvanica: Via Transilvanica is a long distance trail, crossing Romania in a diagonal for over 1,400 kilometers and it’s dedicated to walking, biking and horse riding. It is a Tășuleasa Social project that was entirely built with private funds and voluntary work and a strong collaboration with national institutions, authorities and organisations. It was designed as a trail that would unite people in their diversity and authenticity. The motto of this route is “the road that unites”. Alin Ușeriu, its creator, together with the team at Tășuleasa Social wanted a road to uncover Romania and represent its rich heritage across the Globe. The idea was to celebrate the ethnic, cultural, historical, natural and geographical diversity of the country, which is still a mystery for the world, to create an honest ambassador of this country, not just to people abroad, but to Romanians as well. In order to love your own country, you need to truly discover it, with the good and the bad, accept it and immerse yourself in it. And a change of perspective was. Step by step. For 1,400 kilometers, 107 administrative territorial units, villages, towns and natural scenery. With all the time in the world to absorb all these lessons. Moreover, Via Transilvanica provides rural areas of the country, that are otherwise depopulated and mostly poor, with economic opportunities through slow tourism that is of no harm to the communities or the natural environment. Via Transilvanica was proposed in 2018 and four and a half years later it was already marked and hikers have beaten its tracks, their numbers reaching the tens of thousands. Its unique kilometer stones, individually carved, are not just for signaling, but they have become an outdoors art exhibition, which differentiates Via Transilvanica from other similar trails across the Globe. Nowadays, Via Transilvanica is undergoing a maintenance, improvement and promotional phase, whose aim is to perfect all the adjacent elements of such a project and to make it known worldwide.