Cherhana – Sopru with boats
Cherhanaua is a specialized construction, typical for the intensive fishing areas in our country: the Black Sea coast, the Danube Delta, the great Razim (Razelm), Sinoe and Babadag lakes. The need to collect large quantities of fish for sale (cherhana = trading place, in Turkish) determined the appearance of this construction type in the mentioned areas. The construction brought to the museum in 1953 is mounted on pillars and has a window on three sides - used as a wharf - with shaped pillars; the gable roof is covered with reeds in the "fish scale" technique.
The construction plan includes a large room that houses the fishing tools and vessels for receiving and semi-preserving the fish and two smaller rooms: one for preparing the black roe, and the other - the reception office. The inventory exhibited inside is rich and diverse, including almost all the traditional fishing tools: the "cloncul" for catfish fishing, the "hallaul" for catching small fish, the "carmacele" for sturgeons, prostovoales, nets, winches, nets, nets. Perfectly adapted to existing fish species, all these tools and utensils also illustrate the evolution of fishing technology over time.
The boat shed is an indispensable construction for the cherhanala, where the boats were sheltered during the winter but also during the fishing prohibition period. It is a simple construction consisting of poles stuck in the ground and a wooden crown (cosoroabe) placed on their ends, over which the frame is fixed, which includes rafters and ropes. The pitched roof has low slopes, the covering being made of reed beaten "Lipoveneste", to "piaptăn".
The boats (lotci, pods) were sheltered with their hulls up, stacked in two-three rows, supported on horizontal beams. It was also the place where fishermen repaired their boats by filling the cracks with reeds and melted pitch, a technique called "caulking" and repaired the cracks.
The fishing boats were of several categories, having different names depending on their size and capacity: 18-32-ton sloop, 16-18 ton capacity; the escort with 23 crivaces; raspasnic with 16 – 18 crivacs; dinghy for trawling, boatman, dinghy, sailboat, edec.
