Şant, Bistrita - Năsăud, 1896
Found on the valley of Someșul Mare, Șanț is one of the 44 villages that were part of the Second Border Regiment, founded in 1762 by Empress Maria Theresa. In exchange for the military service rendered, the border guards were free people who did not pay taxes and with the right to use 10 ha from the village lands. Their obligations were to protect the Transylvanian border in times of peace and to fight together with the Habsburg army in times of war. They also had a sanitary role, in case of quarantine for contagious diseases.
To illustrate these villages from the Năsăud county during the 18th and 19th centuries, in 1936 was transferred in the Village Museum the home of Mălian Grapini. The house, dated in 1876, is built on a high stone socle, with walls made of apparent fir beams, interlocked in dovetail joints. The hipped high roof has the covering made of straight shingles. On the façade, an exterior staircase leads to a veranda with pillars and parapet on three sides. The eye is drawn to the two entrance doors, signalling the ability to split the house, if needed.
The house plan includes a median foyer, flanked by two large rooms, each with a pantry on the back side. In the anteroom without ceiling the smoke from the hearth rose freely, facilitating the conservation of the materials of the roof and of the bacons hanged up in wood hooks. Here took place the household activities illustrated by the numerous tools and utensils for the kitchen or the home textile industry. The living room (“the small house”), sober and functional, has a complex heating system made of the free hearth with chimney, oven and the cookstove. The furniture (a bed, a table, a settle, a dish cabinet), placed along the walls, creates an optimum space for the day to day activity. In the guest room (“the parade house”), the interest centre is represented by the dowry stacked up to the ceiling “based on how hardworking the women were and how wealthy the family”.
