Welcome to Fairville

Fairville, Romania is what you may call the travelling village. Can be found in any county and almost at any time, but it usually thrives on holidays and saint days. A gathering of stalls and amusements for public entertainment or a periodic get-together for the sale of goods or a market of livestock and agricultural products – Fairville is any and all of these. Its notable inhabitants are craftsmen, its residents, merchants, fiddlers and grill masters. Its visitors, dressed to impress – many in their Sunday best or their wardrobe’s coolest, guys in visibly branded t-shirts, girls in bright, clashing colours and high heels. All unavoidably covered in glitter and grime. I first took photographs at a Romanian fair in 2008. It was Fairville Rosiorii de Vede. Since then, I’ve travelled around the country, to Dragomiresti, Fieni, Lapusani, Calarasi, Pietrari, Galicea and many others, looking for Fairville’s interesting people and charming moments. I quickly understood that Fairville is the place to first-hand witness the modernizing of Romanian traditions and rural culture. Fairville isn’t what it used to be. Like all things, it is being modernised. But even though it seems to lose its authenticity with every passing day, it also inherits a new kind of charm. At the end of the day, Fairville is picturesque.