Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci has teamed up with the Transylvanian Haferland Festival 50 years after she score the world’s first perfect 10 at the Montreal Olympic Games.
In a video, the star gymnast called it “a great joy to take part in the Haferland Festival,” which has been revived Saxon traditions in Transylvanian villages that look out of a fairy tale.
“I heard wonderful things about the place and how they are involved in keeping traditions alive,” Nadia Comaneci said in a video.
“I am honored that on the 50th anniversary of the perfect 10 in the history of gymnastics which changed my life (it) will be celebrated in the heart of Transylvania in the place where perfection can be found in simplicity and things done from the heart.”
She will attend this year’s festival where the theme is ‘culture and sport.’
She praised Haferland Festival founder Michael Schmidt, who was born in the area, before moving to Germany and creating one of the region’s most successful upmarket automobile businesses for his “vision and devotion to promoting the roots of the place.”
“Haferland is not just a place on the map; it is a living memory, a bridge between the past and the future. It’s not just a festival; it’s a return to what is most precious to Romania.”
The festival, now in its 14th year, is held in late July and early August across 10 villages in the heart of Romania which are home to the small but industrious Saxon community that has historically punched above its weight.
The villages are slowly recovering after years of economic and social decline in part thanks to the boost to rural tourism that Haferland has fueled and encouraged.
