Julien Pebrel - Sulina / Insula — Julien Pebrel

Sulina - Insula

Photos : Julien Pebrel / Myop || Text available by Anaïs Coignac

One of the numerous branches of the Danube Delta near Sulina

Marian lives in Sulina, he often hangs around the streets in search of a cigarette or a petty job. He sometimes helps to unload the boat arriving from Tulcea. He lives with his father in a run-down apartment.

The village extend from both sides of the Danube. A boat makes the link for 0,5 Lei. The ferrymen, employed by the owners of the boats, take over from each other all along the week. A day each, rowing for the unlucky ones who don't have an engine.

In the village of Cardon, Mihai, a fisherman, is drinking homemade wine.

Marian's brother is helping out the parish priest during mass. He is also singing.

A cheerleader at Jean Bart highschool in Sulina. Jean Bart is the pseudonym of the Romanian writer Eugeniu Botez. He wrote the novel Europolis, which tells the heyday of Sulina.

In one of the squats of Sulina.

In the Niki Bar, a woman who lives on the other bank of the Danube came to drink a coffee.

Fire in the Danube delta near Sulina.

Boat carcass in the small lagoon of Sulina at the end of the village, it is waiting to be boned. This place is a UNESCO heritage site, the area is protected and fishing is regulated there.

Sulina beach. It is the principal attraction of the city with the delta. Young people from Sulina

View from the inside of the boat that links up Sulina to Tulcea via the Danube.

Young people from Sulina discuss after the traditional Greek dancing lessons. The Greek community is one of the community which arrived at the time of the European Commission for the Danube.

At the gate of the canal the link the Danube to the Black Sea.

The harvest of the reeds is a traditional activity in the delta.

Inside a ruin of the shipyard.

Mihai, sometimes works in summer with tourists for boating on the Danube.

Sulina, the european Far-East / One of the branches of the Danube that goes deep on the delta from Sulina

A boat is mooring in Sulina. It waits the morning to leave.

The last workers of the construction are cutting up some old boats to sell the steel. They were thousands workers in the past. Today the construction is updating in order to restart its activities.

Iulian Ivancencu, fisherman. The nostaligia of communism is usual among the older. The primary goods were easier to find and the isolation of Sulina sheltered it from the pression of the secret police.

On one of the branches of the Danube that goes deep on the delta from Sulina. There are less inhabitants living in this part of Sulina.

Jean Bart high school. Most of the sulinian young people see their future outside the city, in Bucarest, Galati, or even farer to continue their life

The period when the delta was quiet and full of fishes is still in the memories. Today, the development of tourism, the only way to bring money there, worries in terms of environment.

Sulina beach. It is the principal attraction of the city with the delta

In Sulina, typical communist building stand along with traditional little houses

The Sulina beach

Sulina beach. It is the principal attraction of the city with the delta. Young Moldavians in vacation.

A barge just arrived with wood for the city.

In Rosetti village, young people are loading hay.

An old boat at the gate of the village of Sfitofsca.

A fisherman from Sulina in the Rosu lacul. He sells his fishes to the restaurateurs of the city, and to a little shop on the market place.

Young people playing pool in the "Tip Top" bar in Sulina

Young people from the romanian diaspora are welcomed by a government program in Romania. Sulina has been choosed for its calm, its beach and its security

Varvara in her house, in the village of Cardon, not far from Sulina. She died a few weeks after the photo.

A farmer in Sulina

Valentin Baraliteanu decided to pay all his taxes to be allowed to become a fisherman. Once all this money is deduce, he cannot earn his life anymore with this work. During the communism, he was a musician for the mariages and the officials parties.

Carpets cleaning along the Danube in Sulina

The market place, Sulina

Even if the inhabitants wants Sulina to be called a city, it stays mainly rural

Mamaliga, the traditional dish in Romania

Nicu, a former sailor, today he's retired and fisherman

At one of the orthodox churches of Sulina

A funeral in one of the orthodox churches of Sulina

On the early evening, the boats are waiting for the sun to come up and the fog to go away to take the sea.

On the Black sea shore, at the km 0 of the Danube, Sulina is a mythic place, a former porto franco with a cosmopolitan past, a place you can only reach by boat and where the time seems to flow differently...