The research team from the Rom(a)Nor Interferences project met the Roma blacksmith Maltezu Dumitru in the village of Viișoara. He was kind enough to reveal some aspects of his past and present, regarding both his craft and his family.
Mr. Maltezu Dumitru comes from a Roma family, originally from the village of General Scarișoreanu (in the past Enghez – in Turkish Engez), today belonging to the Amzacea commune.
As in other cases, the history of the Maltezu family also went through bad periods; thus, in the period 1940-1943, Mr. Maltezu Dumitru's parents were deported to Transnistria, where, by the way, one of his brothers was born. The second half of the 20th century finds the Maltezu family in the center of Viișoara village, in the "old house", as Mr. Maltezu calls it. This home also had a blacksmith workshop, where the blacksmith's father worked and where the blacksmith D. Maltezu took his first "lessons" from his father; at the age of 7 he was "pulling" the calves, helping his father. At that time the Maltezu family consisted of the blacksmith's parents plus four children, all boys: Mr. D. Maltezu plus his three brothers. The grandfather, the father and three of the four brothers took care of the blacksmith trade.
His father had numerous blacksmith and farrier orders, even if he also worked within the C.A.P. as an employee, also at the blacksmith shop; 5 blacksmiths worked at that forge, four of whom were Roma (his father, brother, an uncle - cousin with the father, another villager). The only Romanian blacksmith had also learned the craft from the Roma; the Roma Turks were not blacksmiths having other "specialties", some of them making tin gutters and downspouts.
The father of the blacksmith made various things: axes, sickles, spades, ploughs, harrows, carts, wheels for carriages and wagons (the metal part), sleds for the winter and obviously, horseshoes for horses, oxen and even donkeys; he worked on a sleigh for the winter for about a week and on a wagon almost two. He made the sleds and wagons to order, according to the model requested by the customer. Sometimes he even worked on the wooden components of the means of transport.
Almost all the Romanian villagers, Turks, Roma, Tatars from the locality and from other localities called on his father's services. At that time the blacksmith was an indispensable man, respected and well seen in the community.
The tools used were the well-known ones: larger and smaller hammers, sledgehammers, tongs, chisels, mandrels, anvils, sheets (sheets).
The blacksmith from Viișoara, Maltezu Dumitru (b. 1950), has been living since 2000 in a house built by him, located on a plot of land he received from an aunt; he sold the old house in the center of the village after renovation. He is married to Mrs. Rubeaua Maltezu (65 years old), a Bulgarian Roma, having together 4 children (two boys and two girls) from whom 7 grandchildren resulted; the children did not want to follow the father's trade, even if one of the boys sometimes helps his father, living in the immediate vicinity of the parental household.
The Maltese blacksmith Dumitru
Ms. Maltezu Rubeaua, presenting the home
His brother Nicolae (b. 1943) worked for many years at I.M.U.M. (Medgidia Metallurgical Enterprise) and the eldest brother (1936–2008) worked for a long time at the C.A.P.'s blacksmith shop and in particular as a blacksmith - farrier. Mr. Dumitru Maltezu and another of his brothers were employed as drivers for state companies. The blacksmith from Viișoara worked as a driver for 35 years then, in 2010, he retired. Before the age of 25, he worked in a blacksmith's shop, then, from 1975 to 2005, as a driver at an enterprise (company) dealing with irrigation and for the last 5 years he had the same occupation (driver) at the brickyard in Cobadin; the brickyard originally belonged to the state, later to an owner from Bucharest (about 7-8 years), who had bought it, and during the period Mr. Maltezu worked, it belonged to a Turk from Istanbul, the new owner (more than 300 people worked there).
During the time he worked as a driver, Mr. Maltezu sometimes did private blacksmithing work, later, from 2010 (after retirement), continuing the craft of blacksmithing and farriery in his own household equipped with a workshop.
Today the Maltezu Dumitru rum is the only blacksmith in the commune; until a few years ago there was a blacksmith, a Tatar, in Cobadin, but he, as he got older, stopped working.
Maltezu Dumitru – the craftsman
The smithy workshop of the Roma craftsman from Viișoara is located inside his own household; it does not have impressive dimensions, about 3m/3m, but enough to practice his profession from the year 2000 until now. To help with his work, Mr. Maltezu also made a yoke for horseshoes ("tin" he calls it) next to his workshop.
D. Maltese in front of his workshop
The "tin" of the blacksmith
The craftsman's smithy, a wooden construction, is equipped with all the necessary things: forge, cowhide foals (left over from the older brother but used by both his father and grandfather), anvil; to these "fixed means" are added all kinds of tools used by the blacksmith: mandrels, sledgehammers, pliers, drills, various hammers, chisels, knives for cleaning the horse's hooves, rasps and others. He also has some woodworking tools (knives, planer), left over from his father, but which he no longer uses. Sporadically he also works with wood, especially when he has to put tails on some tools. If he has requests, he makes iron tools such as axes or hoes. In the case of the axe, explained Mr. Maltezu, it is the iron introduced into the fire, then "stretched", later hardened, then sharpened.
Mister. Maltese referring to realizarea uneltelor din fier
The blacksmith from Viișoara, working the wheels
Mr. Maltezu uses coke for fire: after "using it at the plant", he says, the blacksmith takes it and uses it; it has less toxic gases. In the past, hard coal was used; it was bought from the state and was better, not being toxic, adds the blacksmith. Tempering is done in water or burnt oil. The good quality one is made in burnt oil; perfect tempering generates a bluish color and calls it "pigeon goiter". Tools made from corrugated iron are no longer tempered. In the case of cast iron (alloy) axes, whose tails are made of wood, the process of putting them in the fire, then tempering, is no longer applied to them, because, the blacksmith says, due to the carbon content, put in the fire it cracks.
In the case of larger and more urgent works, carts or even fences, he was associated with one or two blacksmiths to complete the work on time: for example, a cart on which two blacksmiths worked was completed in almost two weeks; work was being done on the metal elements of the cart, all made with the client's material. Regarding the wheels, Mr. Maltezu also caught the times when they were made of wood (with a metal rail), but more recently rubber ones are used (as in vehicles).
The range of metal products made by the Roma blacksmith Dumitru Maltezu is relatively diverse but, both in the past and in the present, the most requests are for making horseshoes and horseshoeing.
Farrier Dumitru Maltezu - work technique
Perhaps surprisingly, even in recent years Mr. Maltezu worked quite frequently shoeing horses; says that only in Viișoara there are around 15 horses, but he also has requests from other localities in this regard. The Romanian blacksmith and farrier Dumitru Maltezu was kind enough to briefly describe the process of shoeing a horse.
Usually, the blacksmith already has the horseshoes forged ahead of time. The first operation he does is to fasten (tie) the horse to the "stănoaga" (a wooden frame located near the workshop). Mr. Maltezu almost always figures out the size of the hoof, he says, but puts the horseshoe over the horse's hoof (after the old, damaged shoe is removed) to check the measurement. Next, the blacksmith cleans the hoof and the "swallow" of the leg, while the owner of the animal holds it; "swallow", also called fork or maia, is a piece of horn in the shape of an angle with the tip forward, softer and more flexible, like rubber, which is inside the hoof and has the role of cushioning the shocks of the horse's tread (walking).
The farrier Mr. Maltezu presenting some tools / right: horseshoes made in the workshop
There are two ways to fix the horse's horseshoes: if the owner wants "warm" horseshoes, the horseshoe is reddened in the fire, then applied to the hoof forming a niche of the respective shape, and if the owner opts for "cold" horseshoes, then the farrier fixes them without to redden them on fire (raw); if the second variant is applied, the horseshoe must be "polished" (filed) thoroughly to fit properly but it resists less compared to the one reddened in the fire (however, it depends on the frequency of use of the horse).
After applying the "warm" horseshoe to the hoof, remove it and let it cool, then clean it respecting the recess formed by the hot horseshoe. The next operation, after cooling the horseshoe and cleaning the hooves, is fixing the horseshoe (the horseshoes are beaten), then the "finishing" is done: the surplus is removed (with pliers and a rasp) around the horseshoe. The last horse shod, two weeks ago, was that of a person (former village shepherd) from Casicea - Amzacea commune. The price requested by Mr. D. Maltezu, for the complete shoeing of a horse, is 80 lei.
If a horse has hard (dry) hooves and cannot be worked satisfactorily, using the hoof knife, hot (reddened) horseshoes are used; usually, horses over 10-11 years old have stronger hooves, but if they are softer, work with a knife. A horse with strong hooves, says Mr. Maltezu, can go a year without horseshoes, if it is not used very often. Another clarification is the one made by the same rum blacksmith, regarding the tool called raspel: in recent years this tool is sometimes replaced by another electric one called flex (angle grinder); the substitution is intended to make the farrier's job easier, but it cannot be used in all situations because younger horses become frightened, while older horses are used to the noises.
In terms of working time, each hoof takes about 30-40 minutes, but, Mr. Maltezu adds, it also depends on the hoof: horses that are shod more often take less time, horses that are rarely shod require more work. The recommendation is to shoe the animal at a time interval of about three months (the front horseshoes wear out faster) in the case of daily use. There are situations in which, due to the negligence of the owner, the horse is not shod for a year or even more, thus the duration of the shod increases; Mr. Maltezu recently faced such a case, shoeing the horse reaching 6 hours.
Regarding the materials used to make the horseshoes, the blacksmith rum says that they use the horseshoe (thin iron rail); he buys this from specialist shops in 6 meter lengths (20mm x 8mm), then cuts it on site into smaller pieces to be able to transport it. Very rarely, when he does not have such material, the blacksmith obtains the wagon wheel rail horseshoes from his own stock. The cailles, of several types, are bought from the market, from Bessarabian citizens, for the price of 100 lei per box containing 250 pieces.
In his activity as a farrier, Mr. Maltezu was sometimes helped by his wife, Mrs. Rubeaua Maltezu (called Jenica) but, due to health problems, she can no longer get involved.
He does not work on Sundays, says Mr. Maltezu (Orthodox by denomination), and if there is an emergency, after a minimal intervention, he postpones the work until Monday or Tuesday.
Aspects from the end of the interview with the blacksmith from Viișoara
