Winners of RRI's Contest "Romania's Salt Mine Spas"

Hello and welcome to this special edition of Traveler’s Guide devoted to the winners of the contest “Romania’s Salt Mine Spas” which ran on RRI between September 15th 2012 and February 28th 2013. The contest focused on one of Romania’s main mineral resources, salt, which has both economic and health importance, given the therapeutic qualities of salty air.

The contest has proved to be of great interest to RRI’s listeners and we have received 429 correct answers! We thank you all very much for this and invite you to participate in other contests RRI will organize in the future.

The Grand Prize is a 10 day trip for two, with full board accommodation for 9 nights, between 15th and 24th May 2013, in four different areas in Romania that are famous for their salt mines: Slanic Prahova (in Prahova County), Targu Ocna (in Bacau County), Praid (in Harghita County) and Turda (in Cluj County).

The sponsors of our competition are SC Salina Turda Durgau SA and Pensiunea Elena and Motel Anda in Targu Ocna. Our contest partners are the Bacau County Council, the Prahova County Council, the Ploiesti City Hall, the Turda City Hall, the Harghita Intercommunity Development Association, the Metropolitan Bishopric of Cluj, Alba, Crisana and Maramures, The National Salt Company SA, including its branches in Targu Ocna, Slanic Prahova and Praid, as well as the Ploiesti, Bacau and Turda branches of the Union of Fine Artists, the Harghita County Cultural Centre, the Turda Municipal House of Culture, the Tudor Jarda Arts and the Crafts School in Cluj-Napoca. These partners will offer prizes to those listeners who did not win the grand prize.

From RRI’s broadcasts, website and Facebook and Twitter profiles you could find the answers to the contest questions.

Before announcing the winners let’s go through the questions once again:

1. For how long can Romania cover its salt consumption from domestic reserves? The correct answer is: one thousand years.

2. Name at least three salt mine spas in Romania. You could have chosen from among the following: Ocna Sibiului, Turda, Ocnele Mari, Ocna Mureş, Slănic Prahova, Târgu Ocna, Ocna Dej, Slănic Moldova, Praid, Cacica.

3. What is the name of the treatment using the curative properties of salty air? Correct answer: speleotherapy.
4. What salt mine spas will be visited by the winners of the Grand Prize? The correct answer is: Slănic Prahova, Târgu Ocna, Praid, Turda.

Now it’s time to announce the winners. We have 30 honorable mentions who went to the following listeners and Internet users of RRI: Oana Apostol, of Romania, Farid Boumechaal, of Algeria, Abdel Naser Mohamad Rashad Kamel, from Egipt, Ferhat Bezazel, Algeria (a listener of the German language programs), Jikuang, He Xige, Daying and Ji Mingzhuo, all 4 from China, Giorgio Borsier, Alessandra Bedendo, Luca Zazzeri, Emiliano Andrea Busnelli, Massimo de Muro and Giancarlo Severini, all 6 from Italy, Juan Antonio Morales, Spania, Maikel Viltrés Estrada, Cuba, Adervall Lima Gómez, Henrique José Dantas Felinto and Jose Roberto da Silva Cunha, all 3 from Brazil, Denis Ullmann and Claude Unsinger, both from France, Nikolai Matveev, Anatoli Dorofeev, Nikolai Popov and Pavel Pucikov, all 4 from Russia, Ian Morrison, of China, and Rafi Md. Nazmus Sadat, of Bangladesh, Hans Verner Lollike, of Denmark, Brian Kendall, of Great Britain and the winner of the grand prize of the previous contest on RRI “My Cultural Bucharest” Robert C. Ackx, of the Netherlands.

RRI’s old friend Hand Verner Lollike wrote the following: “Each RRI contest gives me new knowledge about Romania. To know is to love”.

RRI also grants 30 3rd prizes that went to the following RRI broadcasts’ listeners and Internet users: Volodimir Sytnikov, of Ukraine, Abdelilah Izou, from Morroco, Georg Pleschberg of Austria, Peter Lakati, from Hungary (a listener of the German language programs of RRI), Li Ming, Xue Fei, Yu Hongyan and Zhi Yanjiao, all 4 from China, Agide Melloni and Maria Chiara Fresco, both from Italy, José Balbino Cruz Menjivar of Costa Rica, Antonio Ángel Morilla Ríos, of Spain, Osvaldo Gomez González, Cuba, Víctor Gutiérrez, Panama, Djefel Djilali, from Algeria, and Samba Ba, of Senegal (both listeners of the French language programs), Naved D. Raiyan, Chitturi Sowmya, Rajesh Chandwani, Surendra Kumar, all 4 from India, Stu Taylor, Steven Handler and Alvarez Galloso, all 3 from the USA, S.J. Agboola and Ayeni Adedayo, both from Nigeria, Fachri, from Indonesia, Aziz Nasir, of Pakistan, Didarul Iqbal of Bangladesh, Henk Poortvliet from the Netherlands and Krzysztof Borski of Poland.

Ayeni Adedayo, our friend from Nigeria, wrote the following: “I heard about the competition while listening to Radio Romania International (RRI) because I am ardent listener of RRI via my radio world receiver on short wave. What motivated me to take part in the competition is that am a food engineer and I love going to places with great history attached to them like salt mine spas in Romania. Embarking on this great excursion will serve as eye opener for me about salt mine spas, which we don't have in my country. Traveling to Romania to see the salt spas will also help me in my discipline as a food engineer. Thank you, for accepting my entry.”

Henk Poortvliet of the Netherlands wrote: “Once again it is a great pleasure to me to take part in one of your nice contests. As usual my great interest in your country has motivated me to take part again. Besides your informative broadcasts and website I have read in one of the books about Romania which I have got from your radio station in 2006 when visiting you at your office.”

Now the 2nd prizes. There are 30 such prizes of which some will go to the following RRI broadcasts’ listeners and Internet users: Amela Omerspahici Jakubovici, Bosnia Herzegovina, Romanian-born Liviu Şandor, from Germany, Manuela Peanci, from Romania, a listener of the Aromanian language programs, Volodimir Bondar of Ukraine, Ben Chohra Ali, from Algeria, Adam Mohamad Gibril, Sudan, Michael Lindner and Ralf Urbanczyk, both from Germany, Li Hua, Zhou Fei, Li Xue and Huang Liqiang, all 4 from China, Gian Luca del Marco and Arianna Vailati Canta, both from Italy, Alexis Roca Ramírez, of Venezuela, Miguel Ramón Bauset (Spain), Hugo Calderón Carbajal, of Mexico, Alexei Kasatkin, Russia, Mohamed Goumidi, Algeria (a listener of the French language programs), Thein Soe of Malaysia, Mohammed Nazin, of Morroco, Weldon Wales, James Drexler, Harold Woering, Christopher R. Rumbaugh, Lee Kraig and Ryan Jeffery, all 6 from the USA, Keith A. Simmonds of France, S.B. Sharma from India and R.S. Oulton from Zimbabwe.

Let’s see what motivated Keith A. Simmonds of France to participate in the contest: “What motivated me to take part in this contest is the fact that I have always been fascinated by this great country, Romania; and participating in the competition gives me the opportunity to research and discover the beauty that it has to offer. I hope, one day, to be given the chance to visit and witness for myself the greatness of this land.”

Now it’s time to announce the winners of the 10 1st prizes: Romanian born Clemansa Ecaterina Baciu, from Italy, Leokardia Bogutska, from Ukraine, Abdel-Rahim Ait Al-Awad, of Morroco, Udo Scherbaum from Germany, Gao Junxia, from China, Paolo Valente of Italy, Alexandr Abramov from Russia, Mogire Machuki of Kenya, a listener of the English language broadcasts, Jacques Giraud of France and Nouari Naghmouchi from Algeria, a listener of the French language broadcasts. Here is what Mogire Machuki from Kenya wrote to us: “Well, it’s another heartbreaking contest from you, at RRI. As always, I enjoyed taking part in the contest, because here in my country, Kenya, media houses rarely speak of Romania, and we know very little about this fascinating European country. What cheered me up is that Romania has salt reserves that will last one thousand years from now. However, what has impressed me most is the way in which these salt mines can be used to cure allergies, asthma and bronchitis, by inhaling air in the underground salt mines. Speleotherapy has stirred me up, since here in Kenya we have thousands of cases of allergies and asthma and bringing that technology to a country like Kenya will be of much use.”

We also have 16 special prizes which will go to the following RRI listeners and Internet users: Gennadiy Reşetnik from Ukraine, Abdel Kader Hasan Abdel Kader of Egypt Egipt, Khalil Abdel-Kader frm Algeria, Joe Leyder from Luxemburg (a listener of the German language programs), Shan Jinhai of China, Antonella La Brocca, from Italy, Claudio Alfredo Martijena of Argentina, José Luis Corcuera Gil from Spain, Elena Kurbanova of Turkmenistan, Roman Braghin of Russia, Tracy Marvin and James Holthus, both from the USA, Richard Cooke of Great Britain, Satoshi Nishimota of Japan, Eric Mompontet and Christian Canoen both from France.

And now the long awaited moment of the program. Who are the winners of the Grand Prize? Well, they participated in the contest, gave correct and detailed answers and have won a trip to the salt mine spas of Slanic Prahova, Targu Ocna, Praid and Turda between May 15th and 24th and their names are…. ROBERTA AND JOHN SELESKY of Texas, the USA. Congratulations, see you soon in Romania.

Upon finding the news, Roberta and John wrote: “Thank you for helping to make our dreams a reality. We are beyond excited to visit the Salt Mine Spas that we never knew existed before listening to RRI.”

We thank you all once again for participating in RRI’s contest and congratulations for the winners. The prizes and honorable mentions will be sent by post. We kindly ask you to confirm by post, fax, e-mail the reception of the package and its content. Last but not least we invite you to participate in a new RRI contest that we’ll launch on March 15th.

Source: Radio Romania International (RRI)

Website link: http://www.rri.ro/art.shtml?lang=1&sec=14&art=360515