The forest Hoia Baciu

The Hoia Forest is a forest located west of the city of Cluj-Napoca, near the Village Museum. The forest is used as a recreational site. In recent years a Bike Park has been set up and other sports such as paintball, airsoft or archery are practiced in the area. There are some talks about the fact that in Hoia Forest, as in the Baciu forest, there will be paranormal phenomena, an idea that attracts to the area practitioners of yoga, Wicca and paranormal amateurs.

The forest has an area of ​​295 hectares. The southern edge begins from a V-E hilly crest. It does not cover the steep south slope of the hill, from the Someşul Mic River. To the north, the forest descends on the smoothest slope to the valley of the Nadas River.

To the east it is bordered by the Turquoise Cut [1], an artificial valley that cuts the hill from the south to the north, through which a road passes. To the west, the forest ends on the northeast slope of the Silence Hill, near the Mujai Forest that stretches westward. To the south of the forest flows the Bongar valley, where there is a relict of oak fluff, specific to the southern steppe. The north-eastern part of the forest is bordered by the Long Valley, passing through Eocene limestone and forming the Baciu Gorge, a valley with asymmetrical slopes (the northern part is rocky and steep, with fossil rock, which has been declared a natural reserve, southern is occupied by the Hoia Forest). A small natural lake, not too deep, is upstream of the Bacian Gulf, at the edge of the forest. Several springs with high flow and drinking water spring to the northern edge of the forest in the Long Valley. Hoia Hills (506 m) and St. Paul are the highest points in the area.

Archaeological discoveries
To the north of the Lung Valley was discovered the oldest Neolithic settlement on the territory of Romania (6500 BC) belonging to the Starčevo-Criş culture, with graves and dwellings researched between 1960 and 1994 by the archaeologists N. Vlassa and Gh. Lazarovici.

Paranormal phenomena from Hoia
Hoia is known in the world for the frequency with which various paranormal phenomena appear here. In 1968, a Cluj player photographed a UFO in Poiana Rotunda, the photographs being among the few of these genuinely, in the opinion of the specialists. Since the 1960s, biology professor Alexandru Sift has been studying the luminous, magnetic and radiological phenomena that take place here.

He gathered a rich collection of photos of phenomena, which was mysteriously lost a few days after the late teacher's death in 1993, stolen by some unknown individuals and taken to the scum. The few remaining photos were published in 1995 in the book "Forest Hoia-Baciu Phenomena" by Adrian Patruţ, a professor of chemistry at Babeş-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca and Sift's friend. Patruţ continued Sift's research and claims that strange phenomena have an insufficiently studied scientific basis. However, the Hoia phenomena have resulted in the emergence of many urban legends in the area of ​​Cluj, many people visiting the forest in the hope that they will be able to capture such a phenomenon.

Tourist spots
Hoia began in the sec. XX to show tourist interest. In Cheile Baciului there is a cabin with bar and restaurant, which is reached by a road that departs from DN1F after leaving Cluj-Napoca to Baciu commune.

Access can also be made from the Turquoise Cut, on a ridge road. The Transylvanian Ethnographic Museum of Transylvania, with its various traditional wooden houses and churches, extends to the west of the Tetürura Turc, right on the northeastern edge of the forest. The forest can also be reached on steep streets that climb to the woods of the Grigorescu District, south of it.

In the weekend the eastern part of the forest is frequented by tourists coming out to relax. Unfortunately, a few stripes of the forest have been cut off in recent years. Some people think that the luminous occurrences here are related to the trees.