In the Horodnicul de Jos village, Suceava County, lives one of the most passionate promoters of the positive sciences in the rural areas: Dimitrie Olenici fell in love with the night skyline since his early childhood, went on to study physics and on his retirement set up one of the few private night sky observatories in Romania.

“As any other child living in the countryside I was fascinated by the beauty of the night sky. I recall to this day how my father took me in his arms, when I was around four or five years old, to show me a comet that was visible in the East, “ says Olenici, while tinkering on something at the Suceava Planetarium.

Later on, as a school boy, I wandered the fields along my father – he was guarding the farm fields at the time – and while I laid on my back on a bed of hay built up in the cart we traveled in, I gazed at the night sky. I did not know then that the “falling stars” I watched were in fact comets out of the Perseid stream. We talked about the stars and the legends their names carried, and I dreamed of having one day my own telescope,” recalls Olenici.

Now his dream came true, and he continues to watch the stars, accompanied by people who come to his countryside planetarium.

Olenici worked for almost 30 years as curator-astronomer at the Planetarium in Suceava. This is a ZKP2 model and, at 80 seats – the largest hall of all planetariums in Romania.

But Olenici took his love of stars one step further with painting the ceiling of his apartment with mythological characters depicting various stars in the sky. He went on to build his own, private astronomic observatory in his native village of Horodnicul de Jos, on a wide stripe of land that also accommodates a pond and a vegetable garden.

Each year in August, the Olenicis host the Perseid's Festival in Horodni