About us
Hai La Saivan
is born out of
a love story.
Everything began in spring 2011, just 3 months after Jorg and Raluca met for the very first time. During Easter, Raluca invited Jorg (who is Italian/german) to meet her parents and visit Bucovina, where she was born.
While there, they hiked up to the saivan (a traditional sheep shelter), where Raluca’s father Vistic had some wild land for 30 years or more, that he would use in the summer for the animals and to do the hay.
Once up, Jorg sat on a little milking chair and, mesmerized by the breathtaking valley view stretching before him, decided that one day something special had to be created in that place.
At first, the couple only planned to build a small cabin for themselves. But their plans changed when, by chance, in the summer of 2016 a villager offered to sell them some firewood from a traditional house to be demolished in the village of Vama.
They asked him to wait to tear the house down, and they went to see it together with Lily, Raluca’s mother.
Raluca and Jorg ended up buying it, and they decided to never cut that wood – wood that became Casa Mica.
And so began the story of these relocated traditional homes, now perched atop a mountain, as Casa Mare and Casa Foarte Mica followed in 2017 and 2018.
It took in total three and a half years of research to bring this dream to life - visiting village museums all across Romania, reading old traditional architecture books, seeking advice from family, including Raluca’s grandfather Tata Dadita and uncle Tucu, as well as consulting Sorin, a skilled woodworker who remains a key part of the Hai La Saivan team still today.
Thanks to the resilient efforts of the whole family and this team, what was an open grass field with nothing, transformed into Hai La Saivan BioRetreat&Farm as you see it today:
A traditional Bucovinean homestead, consisting of Casa Mare (the Big House), Casa Mică (the Small House), and Casa Foarte Mică (the Very Small House), overlooking the valley from the Hasnaș Hill, along with a barn for events, a beci and a foisor.
Hai La Saivan today is a place of natural beauty and authentic tradition, without filters, where you COME AS A GUEST, AND LEAVE AS A FRIEND.
We call it a BioRetreat&Farm, because it is a real Bucovina agrotourismo, a private place where to relive those childhood memories of staying at your grandparents’ home, and reconnect with nature and its wildlife, relaxing in century-old houses that also offer all the comfort of modern living.
It seamlessly blends the past with the present in a harmonious and we think simple but elegant way.
We are connected to the seasons, both for the things you can do, and the things you can eat.
Feel at home.
Hai La Saivan - Through the seasons
