The Cetate Cultural Port was born on the ruins of the former agricultural port, which appeared around 1880, at a time when wheat could not grow, as it does today and when the Viennese croissant was even made with flour brought by paddle boats from Cetate. In 1945, the port was closed and turned into a border guard post, the adventure of the grain took an unexpected turn, in the direction to Moscow. Almost one thousand grain merchants registered in this port in 1900, among them many Greeks and Jews, were forced to emigrate or later together with the Romanian merchants filled the communist prisons. After the 1989 revolution, the port command building, built by Italian craftsmen, was demolished by the locals and reduced to a shelter for twelve piglets and two cows. In 1997 Mircea Dinescu managed to buy and transform the ruin into a creative house. Instead with wheat they tried to fill the barns with sculptors, writers, painters and musicians, and because the Romanian government had launched the Dracula Parc brand on the market, for the sake of controversy they also initiated, on the banks of the Danube, an Angel Park, starting from the premise that Romania was not only the headquarters of the devil, but was also haunted by angels, at least on the edges. In the town of Cetate, neighboring Bulgaria and only a few kilometers from the Serbian border, it is said that roosters sing in three languages – Serbian, Bulgarian and Romanian. So the idea of a multinational cultural harbor fit like a glove. The kilns for firing ceramics compete with the kilns in which the rams from the farm of the poet who fell into agriculture are roasted, and the fiery tirades of the foreign authors invited to the colloquiums are extinguished with noble wines from their own production.
Now the Cultural port of Cetate is an open-air museum with great exhibition and works also as guesthouse and restaurant. It’s the place of many film festivals and painters plenums.