Tichilești is a

leper colony A leper colony, also known by many other names, is an isolated community for the quarantining and treatment of lepers, people suffering from leprosy. '' M. leprae'', the bacterium responsible for leprosy, is believed to have spread from East ...

Isaccea Isaccea () is a small town in Tulcea County, in Northern Dobruja, Romania, on the right bank of the Danube, 35 km north-west of Tulcea. According to the 2021 census, it has a population of 4,408. The town has been inhabited for thousands o ...

Tulcea County Tulcea County () is a county (județ) of Romania, in the historical region Dobruja, with the capital city at Tulcea. It includes in its northeast corner the large and thinly-populated estuary of the Danube. Demographics In 2021, Tulcea Coun ...

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

, having 9 inhabitants in 2019. Although officially a hospital, Tichilești appears to be more like a small village, and is formally administered as a village by Isaccea. Tichilești was founded as a monastery, in 1875 becoming a leper colony.

Name

Tichilești's name is derived from the Turkish name of the settlement, ''Tekeli'' is derived from the Turkish word ''

teke Teke or Tekke can refer to: People * Teke (tribe), a tribe of southern Turkmenistan * Teke people or Bateke, a Central African ethnic group * Fatih Tekke (born 1977), Turkish footballer * Kent Tekulve (born 1947), American baseball player Places ...

'', meaning "he-goat".

History

Tichilești was founded as a monastery, in 1875 becoming a

.Roger Boyes, "Europe's last outcasts of a biblical terror", ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' 1 November 2003 A legend says the monastery was founded by one of the

Cantacuzino The House of Cantacuzino (; ) is a Romanian aristocratic family of Greek origin. The family gave a number of princes to Wallachia and Moldavia, and it claimed descent from a branch of the Byzantine Kantakouzenos family, specifically from Byzanti ...

princesses who was affected by leprosy. Another theory of the history the settlement is that a group of Russian refugees (see

Lipovans The Lipovans or Lippovans are ethnic Russians, Russian Old Believers living in Romania, Ukraine, Moldova and Bulgaria who settled in the Principality of Moldavia, in the east of the Principality of Wallachia (Muntenia), and in the regions of D ...

) settled there and founded the monastery, but soon became outlaws who were eventually caught."Ultimul lazaret"
in ''

Ziua ''Ziua'' ('', The Day'') was a major Romanian daily newspaper published in Bucharest. It was published in Romanian, with a fairly sizeable and often informative English section. ''Ziua'' was founded in 1994 by , eventually becoming foreign-owned ...

'' March 21, 2006 In 1918, for unknown reasons, a part of the lepers moved to Largeanca, near the Bessarabian town of

Ismail In the biblical Book of Genesis, Ishmael (; ; ; ) is the first son of Abraham. His mother was Hagar, the handmaiden of Abraham's wife Sarah. He died at the age of 137. Traditionally, he is seen as the ancestor of the Arabs. Within Islam, Ish ...

, while the rest of them being allegedly killed and their bodies being burned or thrown in a lime pit. Following a 1926 newspaper article by F. Brunea-Fox, a journalist who lived with the lepers for three weeks, a hospital was built in 1928 at the monastery. The houses and the central courtyard were built in the 1930s. In July 1932, a group of 25 starving lepers from Tichilești threatened to march to

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ) is the capital and largest city of Romania. The metropolis stands on the River Dâmbovița (river), Dâmbovița in south-eastern Romania. Its population is officially estimated at 1.76 million residents within a greater Buc ...

and entered the town of Isaccea demanding food. Local grocers and farmers had stopped supplying them food because the government had not been providing funding. The Isacceans barred their houses until the military escorted the lepers back to their colony. Initially, the lepers were not allowed to leave the colony. This changed in 1991, but many residents, who had lived most of their lives in the colony, continued living there."Europe's last leper colony lives on"

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

, November 6, 2001 European Union funds came to Tichilești in the decade following the year 2000, and they were able to install bathrooms, refrigerators, and satellite television, and to put air-conditioners in the canteen.

Demographics

The last case of leprosy in Romania was diagnosed in 1981 and the age of the patients in Tichilești in 2002 ranged between 37 and 90, most of them having an age of more than 60 years. In Tichilești there are two churches, an Orthodox one and a Baptist one. A cure for leprosy has been known for a long time, however the disease was too advanced for these people who live in Tichilești. As a result they were not cured but it made it no longer contagious. As of 2023 there are still nine people living at the colony, most of whom are very elderly.

Population

* 1930: 200 * 1998: 39 * 2002: 22 * 2011: 19 * 2017: 10 * 2019: 9 * 2023: 9

References

External links

* IMDB
Geschichten aus dem Lepratal
a 2002 German documentary about the village. * IMDB
Hudiceva kolonija (Devil's Colony)
a 2006 Slovenian documentary about the village. {{DEFAULTSORT:Tichilesti, Tulcea Hospitals in Romania Hospital buildings completed in 1928 Leper colonies Isaccea Hospitals established in 1875 Buildings and structures in Tulcea County 1875 establishments in Romania