From the 160-year history of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, today we present to you a fragment of a unique manuscript developed in 1890 by the then director of the Diplomatic Archives, N. D. Popescu, entitled “Historical Essay on the Creation and Organization of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.” This manuscript represents the first approach to of the history of the institutional organization of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, edited by our colleague, Ms. Minister-Counselor Dr. Monika Yota, together with young historians from Iași, Andrii Bordeianu and Stefan Krecun.

“Beshli, Tatars, cavaliers, Lypians and all the couriers and olyakari who similarly delivered from one area to another were not office workers, but simply simple couriers who crossed the country on crosses and kurmezishes. ordered to transmit to the various governors in the counties the orders of the heads of departments and who several times a month went to Constantinople and brought thence the correspondence of the Governors with their Gates or their hoods.

During the time of earthly rule, these couriers were recruited from the ranks of the army, from among the aproz, elite horsemen and dorobants or darabans, leading foot soldiers, but after the abolition of the country’s army during the reign of the Phanariots, this task was entrusted to Tatars from the Crimea, people who were famous for their lightness bodies, the power of resistance to work and the faith and dedication with which they performed the task assigned to them.

In recent times, after the restoration of earthly rule, Liptians and horsemen began to be recruited from among the Romanians, who were not only equal to the Tatars in faith and skill, but also surpassed them. The border slums of Iasi and Bucharest, and especially Tetarasi and Copul, Tirchilesti, Prekupeci, Obor and Foishore, gave the state the most tireless runners, who for a long time diligently replaced the speed of the postal race, which was introduced in the principality only at the end of the first half of the century in which we live.

This task was not as easy as one might think; not everyone who knew how to ride a horse well could be a state courier, and riders and horsemen could only be noble people, only beings who had undergone the most difficult tests. It is well known in what a primitive state even the largest roads in our country were until yesterday, it is also known to those who know what a rudimentary state the post coach was in, which preceded the stagecoach, until yesterday, the roads were long tracks. on the glimmer of the plain, or across the bed of raging waters, sown with hops, pits and puddles, followed by steep hills and deep valleys, and strewn with clumsy boulders, uneven, not filled with gravel, and destitute of any works of art, not even of bridges and pavements, in thin form, as it was cut when the first man cut his first path of communication from one place to another.

The mail wagon was a narrow little box with short sides, with an axle attached to the body of the wagon without any spring, filled only with iron, and without any roof, to which were harnessed six or eight wild horses, driven by a small wild one. In good weather, the courier endured the scorching heat of the Baran plains, swallowed whirlwinds of dust clouds, violently jumped from jump to jump, from stone to stone and from stone to stone, he endured incredible suffering for dozens of hours, but at last he came out at the appointed time, and then he had a short respite to rest, but when the weather was rainy and cold, when the wind blew hard and the roads were clogged, then the suffering became doubly acute. Woe to him who soiled himself or had the misfortune to break his coat, had no excuse upon arrival, and had to make up for what he had lost by superhuman effort.

In his journeys to Constantinople, and especially to the Lipkani, he was more open than elsewhere, because, besides hardships and privations, he very often encountered great dangers. At that time, the Danube was not like the day when so many ships of various sizes wandered, for this reason the Lipians very often did not find ships in Galaka, Braila or Giurgi ready to sail to the Bosphorus, and they could not wait too long, they went by land to the Balkans, crossed the Shipka and Troyana straits with great difficulty and suffered the most severe sufferings, due to which many of the people of Lipetsk lost their lives from the calamity of the mountains. Some very often faced dangers of various natures, were trampled by bloody thugs paid by factions, hostile rulers who mercilessly killed them and stole their correspondence, which was often compromising to these factions.

This corps of couriers, whose numbers ranged from 24 to 48, was headed by an ataman, called a colonel of horsemen or vátaf de lipcani in Turkish lipc agasî, who mainly handled the couriers between Bucharest, Iași and Constantinople. The feats and hard work of Colonel Trandafir and veteran Dino Gigorts in Wallachia and veterans Antonio Melinte and Colonel Pamfila in Moldova have remained traditional to this day for those who, as a memory of worthy deeds of the past, employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs bear the name of the blind” .

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