World record set in Alba Iulia - 'Largest human image of a country'

Thousands of people, especially students and high school pupils from all over the country, set a new world record in Alba Iulia on Saturday - the largest map of a country made of people, inside which the number 100 was additionally highlighted, given that this year marks a century since the Great Union of 1918.

More precisely, a total of 4,807 people, coordinated by hundreds of volunteers, formed the map of Romania in the area of the ditches of the Alba Carolina citadel, highlighted with the help of black capes, the number 100 being highlighted by participants wearing white capes.

At the end, the participants used the caps received to color the map of Romania in red, yellow and blue.

The official name of the record is 'Largest human image of a country / continent'. The former record belonged to Myanmar, which, on February 12, 2018, gathered 3,466 people who formed their country map.

Among the participants were the founder of the "La blouse roumaine" community, Andreea Tanasescu, and Olympic champion Ivan Patzaichin.

"Any record always has to be appreciated and especially supported. (...) It is a special moment, a historical moment we can even say, being the Centennial Year, and all the more we can see what unity means, what a team means, what means to work as a team," said Ivan Patzaichin, who stressed how important it is "to have respect for history, for what we have achieved as Romania."

The record, validated by a Guinness World Records delegation, has mobilized thousands of children, youngsters and adults from 70 localities in Bucovina, Maramures, Transylvania, Banat, Muntenia.

The event was organized by the 11even Cluj-Napoca Association, alongside the Alba Iulia City Hall and a German hypermarket chain as part of the "Joy of Movement" Festival.

It is the second Guinness record that Alba Iulia holds, after the one set in 2009, with the "greatest embrace". Then, nearly 9,800 people, including the head of state at that time, Traian Basescu, took part in the "Great Embrace of Alba Carolina" on a route of 3,450 meters, thus encircling the bastion fortification, which is shaped like a star.

Alba County also set a record Guinness in 2009, when, in Rosia Montana, over a hundred of locals, gathered on the stadium in the locality, searched for gold with the "saitroc", a wooden vessel used to separate gold from broken ore.