🍀 Lipovans - The Icehouse from Mahmudia, Tulcea County

     The icehouse is usually built near a fishery, on a higher beam, to protect it from flooding or seepage, and is used to preserve fish. It was rebuilt in the museum in 1994 by craftsmen from the Danube Delta. The construction consists of a metre-deep pit lined with reed mats, above which sits a reed-covered roof, laid in the ”German” technique. 

     The door of an icehouse always faces north. The ice is harvested in winter, laid in layers of 10 to 20 centimetres and interspersed with straw. Sometimes, when it's colder, water is poured over the layers of ice so that they form a massive block, covered with reed mats.