The war started by the Russian Federation in Ukraine is shaking the foundations of one of the most important and galloping pigeon-fanciers provinces, Oltenia. The five counties in this province, Olt, Vâlcea, Dolj, Mehedinţi and Gorj, flew most of the distance, long distance and marathon stages in the southern part of Ukraine, exactly near the localities that are now either surrounded, besieged or conquered by the Russians. In these conditions and taking into account the new provisions of the Regulation, on Wednesday evening a de facto division of the province was decided according to the new flight route chosen by the component counties. In a meeting of the heads of the five branches, the flight plans were outlined and the protocols between the associations were concluded. For the west route, on the direction Hungary – Slovakia – Czech Republic – Germany, the counties, in order from east to west, Vâlcea, Mehedinţi and Gorj opted, the three going to do all the marathon stages together and choosing to go to Berlin organized by Bihor branch to fly the National Marathon. Olt County had a very clear option, the northern route, to the east of Poland, and the stages in the country will be organized east of the Carpathian arc in Moldova. The National stage that the pigeon fanciers of this county will go to is Byalistok, the stage designated by the organizing county, Doljul, following a vote of the presidents, which also involved the other counties from Muntenia province that will participate in this stage.
A special situation is that of Dolj, where pigeon fanciers, in two substantially equal groups, are divided between the two routes, west and north. Pigeon fanciers from the south of Dolj County, together with one of the most important clubs in the county, Băileşti, prefer to choose the western route, while Craiova and three other clubs rely on the stages from the North – Poland direction, as well as Olt County. There have been two attempts to clarify this situation and each time the vote was extremely close, with very small differences in votes between the two options. For this reason, the decision was made at the level of the association to organize a nominal vote, by text message, during which each pigeon fancier member of the branch can express his option. Depending on the result of Wednesday’s vote, Dolj will choose one of the two routes, with the mention that, almost certainly, some of the pigeon fanciers from the minority “wing” will fly together with the branches from one of the adjacent counties, Olt or Mehedinţi. Under these conditions, the situation of the Province of Oltenia is a bit dramatic, the chances that the extraordinary results obtained so far by the pigeon fanciers will continue in these circumstances, being minimal.