What do you think of Romania?

I've just returned from Bucharest and Transylvannia, and am delighted
to find that this corner of eastern europe is much different than
my pre-concieved, anglo-saxon mental picture.

What do you think of the place... especially if you have never been
there, as the propaganda example is perfectly isolated... a mind
with an opinion, without any first hand experience.

Do you think you are richer than a person in romania?
Do you think you are better educated?
Do you have more democratic choice?
Have you better healthcare or a more assured social security?
Did you know that the order of dracul (dragon) was created to
crusade against islam?
Did you know that the republicans supported ceaucescu, the evil
dictator of romania deposed in the 1989 revolution?
Over the coming 50 years, who will have a better life, an american
walmart worker or a romanian peasant?

They were Saxons from Wolz and Grossau (Cristian?), near Hermanstadt (Sibiu).

The Transylvanian Saxon Alliance..........a support group for immigrants and their offspring........ here in the US sent care packages for years, so I've always assumed that the people were needier. I doubt if I'm better educated. I've had guests from Moldova and they were impressively educated. Again I can only speak of Moldovans......... their health care was socialized, but everyone dealt in the health care "black market" if they wanted better care. (I used to hear that under Ceaucescu, in Romania, Kent cigarettes were the medium of exchange for taxi drivers etc.)

It's always been a great source of pride (and fun!) to be Transylvanian. My local newspaper did a story about my family on Halloween. We do not take offense at all re: the Dracula jokes........however, it is annoying when people do not believe that Transylvania actually exists. (My son was almost sent to the principal's office for saying he was Transylvanian. I sent him in the next day with a TRUCKLOAD of information and the teacher apologized.)

I'd be interested to hear whatever you have to say about Romania. Are there any Saxons left?

passing through from Siliosoira (sp). Germany has paid to repatrate
"german" nationals living in romania at a fair price, so many of the
saxons in the 7 boroughs have left... that said, i was asked if i
speak german by a coupla folks and referred them to my spouse (a german) who was then told "We Germans need to stick together". It
struck me as strange that someone old enough to remember WW2 germany
who has lived in Romania their entire life, would call themself
"German".

I was suprised to see enclaves of Hungarian speaking peoples and a
truly beautiful romantic rural life. The peasant farmers in Romania
have such a gift in the peaceful sweet forests. Compared to New York, i would say they are much wealthier... heck, they can even
afford to own horses!

It really struck me that Dracula and the whole myth around Vlad Tepes
(vlad the impaler) was an anti-islam thing... interesting that US
popular culture seems fascinated by spreading the ancient equivalent
of the KKK in myth.

I can't help but wonder whether Romania today is not the future of
the USA.... a nation of very wealthy and very poor people with only
a middle class in a few cities like Brazov and Bucharest.

I must go back on a ski trip to the transylvannian alps (west
carpatians) as they are truly lovely... and much cheaper than in
switzerland.

THe americans are showing up in romania in force, as it is on the
fringe of europe, and still influenced by outside policy that will
be stopped once it joins the EU, which i see as inevitable now that
it is part of NATO.

I was saddened to see the huge industrial destruction of parts of
transylvannia by polluting industries that will take generations
to clean up.

Bucharest, could be mistaken for parts of Seoul, Amsterdam, or
Saint Petersburg. The city is filled with highly educated young
people who've come there from other parts of the country to take
part in the outsourcing bonanza that makes labour 1/10th the price of
similar engineering talent in western europe.

I encountered several american banker/VC's who were there to buy up
and advise the romanian government (not very democratic military
pretend-democracy corrupt like the US)... in privatization... where
public goods are sold off to create a mess like in russia... We
americans should shoot bankers who go to emerging countries and do
this imperial junk. I remember similar scumbags in russia in the
late 90's making a similar mess.

The end of ceaucescu, was like the republican american if bush was
eliminated... the miliary hides behind the veil of civliian
apparachiks who are all really cronys of the same evil sorts... but
that has not stopped the economy from spreading real opportunity
to many.

...Transylvania was sort of interesting as it was a mix of Germans and Jews, Hungarians, and Romanians, as opposed to Wallachia and Moldavia, which were more homogeniously Romanian.

Ive seen some pix of the area of northern Moldavia, around Iasci, and the place looks nice...rolling countryside, a bit like the hilly parts of the US midwest.

Not too knowleageable about Wallachia, tho. On the map it looks pretty flat.

I also understand Romania has the European climate closest to the US midwest, too.

...and yes, when i tell people about it they think Im joking.

No connection with the Romanian Transylvania, though...its latin for "beyond the forests". which is what Kentucky was back in the frontier days....

The Saxons have been there for more than 800 years, and all that time they did not forget their German roots (although their dialect is hardly recognized as German...). They always had German schools.
Romania was part of the Habsburg empire, so there never was any pressure to assimilate with Romanians or Hungarians.
Even after the empire was split (after WW1), the Romanian government did not force the Saxons to become Romanians (Unlike Hungaria), nor did Ceausescu (he preferred the money from Germany).
When the Habsburg Empire was split up, some parts of the former Hungaria suddenly were Romanian an vice versa. My father-in-law for example, though Saxon, had to join the Hungarian army in WW2. You see: everything was confused, and so were people. I can understand that they hold on to the only thing that had never changed since the days of the ancestors: being German.
Today you can live there quite good in the cities, unless you´re from a Gypsy family. But unemployment rate is high, and those who cannot work (disabled, old, ill) have a very hard way to go. We´re still sending goods and clothes every now and then.

I was in love with the doctor-zhivago-like wooden houses and imagery,
it is very sweet and pretty. There are storks in huge nests all over
the villiages, and i've never seen a stork close up, but they are
incredibly beautiful birds. It was like having a magic guardian
living over everyone in the city bringing... a white dragon.

The unemployement rate must be all those peasants who are living
in the barter economy.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=114&topic_id=8616&mesg_id=8622

I told some people that the country reminded me of parts of india,
as indeed it does, and they took insult by either the race? or
religion? or that india is "poor"? in their minds, but somehow that
was the wrong thing to say. I meant it as a compliment. India
is an ancient and beautiful culture, and a country of great power
compared to tiny romania.

I found the countryside extremely spiritual. ALl around the
villiages i went were crosses with a little christ about 2-3 meters
tall, covered by a conical or wooden roof. It is to remind
travellers of the suffering of christ, and though i am not a
christian, and am normally wooden to such things, they were imbued
with a great reverence, and i was very humbled to be in such a
holy place.

One villiage truly stopped me. It was a blissfully profound place
of profound joy. I can't remember the last time i have been in
such a joyfully peaceful realm. The peaple were completely good
hearted, though some robbers did steal some cash from us, as happens
in some poor places... some euros(lei equiv) lost to pickpockets.

Other villiages made me sick to my stomach, they were so
impoverished. The world war 2, and warsaw pact history cannot
be denied.. Romanie fought on the german side in ww2 and got some
land out of it that russia had stolen in another war. The church
sided with the ceaucescu government and they had the people on a
fikking starvation diet by the end.

One woman i met had become a naturalized american, and claimed that
she would vote republican because she wanted a big military and a
massive buildup against russia, the more weapons the better. I
suggested that the democrats were really the war party, and that
she should think again... the republicans were the party that
supported ceaucescu... but then she confessed she knew little of
ameircan politics, except that she would vote to cancel out my
democratic vote. She lived in london, funny those american voters
who have never had to live in the USA longer than a decade. IQ
clearly is the determinant in who votes republican... :-)

My great-grandparents came from there, right before WWI and the splitting of the empire, when my grandmother was a small child. I think they were Saxon and my dad says when he was a child in Cincinnati he remembers his grandparents speaking German.

That side of my family is from Wojtek (sp?) northeast-ish of Timisoara.

Family lore says we have illegitimate Habsburg blood somewhere.

I now have an urge to move there, being dismayed at Americans and Americanism, but probably won't unless I miraculously become accustomed to altitude, snow, and being landlocked.

*Sigh*

Richer? Perhaps in material and monetary terms but not in quality of life.

Better educated? Yes, but most Americans aren't.

More democratic choice? Absolutely not. My experience is with another Eastern European country, Slovakia, and they have a way-better democracy.

Better healthcare? No way.

Over the next 50 years, there may not be any Romanian peasant. Walmart will push for conditions, through the WTO, that force them into urban sweatshops.

France is doing the walmart thing there. The country should focus
100% on EU membership, as the uplift that has so benefitted
portugal, italy and ireland is surely the future in a decade or
two. With the EU CAP, likely the farmers will still be about, and
still poor, with more and more doing family farming for joy than
for sustinance with engineering and such jobs growing in the east
as we export all our critical professions to the cheapeast place.
Price inflation is already creating a property bubble around
bucharest.

It is sad to see the industrialized world dump in bad faith
the economic policies that will do romania and moldovia further
damage... moldovia is one of the world bank/IMF casualties already
on exactly the privatization to sweat shop path you mention.

Being old there would kinda suck, as the social security they
invested in was during a pre-revolution government. There will need
to be a serious public investment in the old folks to prevent an
avoidable problem.

Romania is much better at soccer than germany having whipped the
german team by the highest margin abroad in 65 years!! ;-) HA!

I'll read this thread to get info to break some of the preconceived notions I may have about it though.

(trustworthy, maybe the best newspaper in Germany, but : no link, sorry) about child labour in Romania. They told that about 20 percent (source: UNICEF) of the children have to work, most of them in agriculture. And no, they did not mean the farmer´s sons helping Daddy when school is out. They meant children sold into a sort of slavery because their parents don´t have enough money to feed them. And these children are lucky, because there are also many abandonned children trying to survive in the streets of the cities with stealing and panhandling.
In Romania poverty is huge, espacially amongst the Gypsy part of the people, and those also are afflicted with racism.
I´m afraid this is why Romanians don´t want to be compared with India: it reminds them that they are poor, that they have big problems with racism and bad education (among the poor! You´ll certainly find very well educated Romanians, but hardly amongst the Gypsys) and simply: hunger. No time for and no interest in spiritual waves, they just would like to reach the same material standard as other European countries.

I could not help but notice the next page over in the map book had
"Beograd", and that such ethnic cleansing and really ugly stuff was
stirred up nearby; that clearly the roots for such ethnic strife
are planted as well in the minority-poverty cultures of patchwork
romania. I'm suprised they have not lynched the German enclaves in
the end of WW2 for that matter.

The place has the republican work ethic to a Tee... "cheap labour".
They should move the GOP HQ to Bucharest and outsource the ideology
so at least they start to make sense. ;-) That is why i say that
it could very well be the future of the USA, this modern romania,
a 2 tier state of disenfranchised poverty and rich apparachiks hiding
in villas behind Gates.

I *DID* see a fair number of children doing farm labour with their
families on the farms... with horse drawn carts, horse drawn plows
and hand (sythe) mowed grass. All of it involving child labour.
In Bucharest, a kid asked me if i wanted to buy some heroin, so it
seems the same as american life in that regard, just soft drugs are
not a concept, rather just hard stuff.

Amongst the educated middle classes, the newfound wealth and optimism
is truly inspiring, and much more optimistic than in Scotland or
in the USA... I guess when captialism is new and not being on
bread rations is "new", then it all seems such a great thing, and
only when your whole generation has been ripped off to pay for
having the army in illegal wars, whilst your schools, roads and taxes
pay for shit at home your whole life.... american capitalism is great
for everyone but americans it seems... they fikking love "us".

Romania was not attacked by Germany, they were occupied by the Russians. And the Germans have been a part of Romania for 800 years. There never was such hatred between Romanians, Hungarians and Germans, like you find it in the former Yougoslavia. The racism in Romania is only against the Gypsys.

About capitalism:
I believe that Romania will try to find it´s way to what you could call the European sort of capitalism. With more social support, health care, better education and: NO WARS (we´ve had enough of these since the Roman Empire collapsed...). But it´s a long way...

...works for an organization that provides economic support to Transylvanian villages -- buying farm animals, building bakeries, etc. She loves the countryside very much there. She takes small groups of American donors over on tour to see where their money is being used.

Another nice aspect of Romania is the artisanal goods available. Beautiful pottery, embroidery, wood carving, etc. Purchasing from villagers helps them immensely.

And you can get mail-order Romanian wives over the Internet.

back in the Ceaucescu days. I went where I wanted with no hassle, was befriended by a trucker who showed me the sights along the way from Timasoara (where I had spent a few nights in a very pretty campground) to Diva, treated me to fresh tomatoes from the state farms along the highway, brought me into his family's home and showed me a night on the town with his friends. I don't recall a single person who spoke English and I was completely ignorant of Romanian, and maybe if I'd been able to talk more I'd have learned more, but I have very fond memories of the people and the country.

Oh, and I was detained at the border (very politely) when exiting because the stamp on the passport indicated I came in by car, but I was leaving without one. A couple hours only, but it did cost me my small stash, since I decided it would be prudent to flush it.

My lasting impression is of very generous and affectionate people, a place where men walking together held hands (unless they were feuding) and a kiss on the lips was as common as a handshake here. I hope they are able to preserve this aspect of their national culture and defend against the commodification of society that now threatens it.

I watched on CNN presents last week and found the living conditions of these children to be appalling. And the pedophiles who go there are beyond repulsive. I also talk to a guy from there occasionally on mIRC and he tells me the conditions are terrible. Poor, hopeless and with no end to it in sight. I hope it isn't as bleak there as I've been told and have seen.

He got the job done, eh!