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| Romania |
Travel Feature |
Words by: Russell Holt
It’s 1989 and Romania is going into its 45th year of rule by Dictator
Nicolae Ceausescu. The winter has been long, cold and hard. There are
no smiles on the people’s faces who are forced to endure social
tortures like electricity blackouts and hour-long queues for a mere
loaf of bread. No one dares to even whisper words of discontent about
the state of Romania, in fear of being arrested by Ceausescu’s own
private police force and put to work in one of the states many labour
camps, sometimes never to return.
From
the balcony of the government’s headquarters in the centre of
Bucharest, Ceausescu appears in front of a swelling mass of people in
an attempt to calm the populations’ anxieties and to assure them
prosperity is on the horizon for Romania. The crowd becomes restless
and Ceausescu is pelted with vegetables and heckled. A shot is fired
and hence starts a Revolution, which will see the fall of 5 decades of
communism. In the process, hundreds of people die in bloody battles of
defiance on the streets of Bucharest. Eventually and luckily the army
refuses to follow the governments lead in killing citizens. The head
general commits suicide and the army steps behind the people of
Romania. Ceausescu and his wife are captured while trying to flee the
country. Both are executed in front of the nation (and most of Europe)
on a live television broadcast. So signifies the death of Communism and
the birth of democracy. At last the people now have a say.
Bucharest
The
capital of Romania dates back to 100AD. An amazing history of rule by
Romans, Persians, Turks and Russian empires has given Bucharest a
beautiful mix of architecture and culture. Un-repaired cobblestone
streets dating back hundreds of years crisscross through the city.
Thousands of Dacia’s (Communist period cars) all exactly the same
except for colour, burn around the streets seemingly without concern
for any type of road rules, gives off an Asian vibe. While dark,
un-cleaned streets filled with hundreds of never owned dogs give a
feeling that you just walked into your very own cold war spy story.
The
Majority of “wealthy”, who look like any other western European, speak
a little English while the larger peasant population seems to have more
on their minds. You can see the 50 years of hardship under communism
scraped across their expressionless faces. Dictator Ceausescu left
literally huge impressions on the city. While the people suffered,
Ceausescu was busy using the countries money building his dreams.
Amoung them is the Casa Poporului, the 2nd largest building in the
world (1st is the Pentagon) that took 20,000 people working 24 hours a
day for 3 consecutive years to only partially complete. The size and
grandeur of this building is nearly indescribable. All the government
offices of Romania now reside in the building and take up one third of
its area. The rest remains vacant. Deep underneath the building were
built huge nuclear bunkers and escape routes, which included a full
road system under the city, a man made canal for boat escape and also a
train tunnel to the airport.
You could spend weeks in Bucharest
exploring the colorful markets, shops, back streets and restaurants,
especially in the summer when the many lakes around the city surrounded
by beautiful gardens come alive.
Mountainous
The Carpathian Mountains sweep into the country from the northern boarder with the Ukraine. The range curves across the centre of the through the region of Transylvania, where the jagged mountains reach their highest elevation of 2554m.
There are plenty of places to go snowboarding and skiing. Around the town of Predeal, which is only 2 hours from the countries capital Bucharest, there are 6 ski areas. Poiana Brasov is the most popular where the ‘rich’ city folk spend up to $5 AUD per day to ride the lifts and ski. Skiing is definitely reserved for the rich in Romania, as most people cannot afford the equipment on their $100AUD per month average salary. The great thing about snowboarding/skiing in Romania is the people are mostly beginners. Everywhere we rode from Lake Balea to Sinaia to Petrosani, rarely do you find any off-piste tracked. We found incredible fresh snow and all the terrain we could handle.
Lake Balea was probably the most amazing place ridden, only one gondola to a well accommodated and fully serviced cabin. The cabin sits amongst many untracked, untouched peaks, unlimited riding possibilities and easily accessed with some snow shoes or skins. Don’t go there unprepared though. There is no ski patrol, slope management or quick evacuation. Our group was fully prepared and ready for self rescue. We performed all our own slope management, assessing avalanche safety. We always took what we considered to be low risk lines down the mountain. It’s beautiful but dangerous; many people have died in this avalanche renowned valley.
Like Kings
Spending 2 weeks in Romania you will need to take out no more than $500AUD for the whole trip. This will cover the usual like hotels, trains, guides, buses and 100km taxi rides. Factor that amount in as your base amount and work the rest of your finances around that.
The Romanian economy is not very healthy when you compare it to the oversized western European fat cats. The local currency “LEI” is very weak in relation to other countries from the West. At one stage on our trip, we changed 200 Euros and were given a paper bound stack of 50,000 LEI bills in return, 8,000,000 LEI to be exact. Now consider that a half-liter of beer costs 25,000LEI (50cents)…life is good in Romania for westerners!
With all this cash, some can get carried away and by all means one should feel free to live the dreams of a lifetime, although be aware of the ever present Gypsies who in Romania are well known for their criminal activities which range from pick pocketing to organized child-fronted begging.
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Tags: Travel
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