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“Happiness is an attitude of mind, born of the simple determination to be happy under all outward circumstances.”
-J. Donald Walters-
I’ve always had a fondness for Romania. There’s something about the place that I find exotic, fascinating, mysterious though a bit morbid. I remember the neighborhood kids and I used to flock to local movie houses every Saturday for the customary triple feature. We’d get our fill of those old Christopher Lee horror flicks that usually centered around one or another Eastern European country mostly Romania with its’ creepy Transylvanian Alps the home of vampires, ghosts, goblins and sexy sirens.
Unlike other Balkan countries Romania played host to the dreaded Vlad Drac the demonic ruler who signed his name Dracula son of the Dragon or Satan the evil angel. Much had been written about the man some facts, some fables others exaggerations. The guy existed. The first cover story of the first magazine did a feature on Dracula! The country that did the woodcut for the magazine’s debut eludes me.
Romania’s located at the crossroads of southeastern and central Europe. Until 1989 with the fall of Western Communism that country was off limits to Westerners due to Cold War restrictions. Today all you need is the desire and the cash. Buy a ticket, obtain a visa, hop a plane and hours later you’re in beautiful downtown Bucharest.
Two of the world’s worst tyrants hailed from Romania; aforementioned Medieval badass Prince Vlad III of Wallachia aka Count Dracula who ruled from 1456-1462 (See: Vlad the Impaler.) and more recent world class scum husband and wife terror team Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu (1965-1989). During Romania’s communist heyday the terrible twosome inflicted unimaginable suffering, mass starvation, religious persecution and other societal evils too numerous to mention on Romania’s hapless citizenry. Like their distant pre-predecessors, Nicolae and partner in slime Elena died violently. On Christmas Day 1989 after being given a brief show trial the two were taken outside and shot. Despite their infamy both graves are the most visited in Romania. Still reeling from the communist horror some local folks actually long for the ‘good old days’ of Romania’s terrible twosome.
Today things are immeasurably better. The ‘Guvernul Romaniei’ Romania’s government forms half of the executive branch the other half being the national President. The Prime Minister, various ministries, subordinated institutions, agencies and 42 Prefectures constitute the rest of government. Romania is governed from capitol city Bucharest’s Victoria Palace.
Romanians like most folks are open to change, tolerant and quite nice. Romania has a surprising number of world class celebrities who’ve became household names. Author Naomi Wolf, baseball Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg who, some say, would have cracked the Babe’s home run record save for prevalent anti-Semitism of the times that made Major League owners gerrymander outfield fences against him, opera great Beverly Sills, 1970’s pop singer Petula Clark, super singer Barbra Streisand, 1930’s movie tough guy Edward G. Robinson, late centenarian comedian-actor George Burns, Richard Wurmbrand author of ‘Tortured for Christ’ a book that describes in gory details the awfulness of the Communist regime with all its horrors, and automobile designer John De Lorean – all have Romanian ancestry. Former political king maker Michael Dukakis is also Romanian as are some of the world’s most beautiful women with their sharp classical facial features, straight back jet black hair and alabaster complexion.
If you’re a football (soccer) fan, Romania fielded a team in the recent World Cup! First appearance since 1970; their team didn’t win; Germany did but they played well.
Romania in the World Cup-Image Results
Lets’ cross our fingers in hope that the world will gather at Bucharest for the global soccer tournament of champions in the near future.
There’s truth in the adage ‘a picture’s worth a thousands words.’ I won’t ramble on about Romanian art and architecture; see for yourself; go to:
• Romania-Arts and Architecture
• Romanian Art
• Romanian Cultural Center
• ‘Art of Romania-Wiki…;’ in this site Romania’s famous artists are listed individually. Just click any name and that person’s entire life’s history and work is visibly displayed for your perusal.
• ‘Romanian Art Videos’ for hours of audio-visual tours of the art of this vibrant country as well as informative art related lectures.
The pop scene’s your thing try: www.inna.ro. Twenty-seven year old Euro beauty Elena Alexandra Apostoleanu better known as Inna was the first European singer to pass the billion hit mark on You Tube! Her recordings have gone Gold and Platinum in a number of countries. You can sample her music and eye candy features on You Tube.
Romania’s topography/geographic position determine its’ climate. Depending upon where you’re at Romania is a hodge-podge of differing climatology charts, graphs with regional weather readings. If you’re planning a Romanian holiday go to ‘Romanian climate’ on your search engine where you are provided with a variety of elevation, weather, and topographic charts for perusal purposes.
86.7% of all Romanians profess Orthodox Christianity, 5.6% profess Roman/Greek Catholicism, 5.2% Protestants while the remaining 2.5% are Islamic or non-religious. When the terrible twosome were in flower they told reporters that all Bibles confiscated will be ripped apart then used for toilet paper! I guess the Ceausescu’s weren’t true believers.
So what’s my personal take on Romania and its’ vibrant people; up until my step-son’s marriage to a wonderful Romanian girl not a whole lot save for what I’ve previously mentioned. Reader you must remember for the better part of fifty years this country was off limits to foreign travel due to the struggles between two competing ideologies Capitalism and Communism the former winning the Cold War. The stereotypical home of ghosts, ware wolves, religious superstition, stern and brutish men but hauntingly beautiful long black haired femme fatales who spoke in hushed tones with ‘funny’ accents, made out in darken corridors who’d stab you in the back as soon as make out formed my grossly mistaken images of this once forbidden country.
I realize how prejudicial, irrational albeit ‘comical’ and totally unsubstantiated such thinking was but that was the Cold War.
-To be continued.-
(vamaxwell@yahoo.com)