| Submitted by: Evelyn C. LeeperUnited States |
| Submission Date: 10 February 2005 |
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Before, Felicia
(our guide) says, only soldiers worked the land. Now the people
work it.
The road also got noticeably worse when we crossed the border.
It became two lanes (well, the last Hungarian stretch may have been
two lanes as well) and was more in need of repair.
We arrived in Cluj about 7 PM. Our hotel (the Hotel
Transilvania) was on top of a hill--nice view but not in the center
of things. Except maybe the black marketeers. About a half dozen
young men were loitering around the entrance--fairly obviously,
since the hotel is several hundred feet from anything else. 'Change
money?' 'Black change?' It was to become a constant refrain in
Romania. It didn't even bother them that there were armed guards
(police?) right by the door. I wonder what the purpose of these
guards is. They certainly didn't keep people out of the hotel--
people (always men) would wander down the hallways. 'Change money?'
The room was Spartan. The ashtrays were very chipped, the
toilet was a gravity tank type (with the tank up near the ceiling),
and the toilet lid wouldn't stay up by itself. Oh, yes, you also
can't drink the water.
Dinner, however, was a pleasant surprise: stuffed cabbage with
sour cream sauce, pork and potatoes, and a cream puff for dessert.
The only problem was that Steve, Mary, and I bought a bottle of wine
which attracted dozens of fruit flies. Blech!
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Breakfast was yogurt drink, fried eggs, bread,
and coffee. This was better than the Continental breakfast in
Vienna (this was also listed in our brochure as a Continental
breakfast). Ada and I were the only ones who drank the yogurt. The
coffee here (as in most places we've been) has much less coffee
flavor than we're used to.
On the bus Mark found his spiral notebook, which had
disappeared the previous night. He had looked before but hadn't
found it, and was beginning to think that one of the money changers
had picked it out of his pocket (for some unknown reason). But it
had merely slipped between the seat cushions. Since his notes for
the last three days were in it, it was a relief to find it.
We stopped briefly at St. Michael's Church, a Catholic church
where the services are in Hungarian. Felicia explained the outward
differences between the Roman Catholic and Romanian Orthodox
religions. In the former, priests are not allowed to marry; in the
latter, they must (but cannot be promoted until they are widowed--
this seems strange, and I may have misunderstood). In the Orthodox
churches, there are no pews--everyone stands or kneels. The
services also take two to three hours versus a half-hour for
Catholic ones. During the time, however, the doors remain open and
people come and go during the service.
Next to the church is the statue of Matthias which won first
prize at the 1902 Paris Exposition. Romanians consider Matthias
Romanian, though the statue was erected when Cluj-Napoca was part of
the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Felicia, by the way, is very adamant that Transylvania is part
of Romania, not Hungary. But she is equally firm that the Soviet
Union should return Bessarabia and Bukovina, and sees no
inconsistency here. I guess she figures that land granted Romania
in 1918 is more Romanian than land granted the U.S.S.R. in 1947 is
Soviet. Well, maybe it is, but the borders have shifted around so
much between 1918 and 1947 that the whole Balkan (and southeastern
Europe) area is in quite a state. The frequently voiced sentiment
is that the protests by ethnic Hungarians in Romania are caused by
trouble-makers from Hungary coming over and stirring them up. Does
this sound just a little like the United States South during the
1960s?
On one building across from the church was a political banner
left over from last year's demonstrations. Then, the miners came in
to break up the student demonstrations. Now the miners are also
dissatisfied, because Iliescu hasn't delivered on his promises of
better conditions and higher pay, however, so this year the miners
are siding with the students. There is a big demonstration planned
in Bucharest on Saturday. We will be in Bucharest on Saturday.
We drove past the Orthodox Cathedral and the National Theatre,
then on toward our next night's destination, Brasov.
I probably should explain why Cluj is officially Cluj-Napoca.
The 'Napoca' part was added twenty years ago (or so) to emphasize
Cluj's Dacian origin. (Dacia is what the Romans called it, and
Romania traces its origins to Dacia.) 'Cluj' means 'surrounded by
hills' and 'Napoca' was the original Dacian name of the area
thousands of years ago. But 'Cluj' is a Hungarian word, so adding
the 'Napoca' was a way of saying, 'Okay, it has a sort of Hungarian
name, but it's really Romanian.'
Most of the houses (at least those visible from the road) have
electricity. Some (10%?) even have television antennas. But many
do not have running water, and we saw many people drawing water from
wells. Electricity isn't rationed any more, but Mark noted a lot of
traffic lights were off. This could be a shortage of light bulbs,
though--many hotel fixtures lack bulbs as well.
Some of the houses have little metal flags with a stencil of
the date the house was built; this is a German custom. Others have
Eastern crosses, having been blessed by an Orthodox priest.
The villages, with the horse-drawn carts and people in
traditional clothing, look like something from the old Universal
horror films set in some indeterminate time in some undeterminate
place in Central Europe. Before, when I saw the films I thought
their juxtaposition of cars and a primitive lifestyle odd; now the
only dissonance is that there seem to be no Nazis in the films.
Everything we see in Romania is old: old bicycles, old tires,
old farm tools, old everything. Only clothing seems new, and there
are more stores selling fabric than clothing in some towns. Are
there sewing machines? Or is there one dressmaker with a machine?
We stopped in Tirgu Mures for lunch. There were many gypsies
on the street here, wearing traditional clothing. Most live in
villages (the old nomadic existence is illegal) but come into town
to shop. I'm not sure what they shop for--the grocery store didn't
have much. Oh, the shelves were full, but they had only a couple of
dozen different items, mostly jarred fruit and preserves. Street
vendors had some fresh vegetables and bread, but there was nothing
like we saw in Hungary. The vegetable sellers all had long queues
for the vegetables, which were a little wilted-looking (maybe it was
the heat--it had gotten pretty hot by this point.)
Our next stop was Sigisoara, with its 14th Century clock tower
and the house claiming to be the birthplace of Vlad Tepes (son of
Vlad Dracul, hence sometimes known as Vlad Dracula). He was *not* a
vampire (that was all Bram Stoker's imagination--Romanians do not
even have vampire legends), but rather a prince who fought against
the Turks. During Ceausescu's time, Romanians never heard about
Dracula's reputation in the rest of the world, even though Dracula's
birthplace and castle were used as tourist attractions. (Actually,
what is billed as 'Dracula's Castle' isn't really, but I'll talk
about this later.)
We then drove on to Brasov, our night's stop. We went out
walking to the town square, hoping to find a Romanian tchotchka. No
such luck. There *are* no tchotchkas in Romania, at least none that
we have yet seen. There are also no postcards. You know a
country's tourist industry is undeveloped when there are not even
postcards. Even in the poorer countries we have visited, someone
produced postcards to sell tourists. But here there is no means
even of producing such things. Books are printed very cheaply, with
glossy covers. (But even here Sherlock Holmes is popular--I saw A
STUDY IN SCARLET, THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, and THE CASEBOOK OF
SHERLOCK HOLMES, all in different stores.)
We went into the grocery here. It was much worse than the one
in Tirgu Mures. It was very dark and its stock consisted almost
entirely of mineral water and beer (at least I think it was beer).
Steve bought a bottle of mineral water and when he got it outside in
the light he discovered it had a fly and some feathers in it. I
said maybe they belonged there, like the worm in a bottle of
tequila, but I don't think he believed me.
Dinner (at the Carpathia restaurant) was a real contrast.
First we went into their wine cellar and had a wine tasting. There
were four wines: a Murfatlar Sauvingnon, a Merlot, a Cotnari, and a
Murfatlar Chardonnay. Then we went upstairs and had dinner (grilled
meat) while singers and dancers in costume entertained us.
Comparing the happy, carefree dining with the poverty and shortages
outside, I am reminded that this is the sort of thing that started
the French and Russian Revolutions. But the one good thing to be
said is that our portions here have been small. They are not
wasting food with the tourists while others go hungry. (I realize
that these portions might be large to the local population, but in
China they served us far more than we could eat, and that isn't true
here.)
Returning to the room, we iodized a pitcher of water to brush
our teeth with. They provide a pitcher of water by the sink, but it
isn't boiled. It's tap water in case the water supply is cut off.
There was one 60-watt bulb to light the room, no bulb in one bedside
lamp, and a broken television. The elevators were also flaky; one
just wouldn't open on our floor.
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We're starting to see more of the shortages:
there was no milk (for the coffee). People who are picky about how
they drink their coffee should not come to Romania.
The first thing we saw was an unfinished monument on top of a
mountain. It was supposed to have a giant statue of Ceausescu and
his wife, but all that was finished was the base. I suspect it will
stay that way. No one is really keen on building to Ceausescu any
more.
We passed the Black Church but didn't go in; had I known this I
probably would have looked in last night, though there's no shortage
of churches on this trip. We also passed the synagogue; there is
also a kosher kitchen (restaurant?). We did stop at the Church of
St. Nicolae din Scheii and the First Romanian School Museum, but
didn't go in. As we left Brasov, Felicia pointed out the bullet
holes in the town hall and the adjoining hotel. Brasov was also the
site of a 1987 uprising so it has some older bullet holes as well as
the 1989 ones.
Leaving town we saw long lines for gasoline. |
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