Romania: An Introduction

This post is an introduction to our June trip to Romania. The other are arriving, slowly.

Where we Went, Some History and The Important Numbers

Romania

Our week-long visit to Romania started on the 25-June-2023, when we flew into Bucharest from Luton.

Romania, as I expect you know, but will say anyway, is a country in eastern Europe.

So that's where it is!

Where we Went, Why we Went There and How we Got About

Our six-day (7 night) trip traced out a clockwise right-angled trapezium across southern Romania. We spent the first night in Bucharest, then drove to Sibiu for two nights, on to Sighisoara for the next night, Brasov for two more and finished with a final night in Bucharest.

Our Romanian journey
This map shows no scale, but Bucharest to Sibiu is a drive of some 280km (175 miles)

I have drawn the journey on a map showing the old divisions of Romania, and as you can see we spent our week in the former Principalities of Walachia and Transylvania. The modern map with 41 similarly sized counties (plus Bucharest) has no use for these appealing old names.

Vlad III Țepeș and Dracula

Vlad Țepeș
1488 woodcut, Pub Dom

Transylvania is Romania’s prime tourist region, celebrated for its scenic beauty and rich history. It was also the home of Vlad III Țepeș (Vlad the Impaler) also known as Vlad Dracula, after his father Vlad Dracul (Vlad the Dragon). Despite his castle being at Bran in Transylvania, he was ruler of Walachia for three periods between 1438 and 1477.

A thoroughly nasty piece of work, he was the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula (published 1897) and Bran castle is the model for Dracula’s castle in the novel - though Stoker relied on other people’s descriptions as he never visited Romania himself. Vampires are mythical creatures in east European folklore and although Vlad Țepeș was a bloody thirsty ruler (in the metaphorical sense) he was never actually accused of vampirism.

Stoker’s character has since taken on a life (or undeath) of his own, from the silent Nosferato (1922) to Hammer’s Brides of Dracula (1960) and TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003), reaching its pinnacle with Count Duckula, the vegetarian vampire duck.

A Pleasanter Vlad

We were driven round by a large, amiable man called Vlad – not short for Vladimir of Vladislav, just Vlad. How he fits into a Dacia Duster is a mystery. Vlad is no longer a popular name in Romania, but he said he was 275 years old and the grandson of the original. As he seemed at ease in sunlight, and we saw him drink coffee and cola, but never blood, we assumed this was a joke.

Vlad and his Dacia Duster

350,000 Dacia Cars are made each year in Mioveni, a small town near the main road between Bucharest and Sibiu. The company, founded in Mioveni in 1966, has made considerable progress since the end of the USSR. They became part of the Renault Group in 1999 and the cars now have Renault engines. I fibbed earlier, there is no real secret to how Vlad fits into the Dacia, he just folds.

Folded Vlad

My Blogging Plan

I plan to eventually produce seven posts following this one:

Part 1 Bucharest
Part 2 Cozia Monastery and Sibiu
Part 3 Hunedoara and Alba Iulia
Part 4 Biertan and Sighisoara
Part 4 Rupea and Brasov
Part 6 Bear Sanctuary and Bran Castle (‘Dracula’s Castle’)
Part 7 Peles Castle and The Dealul Mare Wine Region

The plan may or may not be changed as I go along. If I do choose to alter the plan, I will come back to this page and change it to fit my new plan, so no one will ever know. As George Orwell observed in 1984: he who controls the present controls the past - an approximate quote.

A Little History

The patch of land now called Romania has as rich and complicated a history as any other part of Europe. This is, of necessity, a very sketchy historical overview.

440 BCE until the end of Roman Rule

It is no accident that Romania’s only carmaker is called Dacia. Modern humans have lived in the area for at least 45,000 years, but the first group known by name were the Dacians – Greek historian Herodotus tagged them in 440 BCE. The Dacians were a loose federation of tribes until uniting in 88 BCE under the (presumably) charismatic King Burebista, He ruled until 44 BCE and his successors held the kingdom together under ever-increasing Roman pressure until 106 CE when Dacia, inevitably, became a province of the Roman Empire.

Dacia under King Burebista around 44 BCE,
Copyright Gyalu22, reproduced under CC BY-SA 4.0

Dacia flourished financially under Roman rule. Immigrants/colonists from across the empire flocked in and created Roman cities, while the Dacian population probably remained predominantly rural.

The Bit in the Middle, 1,500 years in 76 Words

When the Romans left, the Goths and then Huns rampaged through, leaving their mark on the local gene pool, and then (former) Dacia settled into life at the cross road of empires; the Bulgarians and then Ottomans to the south, the Russians to the east and north and the Austro-Hungarians to the west. For some 1,500 years the land was either directly ruled by, or was a vassal state of, one or other of these empires.

The Birth of Modern Romania

Through all this turmoil, a thread survived that stretched all the way back to the Dacians and the Roman Empire. There was a people in Eastern Europe who still thought of themselves as Romans – or at least Romanians – and preserved their Romance language as Slavic speaking incomers crowded around them. Today, Romania’s only non-Slavic speaking neighbour is Hungary, whose Uralic language is unrelated to Romance or Slavic languages.

The 19th century weakening of the Ottoman Empire spawned a clutch of new would-be nation states (itself a 19th century idea). The ‘Great Powers’ – Great Britain, France, Russia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and others - maintained a firm grip on proceedings, they did not want these newcomers getting above themselves.

In the Treaty of Paris, 1856, the Great Powers acceded in to the Moldavia-Walachia unionist campaign and allowed the two principalities to combine, provide they maintained separate governments and each elected their own ‘dominator’ or ruling prince. Spotting that the treaty had not specified ‘different dominators,’ both principalities chose Alexandru Ioan Cuza thus forming a ‘proto-Romania,’ though still nominally within the Ottoman Empire.

Romania after the Wallachia-Moldavia Union
copyright Anonimu, reproduced under CC BY-SA 4.0

Alexandru Ioan Cuza

The old map (top of the post) includes a ‘Moldova’ inside Romania and a ‘Republic of Moldova’ outside Romania’s borders. It shows no Moldavia. Confusing? Much. We visited the Republic of Moldova in 2018, they use ‘Moldavia’ to describe themselves, plus the Romanian Moldova, but the ‘Moldavia-Walachia Union’ did not include the current Republic of Moldova - although Romanian speaking it had been ceded to Russia by the Ottomans in 1812.

It did not include Transylvania either, but for different reasons. Transylvania was part of  Austro-Hungary, and ruled by a Hungarian elite. It also had a substantial German speaking minority. The Transylvania Saxons (though they were not, strictly speaking, Saxons) had been invited to settle in 13th century and formed a second, business and intellectual elite. The Romanians hewed wood and drew water.

A coup d’etat in 1866 replaced Cuza with Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. German Unification generated many unemployed princelings and the great powers liked to parachute them into the new countries of eastern Europe. Some failed spectacularly, others like Prince Karl,who became Prince Carol of Romania, were outstandingly successful. Romania achieved full independence in 1878 and Prince Carol became King Carol I.

King Carol I, Bucharest

At the start of World War I, the King understandably leant towards Germany, and with Romania jammed between Bulgaria and Austro-Hungary it appeared the safer option, but his government leant the other way. Romania dithered until given an ultimatum in 1916. By then Carol I had died and his successor and nephew, Ferdinand I was keen to declare war on Germany. Unfortunately, the Russian Revolution soon took their major local ally out of the war.

The final war years were difficult, but at the end Romania reaped the benefits of backing the winners. Their gains included Transylvania from Austro-Hungary, and the Republic of Moldova from the Russia.

Romania between the Wars

World War II and Beyond

In 1940 Stalin annexed the Republic of Moldova under cover of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and Germany supported the transfer of Northern Transylvania to Hungary. The consequences in Romania were a fascist coup and the abdication of King Carol II, so when Hitler attacked the USSR, Romanian troops fought alongside their Germans comrades. In 1944, with the Germans now retreating, King Michael (the son of Carol II) led a counter-coup and Romania switched side.

Being on the winning side was less profitable in WW II. Transylvania was regained, but not the Republic of Moldova, and they got 42 years of Communist rule as a bonus. From 1965-89 that meant rule by Nicolae Ceauşescu

Nicolae Ceaușescu, 1965

Ceaușescu's criticisms of the Soviet Union made him, briefly, the west’s favourite communist and he made a state visit to the UK and had tea with the Queen. Unfortunately, his independent stance was more to do with his increasing narcissism than political flexibly. Romania became an unpleasant place to live and Ceaușescu ran a close second to Albania’s Enver Hoxha as Europe’s nastiest post 1945 leader. In 1989 when all the other eastern European regimes realised the game was up and gave in gracefully, Ceaușescu carried on, confident of the love of his people. For that misjudgement he was forcibly deposed and executed.

Since 1989 Romania has struggled towards parliamentary democracy, joining NATO in 2004 and the EU in 2007. For the last fifteen years everything has been absolutely wonderful, every single day. Not really, Romania still has problems, but they used to be worse.

Romania in Numbers

I like numbers. I know they are not to everybody's taste, but properly read that pack a lot of information into a small space.

Romania covers 284,000 km², making it the world’s 81st largest country, a little smaller than the Untied Kingdom and, for American readers, a little bigger than Minnesota.

The population is around 19 million (less than ⅓ of the UK’s) with a population density of 80 people/ km² making it one of Europe’s emptier countries.

Economically Romania has made great strides since joining the EU, but it remains one of the bloc's poorest countries and horse drawn vehicles are occasionally seen in rural areas. The Gross Domestic Product per Capita is a modest US$18,530, which ranks 54th in the world and 22nd out of 27 in the EU. 

At ‘Purchasing Power Parity’ this works out at US$41,633. These are GDP figures, not people's incomes, though they are related and the figures suggest that Romanians may not have much money, but a lowish cost of living makes life much easier.

Urban Romania, at least in the cities we saw, looks prosperous enough, and the road network is good, so the country feels as if it is now part of the European mainstream.

Romania

Romania: An Introduction
Part 1 Bucharest
Part 2 Cozia Monastery and Sibiu
Part 3 Hunedoara and Alba Iulia
Part 4 Biertan and Sighișoara
Part 5 Rupea and Brașov