Romania - Eastern Europe - page 471

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Romania

by Keith Bain

W hen Tolstoy visited Bucharest, he
commented that Romanians had a “sad
destiny,” based no doubt on a strong
sense of their troubled past—Romania's
soul is tormented by history, its loveliness
overshadowed by the reputations of
malevolent personalities like Vlad the
Impaler and Nicolae Ceau @ escu. But
while bloodthirsty men have worked
their ugly politics here (and left their
ruinous marks on the land), it remains a
country of great beauty; one that (unlike
its biggest cultural export, Count Drac-
ula) has shed its curse and pulses with life
and fascinating diversity.
While Bucharest buzzes with the energy
of a world capital, somewhere in a field, a
lone farmer wields a scythe, harvesting the
grass his livestock will eat during the cold
winters. In the context of the Europe
Union (Romania becomes a full-fledged
member in 2007) the contrast between
urban and rural life is staggering. It is a
country coated in forest and defined by
the curved backbone of Carpathian peaks.
Its natural treasures include the Alpine
splendor of snowcapped mountains like
Moldoveanu and the vast frontier wetlands
of the Danube Delta, mildly comparable
to the Okavango in Africa. And along with
the rolling hills and soaring Alps, swathes
of forest and vast tracts of preindustrial
landscape, there are enchanting castles and
richly decorated churches reflecting the
varied histories of a people who, for cen-
turies, have struggled to create and hold
onto a single, united state.

Part of what makes Romania special
has to do with the apparent newness of it
all. During its isolation under Commu-
nism, many of Romania's great treasures
were unknown to the world, and were
considered unimportant by a leadership
hellbent on fulfilling its sociopolitical
master plan. To the outside world, this
was a dark and foreboding place, haunted
by Dracula's eternal ghost, and tormented
by Ceau @ escu's living one. But while
Ceau @ escu's program of systemization
tried to squash the past, many lovely cen-
turies-old towns and cities have main-
tained their historic grandeur, albeit
faded and crumbling. Retaining their his-
toric core, often centered on dramatic
fortresses and fleshed out by rambling
cobblestone streets and narrow alleyways
or ancient gateways leading to secret
courtyards, Romania's baroque, Gothic,
and Secessionist cities are a delight to
explore, and while much work is needed
to improve tourism infrastructure, the
time to visit Romania is now. For Roma-
nia is on the verge of yet another revolu-
tion, this time one that will not only
launch it into the European Union, bol-
stering the economy and signaling new
opportunities for the younger generation,
but a revolution that will in all probabil-
ity finally take its toll on the medieval
lifestyle of many of its backwater commu-
nities. Romania, once a country weighed
down by its troubled past, is poised for a
formidable future.