Lately, I’ve had my mind on my neighbor down the road, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten about good old Unicorn City.

Ah yes, my pet name for dear, sweet Cluj-Napoca, a charming city that is, unfortunately, a little too full of its own shit.

How many times have I written about this before, for goodness’ sake?

Shameless

Cluj-Napoca, the second-largest city in Romania, and a truly wonderful place to visit dumps all of its trash in an illegal dump on the outskirts of the city.

Even “better”, it’s all dumped literally across the street from the airport, but there are some buildings in the way, so you can’t see it.

As if dumping a mountain of trash wasn’t enough, the charming yet doggedly racist mayor of Cluj also penned up a bunch of homeless Gypsies inside the dump. It’s sick enough that even Amnesty International is involved.

A bunch of semi-prisoner Gypsies are forced to sort through Cluj’s mountain of trash, eking out a living by collecting vast quantities of plastic bottles and a little aluminum.

Infectious diseases are ripe within the community, and children regularly get bitten by rats.

Meltdown

But what happens to the other 90% of the trash that they Gypsies don’t recycle?

Well, it builds up until eventually, it catches on fire. Then, the city has to spend a squadron of fire trucks and spend hours battling the blaze.

So far, I haven’t even mentioned anything new. But I was so naive. I had no idea just how bad it is.

In 2016, there were 15 fires. And in 2017, there have been 29 already, and the year isn’t even over yet! What in the bloody hell?

My translation of Cluj’s emergency service chief:

Battling that last blaze was extremely difficult for us because the fire was so enormous, all three of the last fires were. The garbage was burning with an intense flame over an enormous area of land. People who were there, they really felt the effects of that fire.

We were there a long time, I think the last time it was eight hours. While we were on the scene, several of our vehicles broke down and had to be sent to the repair shop. Plus, several of our hoses broke. Actually, a lot of them broke and had to be replaced. We really had to scramble in order to pump enough water.

There you go. The fires are so numerous and so intense that the all the firefighting equipment is breaking down.

Some Turd Gravy for Shit Mountain

From here:

The situation in Pata Rat [the Cluj garbage dump] is not good at all. Over the past few weeks, the trash dump caught fire on multiple occasions, which sent pollution all across the region.

County officials believe that it is impossible to find a way to deal with the lake filled with toxic substances that suddenly appeared in July and is getting bigger by the day.

Good lord!

A Personal Appeal

Dear people of Cluj, including my friends and former neighbors, as well as any tourist reading this with plans to visit Cluj-Napoca in the future.

Please email Mayor Emil Boc at cabinet@primariaclujnapoca.ro and tell him that something has to be done about the garbage dump (Pata Rat) immediately. If you don’t speak Romanian, don’t worry. They’ll understand English.

Seriously, it’s time to quit fucking around, now. There are 350 restaurants and 400 bars in Cluj, a Starbucks, five McDonald’s, a Porsche dealership, a golf course, and two gigantic shopping malls.

It’s time to stop playing the poor little helpless Eastern European town game. The garbage dump needs cleaned up right fucking now.

If you’re in Romania, and you’ve got the guts to call Emil Boc on the phone, the number is 0264-592-301 or 0264-596-030.

THIS HAS GONE ON LONG ENOUGH!