The biggest non-Hungarian statue in Cluj-Napoca is of Mihai Viteazul, known as Mihai “Bravu” in the southern regions of Romania and “Michael the Brave” in English. Today, there are statues of Mihai all over Romania and several villages bear his name. His incredible claim to fame is that, in the year 1600, he united all three of the majority-Romanian lands – Transylvania, Moldova, and Wallachia … Continue reading The Ballad of Mihai Viteazul
While it’s apparently perfectly acceptable to honor American soldiers who dropped bombs on innocent civilians with two separate monuments in the same city that they attacked, the deputy mayor of Bucharest is now agitating for a small park in the city to be renamed because it honors a Soviet general. Located in northeastern Bucharest, Tolbukhin Park (Ro: Parcul Tolbuhin) is named after Fyodor Tolbukhin, a … Continue reading Monumental Stupidity
Every capital city has its secrets, but Bucharest has a couple of unusual ones. One of them is this monument, currently located in the downtown Cismigiu Park. To understand why it’s there, we have to go back to the dark days of World War 2. Operation Tidal Wave As I’ve written about before, one of the strangest bits of historical trivia is that Romania is … Continue reading The Great Liberators
Trigger warning: if discussion about the Russian language threatens your self-identity, stop reading now! Few Romanians know that their tax dollars have been paying to broadcast news in the Russian language since 1975. Yes, you read that right. Radio Romania International, a state-funded broadcaster operating out of Bucharest had been treacherously providing news content in English, French, Serbian, Arabic, Spanish, Italian, German, (Mandarin) Chinese, Ukrainian, … Continue reading Your Tax Dollars at Work
I’ve got plenty of meatier subjects on deck for this week, but I thought I’d start off on Monday with a good laugh. The Unsleeping Eye picked up a couple of reports that The Troll wants to take his unique brand of hate journalism to a national level. From here (my translation): Liviu Alexa, age 38, owner of a media group in Cluj… has announced … Continue reading The Troll Threatens to Go Nationwide
All Things Romania 