I’m always looking out for the perfect article to describe Romania and this is it, courtesy of Gandul. Back in January of this year, it snowed. Considering that we’re in the northern hemisphere and that January is in the middle of winter, snowfalls are quite ordinary. It snowed particularly hard in Romania’s southeast, especially in and around Braila, which it has every single year that … Continue reading Throw Transport down the well!
Last night I had the misfortune of reading this poorly written and edited piece in Adevarul, an article that includes misspellings and is mostly just a rehash of a government report plus a couple of long quotes from two people in Cluj. The “meat” of the piece however is that a handful of political cronies from the Emil Boc (national) government received plum assignments at … Continue reading Robert Mugabescu
If you’ve been with me for a long time, you’ll know that as far back as three years ago I was writing about how much I appreciate Romania’s democratic tradition of giving ample time and space for the public to debate the important issues of the day. Last week, I was watching such a program, a 78-minute interview with Aurelia Cristea, a local politician who … Continue reading The State of the Press
I still have no idea what the Szeklers mean when they want autonomy but, as I said in my article, the biggest problem in Romania is that literally everything is decided in Bucharest. A case in point – yesterday President Basescu signed into law a bill that will increase the salaries of mayors, deputy mayors and members of the local city councils throughout Romania. The … Continue reading Government cheese
I nearly fell out of my chair yesterday evening when I saw on Czech television that the parliament was considering amending its lustration laws after Marta Semelova, a member of the Communist party, had introduced an amendment to that effect. The good news is that it looks highly doubtful that her measure will be adopted by the parliament but it still gave me a bit … Continue reading An Unclean Spirit
All Things Romania 