It’s not every day that people are allowed to climb to the balcony of St. Michael’s Church, the architectural centerpiece of Cluj-Napoca. So when a visiting friend and I spotted people halfway up the tower, we struck while the iron was hot and took the rickety wooden stairs up. It was surprising how permissive the workers at the church were, as the floorboards in certain parts were … Continue reading Locked in St. Michael’s Tower
The other day, an attractive young woman in a dress and heels handed me an envelope. When I looked inside, I saw it was stuffed full of euros and (Moldovan) lei. What’s this? Am I being paid by Russian gangsters, the CIA, or some other nefarious group? Nah. The truth is that I now have a “real” job, one that is the most illegitimate bunch … Continue reading Adventures in Legitimacy
Chişinău has a lot of opportunities for people with my perversion. Of the abandoned buildings I visited, only one—the circus—was inaccessible, largely because there were aggressive stray dogs roaming and snarling around the perimeter. The others were fairly easy to enter and well worth it. The synagogue within the Jewish necropolis was unlike anything I’d seen before. I’d never been inside any synagogue, let alone one with beautiful arches and … Continue reading Abandonment Issues: Chişinău Edition
Yesterday here in the Republic of Moldova it was Independence Day. I was too busy working to attend any of the celebrations but I did see a rather anemic five-minute firework display from my balcony in the evening. It turns out that the pathetic light show pretty much sums up the state of democracy around here. I’ve already written before about how George Soros is … Continue reading The Price of Democracy
My grandfather’s funeral was my only encounter with death that wasn’t terrifying. After passing, he was interred in a massive cemetery in Southern California that was exquisitely maintained. It was a neatfreak’s eternal paradise. Germans would love it. The chaos of Romanian cemeteries, on the other hand, is not for the obsessive compulsive of heart. They’re unkempt, asymmetrical and disorderly—possibly to the point of irreverence for some. But that’s … Continue reading Bury Me Amid Chaos
All Things Romania 