I went to Romania in 2008 or so. The part of Bucharest I stayed in was a mix of world-class socialist urbanism and post-socialist decay. Next to the apartment bloc with mass transit options and green space and de-commodified food there would be a group of children passed out on the sidewalk with spray paint around their mouths. Things weren’t being built or maintained. The modern fascists whine about Timosoara being overrun by immigrants but its main square was by then a tourist trap with a McDonalds, the rest of the city seemingly in a developmental coma since 1989.
Happy Nation
Poorest country in the EU
Working age population left for the westI had some conversations recently with someone who grew up in socialist Romania and fled to Germany as a young adult. I still don’t understand what they found so bad about life in Romania. The family had more than they needed: a farm, plentiful food, accessible education and health care. But they fled because it was too “oppressive” and “authoritarian”, whatever that meant in this person’s life I don’t know. Whereas in Germany they had nothing, and had to work incredibly hard just to get an apartment and low wage job.
The only happy people were US oligarchs, Romanian compradors and maybe western pedomurderers who bought kids from there.
I don’t know anything about ceauscae, but I got the impression from a Seinfeld joke (obviously a terrible source) that he oppressed Jewish people? I don’t really know; I only really know his name and basically nothing else about him.
That sounds very made up. I’ve never heard anything of the sort from any Romanian i’ve talked to, even the extremely anti-communist ones who will act like communism was the worst thing that ever happened and who repeat all sorts of made up bullshit about communist leaders.
My experience is that the most racist and anti-semitic Romanians are actually the most anti-communist ones.
The fact is that immediately after they couped Ceausescu they started to opress minorities and it was so bad that iirc most of Romani fled in barely two years.
Given Jerry Seinfeld’s political proclivities, I am suspicious about what his metric for oppressing Jewish people is. Maybe he did, maybe he just wasn’t a zionist, idk
SRR was the only eastern bloc country to recognize Israel, which is the cherry on top
Only good things™ happend from there on.
