Monday, July 9, 2007
I boarded the early train from Varna, Bulgaria to Romania, surprised that the only commonality in the landscape beyond of these two countries was field after field of sunflowers twining their heads to the morning sun. I have always loved sunflowers. They seem to hold some archetypal power for me and so I loved this train ride through their yellow and green glory. After the connection in Ruse, and the long delay at the border, it was quickly clear we had entered another country. I guess I thought as neighbors upon the same peninsula, these two countries would share much in common. As it is, the only things seem to be fields of sunflowers, the glorious feta cheese of this entire part of the world, and their mafia controlled governments. Both countries are currently under warning by the EU to clean up the corruption in their political systems. Everything else it seemed was different – the houses, the architecture, the landscape, the people.
Where Bulgarians seemed to have no real defining characteristics, the Romanians appeared, at least to the naked uninformed eye, to share a common heritage, especially the men with their long oval faces and close set eyes. A little research confirmed my initial observation. It seems ethnic Romanians constitute about 89% of the population and are descended from the inhabitants of Dacia, an ancient land approximately comprising the regions of Transylvania and Walachia today. The gypsies are easy to recognize with their dark skin and uniquely defined faces. Their society remains to this day a well-guarded and closed caste society and so there has been little genetic alteration. I was surprised to learn though that the Gypsy, or Roma, population that has become infamous across Europe comprises less than two percent of Romania’s population. Hungarians make up the largest ethnic minority, comprising over seven percent of the population, and residing predominately in Transylvania. A mass exodus of those with German heritage in the 1980’s has reduced the German population to less than 1%, though you wouldn’t know it walking through some of the towns like Sibiu. Unfortunately, it does show in the many Saxon villages that have been completely abandoned. Without funds or societal interest in maintaining the heritage, some will inevitably disintegrate – a sad loss.
What struck me most as the train raced into the Carpathian Mountains was the change in architecture. Without having looked yet at the historical struggles that shaped this country, it was clear their history was different from Bulgaria. Single family homes, not so different from American suburbia neighborhoods, dotted the landscape. There were far fewer of the communist concrete constructs that filled Bulgarian cities, clustering people into areas and leaving large expanses of undeveloped land between. It was rare for there not to be some town or house in sight of the passing train. In the mountain towns, lovely chalets sat perched on the side of hills bathed in the beauty of the Carpathian mountain range. It reminded me much of Colorado with jagged young peaks and quaint little mountain towns nestled among them like birds roosting in the forest trees.
The lower villages contrasted the mountain towns with their tent towns and tin house rows. It was strange, and a bit unnerving, to see such poverty living aside such relative luxury. It seems in Romania there is a large divide between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ with not much of a middle class separating the two. Perhaps it is for this that the people seem a bit more guarded than the Bulgarians. They were not rude, just it seemed a bit suspecting, as if waiting to see whether you were worth opening to or not, though I imagine once you are on the other side they are a warm and generous sort.
Almost fifty percent of the population is still rural, a high percentage for Europe. The train ride from Sibiu to Sighisoara passed through several small rural towns. They seemed like such simple folk. I’m not sure the little boy next to me on the train had ever seen a computer up close. He was awestruck as he watched the words pour onto the screen from my fingertips. I asked him his name, Sebi, and showed him how he could make it appear on the screen. He smiled a big bright smile. I pulled my camera out and took a picture then plugged the card into the computer so he could see the picture. His eyes opened wide like as if I had just done some magic trick. He was on the train with his sister and mother who just beamed at me for taking an interest in him. I would have given anything to speak their language, to go home with them and sit at their table and ask what their lives were like.
I had decided not to do Bucharest. I just wasn’t in the mood for a big city, particularly one that is by its own admission is attractive for its grittiness more than anything else and instead headed to Brasov then Sibiu and finally Sighisoara. Writing this now in Belgrade, I’m not sure I can really say I experienced “Romania.” After ten days and much research I’m still not sure I can say what exactly would be “Romania” aside from a land mass agreed upon by a treaty. Brasov, Sibiu, Sinai, and Sighisoara are all in Transylvania – a region whose history was clearly dominated by the Hungarians and strongly influenced by the Germans. In history (and perhaps still today) there was a disdain for the “Romanian” people. The region was handed back and forth between Hungary and Romania I think four times before it was officially returned to Romania under the Treaty of Paris in 1947, though in spirit it seems more allied with its western neighbors in Hungary and Germany than its eastern political counterparts in Wallachia and Moldavia (which comprised the original modern state of Romania in 1859). I loved Transylvania with its quaint towns and beautiful landscape but I remain curious as to what the rest of Romania is like. I will have to return one day to find out more what binds Romania as a country and gain a greater glimpse into its people.
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