More Bucharest, more communism

Romania has a fascinating and complicated history, even just from the last 100 years. We were fortunate to learn some of it from a local who lived through the final chapter of the communist era in the 1980s. Everything that follows is from my notes I took during our tour, and none of this has been cross-referenced, so take it all with a grain of salt.

In 1921, a Romanian Jew, who had spent time in Moscow and absorbed bolshevik (far left) tendencies, bombed the main Senate building in Bucharest. After that attack, it was illegal to even talk about bolshevism in Romania. The future president of Romania, who at this time also had bolshevik tendencies, ended up spending time in jail because of his beliefs, where he befriended several key figures who would later play a role in his political rise. The two opposing idealogies at the time were bolshevism (far left political ideology) and fascism (far right political ideology), and because of the Senate attack, Romania fully embraced fascism to the point that when WWII started they fought alongside Germany.

Later, after the battle of Stalingrad in 1944, Romania signed a peace treaty with Russia that was meant to give Russian troops a free pass through Romania on their way to liberate Europe in exchange for Romania not becoming an occupied country. Within a few weeks of the peace treaty, Russia basically made Romania offer up about a million soldiers to join Russian forces and help win the war, so Romania actually sat on the winners side at the conclusion of the war.

At that point, Romania was under Russian influence as part of the protectorate and Russia was trying to fully convert Romania from fascism to communism. The Orthodox Church in Romania negotiated with the new communist party to coexist. The communists getting the church on their side was a big part in convincing the populace to embrace their ideals. The Russians also helped institute a KGB-like organization in Romania called the Securitate, which ironically meant “for your safety”. They recruited around 5 million of the 18 million citizens to “work” for this new institution, with roles that could be as small as agreeing to rat on neighbors. The Securitate would play a major role in society for almost 45 years until it was disbanded following the revolution in 1989.

Russian troops finally withdrew from Romania in 1958, making Romania the only member of the Soviet Bloc that didn’t have Russian troops occupying to some degree. At some point, the aforementioned jailed bolshevik man was placed by Moscow as president of Romania, thinking that he was a weak-willed man who they could control, however in 1968, he criticized Moscow for a conflict they were having with Czechoslovakia, which severely strained the Romanian-Russian ties and made him a favorite of the U.S., England, and others in the West.

In 1977 there was a major earthquake in Romania, and the president used that as a pretext to flatten 6 of the 7 hills in the capital city of Bucharest. Romanian means “sons of Rome” and Bucharest had 7 hills to be modeled after Rome, but now they only have 1 hill remaining. Over the next 10-12 years 28% of the city was demolished and rebuilt according to how the president wanted it. The president and his wife controlled much of Romanian life during those times. In fact, in the 1970s and 1980s, the First Lady was given credit as a co-author for anything written and published in the fields of Physics and Chemistry, despite the fact that she was uneducated.

Starting in 1982 the government implemented a system where people could only buy food with ration cards from specific grocery stores. There was never enough food to buy in the cities, and many families were starving. What was especially sad is that it was all self-inflicted. The president was exporting a lot of food and resources in order to pay off a national debt to the U.S. that funded an enormous government palace, an agreement he had made with Gerald Ford. This became a major catalyst for the eventual revolution in 1989 since people were hungry for 7 years, and the government was deciding everything, including the temperature of houses, the hours during which electricity could be used, the hours of running water, the hours of hot water, etc. 1982-1989 were very hard times in Romania. Despite this, some Romanians to this day think that president was the greatest leader they’ve ever had because he stood up to Moscow, gained favor with the West, and created job security.

In 1989 there were 104 citizens killed in a city outside of Bucharest right before Christmas who were protesting the unfair investigation into a priest who had promoted free thought in his sermons. This directly led to an uprising in Bucharest after the president gave a speech and let everyone know that despite the debt to the U.S. having been paid in full, there was going to be continued rationing and tightening of the collective belt in the coming years. This was too much for people to bear and stoked the revolution. The president and his wife at first escaped in a helicopter but were eventually caught, immediately judged and convicted, and 10 minutes later were executed in the street. The Securitate was disbanded, but no one else was ever punished, and no whistleblowers ever came forward despite it being common knowledge that the president did not act alone in his corruption. Many who were employed in the old Securitate took jobs in one of the 5 institutions that sprang out of it or else retired with good pensions. The man who took over as president had actually also been a prominent member of the communist party until 1987, and some think that his main goal was to cover the tracks of everyone else as the country transitioned away from communism.

Below: (left) the Five to Go coffee shops were all over, and they were not good. We liked the “less bucks” slogan. (right) one of the coffee shops we visited that was named Coftale, which you can see from the picture is Coffee+Tale…#CoftaleMe?

Below: one of our favorite coffee shops we found was in the Old Town and is called Coffee & Travel…Tate and Keegan are having an eyes-closed thumb war