Ihave discovered Heaven. It is not a tropical island or a manicured
resort for the rich and famous. It is a peasant village high in the hills of
Romania, the newest and poorest member of the European Union and alleged
home of Dracula, vampires and the tidal wave of gypsies, thieves and illegal
immigrants allegedly heading Britain’s way.
Its name is Matau (pronounced “Matsow”). Its homes of carved wood and
patterned plaster are topped by hay lofts, encircled by orchards, enclosed
by picket fences. They have views across a deep valley to the forests and
snowy peaks of the Carpathian mountains – home of wolves, bears, chamois and
wild boar. The winter air is scented by woodsmoke and dung. The silence is
broken only by cowbells, the bleating of sheep and, at dawn, cocks crowing.
The soldier and author Patrick Leigh Fermor, who passed close by on his epic
walk from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople before the Second World War,
would find little changed. The big-handed, leather-faced, pungent-smelling
subsistence farmers of Matau still live much as their ancestors have for
generations.
They keep a few cows, pigs and chickens in their yards. They grow potatoes,
onions and carrots. They cut grass with scythes and make haystacks. Early
each summer they drive their sheep to the high pastures. In the autumn,
grandparents, parents and children harvest apples, plums and pears, and in
the copper vats of the village’s three stills they turn the plums into tuica
“brandy”. Their cellars are full of fruit, potatoes, meats smoked in their
outhouses, cheeses in sheep skins, and great barrels of tuica.
Walk Matau’s mud lanes (the concrete road peters out in the
village) and you meet horse-drawn carts hauling firewood from the forest,
donkeys bearing milk churns, children driving cows to drinking troughs. Old
women carry home water from wells in buckets hanging from sticks across
their shoulders. Perhaps 20 of Matau’s 500-odd homes have running water.
There are ten tractors in a “commune” of 1,800 people. There is one police
car, and a police bicycle with a red-and-blue flashing headlamp.
Romania may now share laws, institutions and external borders with Britain,
but Matau is 1,200 miles (1,931km) and several light years from London. My
teenage daughter spends more on a pair of shoes than most of its inhabitants
earn in a month, yet it has a character as strong as its sheep’s cheeses,
and a generosity to match.
My photographer, translator and I found the mayor’s office near the school,
whose blackboards, wooden desks and cloth maps recall those in England c
1950, and next to the war memorial, which makes no distinction between those
villagers who died fighting with the Nazis and, after Romania changed sides
in 1943, with the Allies. We explained that we wanted to spend a few days in
Matau to explore the impact of EU membership, and in minutes we were being
toasted with glasses of fiery plum brandy.
Soon the deputy mayor, Ion Zipis, had installed us in his home. The rest of
the week passed in a blur of astounding meals – every mouthful produced
within a stone’s throw of where we sat – as the villagers welcomed us into
their homes.
This paradise is not unblemished. For a start, Matau, like the rest of
Romania, is no place to be either a Roma (gypsy) or gay. “You shouldn’t
write about gypsies. They’re not worth it,” I was told after visiting some
Roma hovels a few miles away. The women are hardly emancipated, and Ion
Damian Postoaca, the mayor, cracked sexist jokes that would have him drummed
from office in Britain. Though nobody will say so publicly, it is also
prudent to offer doctors and officials “gifts” in return for their services.
Nor will this paradise last, for Matau’s outward serenity masks the fact that
it is on the cusp of great change. Less than two months after Romania joined
the EU, edicts from Brussels are threatening to destroy its way of life. The
young are leaving for better-paid jobs in Western Europe. And just over the
crest of the hill above Matau, bulldozers are churning up the meadows to
create a ski run and holiday resort.
One of our protracted lunches took place in the home of Ion Sulca, a
70-year-old shepherd with bright red cheeks, clear blue eyes, a mouthful of
gold and silver teeth and a loudhailer voice. He was wearing a jumper,
trousers and jacket made from the wool of his sheep. The floor was covered
in sheepskin rugs. The table was laden with sheep’s-milk curd, sheep’s
cheese, salted mutton, chunks of smoked pork fat and thick slices of toba,
a terrine made from pig’s innards. As we ate and talked, his beaming wife
bustled in with plates of steaming bult – balls of polenta with hot,
oily sheep’s cheese seeping from the middle.
By then our host was well away. “I don’t see anything good coming from the
EU,” he boomed. “All these products you see – I won’t be able to sell them.
From what I can see the EU is worse than communism.”
In fact Matau escaped relatively lightly during Ceausescu’s 24-year rule in
Bucharest, 100 miles away. It successfully resisted collectivisation of its
farms. A doctor in Campulung Muscel, the town in the valley below, helped to
thwart Ceausescu’s attempts to turn Romania’s women into baby machines by
performing clandestine abortions. And if Matau had Securitate informers,
nobody seems to know who they were. Ion Lupascu, 94, remembered being called
in as he passed the police station in his cart one day. “They asked me to be
their man. I said I was far too busy looking after my farm,” he laughed.
But our host had a point. Matau is awash with tales of EU rules. Some are
untrue – that graveyards must be outside the village boundaries, for
instance. Some are government edicts, such as a ban on horse-drawn carts on
larger roads. But some do emanate from Brussels and will directly affect the
commune’s 400-odd farmers.
In future, for example, they will be taxed on any tuica they produce in
excess of 50 litres for personal consumption. Soon they will not be able to
sell their cheeses outside their “immediate locality” unless they upgrade
their outhouses. And they will have to take their animals for slaughter up
to 40km away instead of slitting their throats.
These changes will cause great hardship in a village where barely a third of
inhabitants have salaried jobs and €200 (£135) a month is a good wage. Few
have enough land to qualify for EU farm payments, or to compete with factory
farms. Even as the Continent embraces organic farming, they may be forced to
pool their resources in a belated “collectivisation”.
Ion Visiou earns €260 as the village engineer. His wife, Vasilica, tops up the
family income by selling 30 to 40kg of homemade cheese in Campulung market
each week, and about 300l of tuicaeach year. “It would be hard
without my income,” she says.
Emigration is another threat. About 100 villagers, like two million of
their compatriots, had left to work illegally in Western Europe before
Romania joined the EU, but the mayor expects the exodus to accelerate now
that most of the Continent – Britain excepted – has dispensed with the need
for work permits.
There is little to keep them in Matau. Campulung’s two biggest employers, its
coalmines and a four-wheel-drive factory, were closed as Romania reformed
its economy in preparation for EU membership.
One evening I sat in one of Matau’s three tiny shops for an hour and talked to
the customers. Christian, 36, who earns €120 a month as a car mechanic,
leaves for Germany next month, where he has been promised €5 an hour as an
agricultural worker. Adina Visiou, a 17-year-old high school student, wants
to study in France – “All my friends want to go abroad,” she
said. Aurel Burhan, 50, has a son earning €50 a day as a gardener in Rome,
and a daughter earning €800 a month cleaning houses in Karlsruhe, Germany.
His other son will go abroad when he finishes school. “He can’t get a job
here,” Burhan said sadly.
You can tell the foreign workers by the state of their houses. Cecilia Anghel
is adding another floor to hers. For three years her husband has earned
€1,000 a month as a construction worker in Corsica – ten times what he
earned delivering bread in Matau. During the summer she leaves their two
young daughters with her parents-in-law and joins him, working as a hotel
cleaner. “Here you have no future, even if you have qualifications,” she
said.
The villagers speak more in sorrow than anger of Britain’s closed doors, with
many blaming the “lazy, dishonest” Roma for giving their country a bad name.
But Britain is not their destination of choice: they prefer Spain, Italy and
France, which are culturally much closer to Romania.
Most of the younger villagers have been taught in school civics
classes that the EU is unequivocally A Good Thing, and they welcome the
chance to travel and work abroad – though they insist that they want to
return when they have made some money. Ion Lupascu, the 94-year-old, said he
was proud that Romania had returned to the European mainstream – “Now it’s
really, really good for us” – and Tudor Boambes, 47, the priest, agreed: “We
are in a club with people who have experience of economic, political and
social development.”
Others, mostly older, conceded that Romania had no choice if it wanted to join
the modern world, but feared a loss of national identity. “The EU will break
down our traditions,” said Ion Visoiu, the village engineer, as we ate
smoked pork and pickled mushrooms in his dark little kitchen.
That modern world is encroaching fast. Bucharest is awash with new malls,
hotels and offices as foreign investment floods in. The two thirds of
Romania’s economy that is not agricultural is growing strongly.
Above Matau we met Dorin Mirea, the owner of a Campulung brick factory,
standing on an expanse of mud beneath a newly installed secondhand ski lift
from Italy. He heads a syndicate that has sunk €400,000 into the ski run,
and intends to seek EU funds to develop it into a year-round resort.
He envisions an hotel, a restaurant, tennis courts, swimming pool, mini-golf,
horse-riding. “I have big dreams,” he said.
That vision is shared by Postoaca, Matau’s mayor. “It’s no good crying for the
past,” he says. “We have to do something realistic for the future.”
He, too, has big ideas. He recently signed a contract to bring the internet to
Matau.
He intends to apply for EU funds (Romania should receive some €20 billion over
the next seven years) for paved roads, running water and a proper sewage
system. He wants to promote agro-tourism, with villagers opening guesthouses
and forming a cooperative to produce organic cheeses and tuica commercially.
He foresees wealthy outsiders buying up land for holiday villas. Indeed,
prices are climbing, and the first Briton has bought a house near the
village.
He is right, of course. This is progress. And yet . . .
On our last morning we went to one of Matau’s three onion-domed Romanian
Orthodox churches. It was the “Saturday of the Dead”, when the villagers
remember departed family. They came in droves, on carts and by foot. As a
novice priest chanted prayers they lit candles and covered the floor with
wicker baskets of bread, apples and coliva – wheat puddings –
decorated with crosses.
The villagers embraced friends and neighbours, crossed themselves as one,
knelt as one and sang in sweet harmony. They were at peace with the past,
with themselves and with nature. For how much longer?
A lot of the Romanians that have commented seem to think that the British journalist is patronising them. For me personally, I thought he was trying to emphasise how the Romanian villagers mentioned have got the right idea- the simple life, with family values over hard-hearted British business.
Emily, near Belfast, Northern Ireland
I m sad to see that most of romanians(I m romanian myself)that have replied to this article are critisizing it.The article only makes a fair discription of the life in a typical romanian village.The author talks about a *heaven* where time has stoped and everything it s amost unchanged.
faby, Deva, Romania
beautiful article, i`m glad that you appreciated the peoples` character,the traditions and the view. still,we are the EU`s slaves,Romania is just one big market where European products can be sold,no more,no less than that. EU distroys our lifes.. and it`s a pity
Diana, Craiova, Romania
romanians are one of the oldest civilazations in the carapatian-danubian-pont arch.they never need it other lands,never attempted to conquer one just defend what was theirs.it was romanians who invented the pen,it was their first gymnast who had the fisrt 10 in the history,it was them...them...them...not the fault of the people they have a bed government!ask welsh people what relation they had with england in the 1816.-how they have been taken over and why the welsh dragon it is not on the union flag.read "land of my fathers"by alexander cordell.romanian women wait till they have a reasonable age to have kids!can you judge nowadays people because of the history?have you ever thought hyow close we are all of us?why so much hate?why everybody judging the other?have any of you thought that everything can be destroyed in a secound?what makes you better than the others?everybody is comlpleting somebodyelses gaps!be reasonable!equal!life is been given to enjoy nature and interhuman conection
bianca, iasi, romania
It s not fair that you only wrote about the bad things you saw in Romania...I m sure that if I go to Britain along with a photographer and reporter I can find a place that is poor and I can film it and trash it then present it to the world as "Britain"
The people in Matau are more happy then 60% of rich Britain! They are happy making cheese..and tuica.they could care less about malls and expensive shoes!Some people are just so ignorant...it a pity....
Irina, Bucharest, Romania
I can`t write very correct english...i`m a student in romania...i`m so sorry about the other countries that all they do is sympathize us and make them feel sorry for us...why can`t they write about the money made in romania in the big cities...the foreign investitors..the tourism..the beauty of our land ...the night life...all the europeans are in love with our life style .our liberty..they all wanna stay here as long as they can...oh...if only u would come here to live for a month...just a month.The most important are the people of this country...nevermind the gipsy people that anyway are not romanian...the pure romanian people..are the best..i`m proud of my country and i wouldn`t give it for nothing !!
Camy, Constanta, Romania
In my education EU membership has played a great part. I had to know everything about it, had to be well informed of everything. It was always presented to us in a favorable light. We began to accept the ideea that Romania should indeed become a member, and in the end we concluded that we had no other choice, because there aws no other way for us to get rid of comunism. Well, we changed one regime for another. Learning about the EU, I remember them saying that "The cultural differences and identies will be preserved in every country that is to became a member of the EU." Well, with the drastic measures that EU has brought upon us, we can say that they want to destroy our cultural values in a subtle way. It is true, Romanian villages really need some shaping up, but concerning the people, why would they want to change our way of life? It's very hard for the peasants. But if history has tought us something is that they are the backbone of this nation, they've strived in past...
Vicentiu, Bucharest, Romania
I' ve travelled to countries either eastern european or western, either EU members or non, and I have to say that Romania is one of the few countries that are still unspoiled by the "culture of capitalism" with a wide variety of traditions, with so many things worth to see and to experience. It is very clear that the person who wrote this article has not made anything out of Matau and I do indeed sympathise as there is so much more to Romania than"mud lanes,horse-drawn carts,
donkeys bearing milk churns and old women carrying water buckets on sticks." What you didn't see, or didn't bother to see is that apart from those things that you consider degrading, Romania is also a mixture of genuine beauty, a natural, charming and simple country. You consider Matau to be a "time-forgotten village"and Romania to be"light years away" from UK but with such an attitude why would we reach you?
We might be poor but not in spirit, something that you have forgotten about in your quest for standards.
Aura, Bucharest, Romania
I have travelled to countries, either eastern european or western, either EU members or non EU and I have never seen a country with a more variety of things to see and to experience than I have seen in my own country. It is very clear that the person who wrote the article about the "time forgotten village"has not gone further than seeing Matau and I do indeed sympathise; as there is so much more to Romania than "mud lanes, horse-drawn carts, donkeys bearing milk churns and old women carrying water buckets hanging on sticks.." What you didn't see or didn't bother to see was the fact that apart from those things that you consider degrading, Romania is an unspoiled country, a mixture of genuine beauty and simple things; You consider Romania to be several light years away from UK but with this attitude that you show to poorer countries why would we bother to reach you?We might be poor but not in spirit and that is something that you forgot about in your quest to find the standards.......
Aura, Bucharest, Romania
This is one of the most documented piece of journalism about Romania I have ever read. I really loved te article and it does reflect the truth about many villages in Romania. When Revolution came so abrubtly many Romanians felt incapable and unprepared to make the transition from a Comunist economy to a democratic one. Many live worst than before.
I wonder how many are prepared now to integrate in EU. How many know about EU funds and how to benefit from this integration. Or will they sel land and properties fast and cheap untill they will discover they haven't build anything for themselves...
ana, london, uk
i would like to say that not everything you dicovered in this village is entirely true,Romania is not entirely poor,if you would take the time to visit other towns or even Romania`s capital Buchurest you would have discovered that there are peoplle that have more money that you could imagine.it is not fare to expose Romania like a country with no culture,no social values or with limited resources.our country has great resources but doesn`t have the means to enforce it,it is a shame to brag that a person speends more money on a pair of shoes than the villagers gain in a month,i am sory to see that there is no more room for compasion,or pity in their real meaning!Brag along with you`re expensive shoes,you`re fancy cars and you`re high and large view on the word!
Andreea_Simina, Buchurest, Romania
We have worked in Romania for 17 years now and love it there. We are so very frustrated with the insensitivity of all these 'new' regulations, as they ARE causing stress and devastation to many older and poorer people in the small villages. Where is the help from the west and the compassion for a country that has a wonderful traditional way of life - where people are not hurting anyone by their traditions - and yet are being brutally beaten down yet again - this time by wealthy Europeans in expensive government buidings? We want to see someone who will deal with the situation and help maintain this beautiful country and yet guide it gently into this century. They need water and sanitation, not farming rules and regulations which they cannot possibily keep. The old people do not even understand what is happening to them - and some just want to die if their way of life is ripped away from them.
Dawn Fletcher, Chard, Somerset, UK
Shouldn't somebody start a campaign to "let the shepherds make their cheese". It is just Euro craziness that just when "developed" Europe turns to organic farming and embraces (finally) local producers, in Romania the EU regulations will put all these good people out of business. Worse, for them its their livelihood not some dilletante project. Of course some hygiene regulations are good but not at the price of eradicating artisanal food.
Rachel Sargent, Bucharest, Romania
It was great to finally see something truthfull and nice written about Romania in the British press. As a Brit who has spent several very enjoyable holidays there I have always loved the friendliness and generosity of the people I met, some of which have become good friends. I loved the beautiful scenery of the mountains and the magical castle Bran and Brasov in the snow. I hope that the changing times will alleviate some of the suffering of the less fortunate people, but also hope that the distinct culture of the country is not destroyed thanks to the EU. I'm sure the EU will bring many good things, but as we have discovered in the UK it also brings loss of control and many stupid and expensive regulations aimed at making all countries boringly similar.
John Coker, Ewhurst, UK
A way of life is ending with this generation, it's sad that villages like that will soon dissapear, making room for progress - ski resorts and malls and vacation homes for the new rich.
They can always try to recreate this at a Living History Farm in a few years from now, can't they?
Misu, Bucharest, Romania
I read this article which is suprisingly positive: I had to double check if I am reading a british paper.
I also read the readers' comments.
All I have to say is: why do we care so much about british journalists and their tabloid style journalism ?
Why do we give so much attention to britain anyway ?
Felix Dragan, Jilava, romania
great article! Makes me remember the time spent in my grandmother's house - about 30km from Bucharest - a old house made of wood, clay and straw. It had no electricity, no running water and of course no indoor pluming.
It was something like a heavenly peace when falling asleep in the sound of the rain drops on the roof, looking at the light from the stove fire reflected on the walls.
I remember in the morning eating boiled eggs with home made cheese and fresh tomatoes reaped by myself from the garden. This happened during communists' attempt to implement "scientific diet" - replacing the natural food produced by the villagers with soybean and other additives; milk without any kind of fat, etc. - something the industrialized west has successfully realized today.
I now work in Bucharest for an wage which may sound incredible to the people from Matau, but I fancy a lot the idea of getting rid of all the stress and moving to peaceful, time forgotten, Romanian village.
florin, Bucharest, Romania
I love our country side, but traditions are going away fast. That's really bad. Now with the EU integration, the changes will be bigger.
If anything EU should worry about is about companies like Microsoft, IBM or Adobe investing in Romania. I think that on the IT field Romania will be the next Ireland of Europe.
The good thing here is that the infrastructure had to be rebuilt from scratch, almost every house / flat in the big cities has broadband Internet connection and at list one computer.
I have to say that 80% of the people who wanted to leave Romania up to now already left.
I invite Martin Fletcher next time he is in Romania to visit an IT company.
Liviu, Baia Mare, Romania
The article brought tears in my eyes as it is sympathetic to the people I love, the old villagers forgotten by time, but not by history. My grandmother, in a remote village in Covasna, thought me that it is nothing wrong with being poor as long as I live my life in dignity. Education and honest work were at the core of her wisdom. Her life was hard, a widow with four children, but she never stopped smiling, working, enjoying her place on the world and she would have not change it to any other. We all left, but she staid.
This article is thoughtful to Romanian (communist) legacy of underdevelopment, considerate to the people who suffered it, and perhaps rightly worried about the price these people should pay for the EU integration.
Adriana Soaita, Pitesti, Romania
With good and bad i think it is a beautiful country and i hope more people will learn that Dracula is a myth, and the friendliness of Romanians is what makes so many people retun to Romania.
I believe Romania has chances to be one day again one of the hiden, off the beaten path treasures.
Ana Pop, Bucharest,
It was an wonderful article. So true. And I think this is the beauty of Romania. Those mountain villages, that kept their traditions untouched. Those clean lands, wild and unaltered by civilisation. It's such a rare thing these days, and we, romanians, are trying to modernise it, instead of preserving it.
Silviu Antone, Pitesti, Romania
How awful is for me to read something like this; is so true, and still, hurts...
Don't you feel strange because such a poor nation can do sometimes great things? Because sometimes we are better than you? 60 procents of rOmanians, not rUmanians lives in rural area(yes, it's a shame, I recognize), but the rest have great cars, houses, clothes, careers. We LIVE! Do you, ignorants, think that we all asked E.U.? Do you think we will die without you? Do you think we all want to steel from you?
So if we are a lost nation, let us die, and we will do it smiling, maybe because of our Tuica, but you don't have vices? you don't have drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, murderers...??? Wake up...
Cristian Mihai, Bucuresti, Romania
Background for everybody:
Before World War II, Romania was wealthy enough to have airplane industry comparable with Britain (IAR vs Spitfire). Back then, Romania's oil industry provided all Europe, and wheat, corn etc also.
After the war and the Soviet occupation, best industry machinery was demantled and relocated in USSR, agriculture was tear down by forced "cooperativisation". Romania became a "goulag" - work camp. Professors, priests, engineers, writers, esspecially entrepreneurs put in jail. Almost 1.000.000 people, some 250.000 killed in couple months! Almost every family had a member in big trouble.
Do you all think that we, Romanians, agreed to be separated from Europe for 45 years? Romanian troops lost hundreds of thousands on the battlefields against Nazi. And there were Romanian partisans fighting with the Soviet regime till 1960!
So take all this into consideration - along with the 20% of Bill Gates' Redmond team which speaks Romanian.
Tuslama, B,
I agree that there are villages that this one described in the story, but we can't say that all Romanian rural villages are like this.
Every historical region has it's specific conditions, habitats.
I think you can not make a general opinion about a hole country by visiting a single village. Like every state in the world, Romania has more "faces" to show for those who are really interested.
Come and visit the western part of the country and find out the differences.
Pavel Sinka, Arad, Romania
always the same. people existence is underneath times... and this is not online but live. not a soul is to be pity but for the lack of it. the people you see in the photos are so beautifuly carved by the wind and drained of studio appearance giving all of the fashion glamour again and again, day by day, for the plate not empty on the table, in front of their children. God loves them... of course in a non-romantic way. they are still the guardians of the land but soon they will leave and their sons will be perverted and, while working far away for money their legacy will vanish... for the sake of progress. who really knows what's best for humanity and if there is one who knows why can't we hear his voice? maybe because we lost our quiet evenings of Matau.
pavel, bucharest, romania
For Florin, Constanta,
Yes, I agree that there are some historical causes that would justify our backwardness, bur I believe as well that we cannot invoke them over and over.
Better do something about this ... and stop complaining about it!
Kind regards
Alex Rauta, Heverlee, Belgium
You should take your time and search through history of Europe and see how our fate was decided by international events. After that you will understand why we are way behind the western Europe. After hundreds of years in wich romanians burn their own villages fighting the otomans and preventing them from reaching the western EuropeIn, europeans represented by Churchill turn their back on us in 1945 at Yalta, throuwing us into 45 years of comunism. That's why...
Florin, Constanta, Romania
Dear LN, from Paris,
I'm a Romanian girl (27) and i'm leaving in France from a few mounths (not running for a your cash cow, believe me...). Tell me, how many roumanian people have you asked about making a difference between an eagle and a commen buzzard? 51 procent? have you made a statistic? Is this people who cannot make the diffrence the worst for wild life or every french citizen who have in possesion a car or your way of sending millions and millions of letters everyday (the paper is made of wood)? I think it's time to stop making generalisation starting from a personal experience. I also can tell you that I have some french friends who leave in Romania or visited Romania and they tell me that is a magnific country. And even if I'm in France now, I still believe that our country, for those who really want to discover and for open minded people, it's really a pleasure for spirit and mind. I'm wondering why Prince Charles spends every year a week of hollyday in Romania? A bientot!
claudia curici, Provence, France
I spent three years living in a remote Transylvanian village and all I can say is if that was heaven, book me a ticket to hell, where presumably there is running water. While the first few weeks were a novelty I soon realised there is nothing romantic about scything grass when a tractor could do the work. The chickens, pigs etc are kept because without them people would go hungry. Hauling water is not fun for more than the first couple of times, and definitely not in winter. What is romantic about children and the elderly doing hard physical labour? This is not a lifestyle choice, rural Romanians have no choices other than to emigrate. The massive tuica (plum brandy) barrels are to dull the pain of a difficult life and long cold winters. Alcoholism is a real problem in these "quaint" villages. National pride, stoicism, and tuica keep most rural Romanians from telling you this but it doesn't take much to realise it's not an episode of "The Good Life."
Larisa Clarke, Quito, Ecuador
I am an ex-pat who lives and works in Bucharest and I am married to a Romanian. That means I know what I am talking about. These villages are dirt poor and will remain poor because Romania is awash with corruption. The money to improve their lot was stolen in the past and will be stolen in the future. They suffer dreadful flooding when it rains. The money to dig ditches to divert rainwater and other schemes went on buying expensive cars and fripperies for local apparatchiks. Then these thieves illegally cut down thousands of hectares of trees and sold the wood and pocketed the proceeds. So, there's no natural barrier to the effects of soil erosion due to heavy rain. And now these crooks have free access to European funds!
Angus McFarlane, Bucharest, Romania
As a Romanian who has resigned myself to (almost) always negative stories about Romania, I was glad when reading this story. It shows that not all the traditional living style aspects are negative and not all the "globalisation" trends lead to a better understanding of a nation's identity. It's better when seeing differences filtered through an open mind than when blaming them as always negative.
And for the author: why not trying a similar experience in Bulgaria?
Alinka, Bucharest, Romania
Gee, folks. Thanks for not blaming the U.S. for this one!
Fred Herrmann, Terre Haute, Indiana, USA
Interesting, romantic, wonderful, but aren't these folks missing out on many benefits of modernity ????
I agree that local products should be protected and encouraged but dirt roads in a village of 500 houses?
Andy Carter, Milan, Italy
I disagree with Dave Lee that 'we are a mongrel nation'. We are not! We are basically Anglo/Saxon/Jutish - that was the immigrants from other parts of Northern Europe, a thousand or so years ago. Since then we have accepted other peoples from other backgrounds but only if they were willing to become assimilated and share our values.
The immgration we have seen over the past few decades, and increasingly in the present century, is something outside our experience and has not taken into account the fact that this is a group of small islands with limited land mass. I would like to see homes and jobs for our own people before we 'historically welcome' any more.
Margaret Stoll, ROCHFORD, Essex, England
This is indeed a beautiful story and I wish only to live in a paradise of this nature in the future myself. I come from a farming community in Britain and much of the conditions are fairly comparable, apart from the machinery side of things. Conditions are not favourable for our agriculture either. The other impact which seems to have been glossed over by EU growth, in this age of 'green-ism', is that these places are going to need electricity and transportation of the fuel burning variety to conform to slaughterhouse standards etc. The worlds eco-footprint is growing rapidly and needless EU sanctions could increase this more rapidly than we have planned for.
A Kipling, Birmingham,
I've been in Rumania twice (I speak Rumanian) and those 2 stays were the worst holidays of my life.
I agree that the landscape is beautiful, but Rumanian people don't care much for wildlife: they can't distinguish between an eagle and a common buzzard, and they dump garbage all over the place.
As a woman, I met with a lot of sexual harassment there, and I'm really not surprised that so many Rumanian women work in prostitution in western Europe: for Rumanian men, it's all women are fit for. At the university of Timisoara, one of the female professors recommended western students to visit strip-tease shows (she said that even for women, it was interesting because we could learn useful techniques), and when she saw I was shocked she told me I wasn't westernised enough (nu sinteti destul de occidentalisat).
Also Rumanians boast that in France an unskilled part-time job pays 3000 euros a month: 1000 euros for a full-time job is more like it.
For Rumanian people, Europe is a cash cow.
LN, Paris,
I have lived in Romania and CEE for 13 years and I know this area (and countless other "rural idylls") well. I too can wax lyrical about these villages and I do enjoy the magnificent scenery and hospitality when I can. However, I do not think that running water and proper sewage, a washing machine in the house and proper heating destroys traditions and community spirit. Rather it destroys squalor, improves quality of life and fosters rural regeneration. It is a great pity that some of the EU's food rules have been applied in a heavy handed way and this must be resolved, but the great wave of EU funds for the environment and in particular water treatment in Romania, are nothing but good. Britain's treatment of Romanians is knee jerk politics reacting to a media frenzy and extremely disappointing - imagine the hullabaloo were Romania and countries like it to ban highly paid ex-pats! Overall, one of the more balanced articles on Romania. Perhaps soon we might even see a positive economic story about Romania grace the pages of the UK press.
rachel sargent, Bucharest, Romania
Finally, an unbiased, objective story about Romania. Thank you for writing about our good side, too, and for showing that few if any Romanians are preparing to invade Britain.
Raluca, Bucharest, Romania
I visit this part of Romania (mainly Cluj and the surrounding areas) and have visited many small villages like this. They are like going back in time 200 years. Horse drawn carts, groups of old ladies sitting outside their houses chatting and sewing something, farmers cutting crops with scythes.. Quite amazing. It'd be such a shame for the reams of EU rules to destroy this way of life. There should be some built-in system of ensuring that existing ways of life are maintained in situations like this. Also I'd like to say I think the UK's ruling that stops Romanians working here is stupid, short minded and based on media generated racial discrimination. I hope the powers that be soon change their minds. We are a 'mongrel' nation after all and have historically welcomed peoples from different backgrounds.
Dave Lee, Glossop, UK
I have lived in Bulgaria for 9 years, close to the Romanian border and know this area quite well. I agree with the writer that is it sad to see traditions dissappear, and communties under threat by rural depopulation etc. However, the EU is not the only culprit. Globalisation is a stronger force and it is the end of communism which closed the factories and led to a massive jolt for these areas. The EU may help to stabilise the region, bring jobs, investment and some self respect. We also cannot live in our middle class enclaves of London and expect someone to spend his life dressed in sheep'\s wool jso we can visit them for one week every ten years. Remember - your pension fund is bringing the shopping malls to Bucharest and closing down these villages.
andy anderson, Cambridge, UK
I enjoyed this article, and understand the attraction of Romania's bucolic idyll as I spent nearly 4 years living and working in the Apuseni Mountains of Transylvania. However, one thing the author neglects to mention is that rural subsistence in Romania is actually a very hard life, especially in the long winters when the diet of pork, potatoes and pickled cabbage can become a bit monotonous. Most winters involved 2 or 3 months of heavy snow and temperatures down to -20. In my experience, most of the rural population actually wanted indoor plumbing, central heating, a regular electricity supply and better roads. One old lady near me had to walk about 4 miles just to buy bread, unless I passed by and gave her a lift. Numerous empty houses were a sign of the rural depopulation. Therefore, I think it is misguided and somewhat patronising to over-romanticise this rural subsistence or these people will end up living in some kind of theme park for rich rich western europeans to gawp at.
Nick, York, UK
Idylic vision, but the line about "my teenage daughter spends more on a pair of shoes than these people earn in a month" betrays the real situation: it is not EU rules that will kill the village life (if farming is of the subsistance type, there is no need for a slaughterhouse: some old French farmers still kill their family pig at home), but the unbreachable gap between the certainty of continuing the poor peasant life at the village and the aspiration that maybe a job in Bucarest (not to mention London) will make them rich. Subsistance farming has been for the most part of human history the life of most people. Unless anything catastrophic happens this page of human history has been turned, and Britain was at the forefront of this revolution.
S. Maruta, Paris, France
This is very sad. The EU must take a closer look at this situation. Sensitivity is required if we are not to loose overnight a piece of our traditional European heritage which has amazingly survived into the twenty first century.
Michael, Belfast,
Membership of the EU has improved people's lives materially for the better. Would you go back to living in a village and subsistence farming? I wouldn't - I'd much rather live in a world where the free market allows me the freedom to do the things I am best at (probably not subsistence farming) and access to better clothes, food and healthcare.
Yippee
Doug, Edinburgh,
The thousands of cultures that Europe used to exist of are gone or on the way out.
Unity and prosperity is what we wanted instead, and unprecedented riches is what we got, along with pollution of all sorts that came with it in such huge quantities that it is slowly but surely killing us. Unable to handle the unity that we thought would save us from wars, we now live wars more vicious than ever before every single day.
We lost touch with reality and lost our souls for ever in a quackmire of gluttony.
These thousands of cultures lost, all those precious diversities appeared to have been a strong binding agent that made life so much more happy and comprehensible.
robert, vancouver, bc