Cristian Manta's answer to What should every foreigner know about your country in terms of food, tourist destinations, demography, best time to visit, and USP of your country?

What should every foreigner know about your country in terms of food, tourist destinations, demography, best time to visit, and USP of your country?

Cristian Manta

a gathering of antagonistic tendencies · Updated 11y ·

Originally Answered: What do you think every foreigner must know about your country? ·

ROMANIA

1. Ancestry
My country has Latin origins even if it’s in the middle of the Slavic part of Europe. The creators of the Romanian nation are considered to be Decebal, the king of Dacia and Trajan, the Roman emperor (100-106 AD - wars between Dacians and Romans). The Romanian language is very similar to Italian.

Decebal and Traian

2. Capital city
Romania’s capital city is Bucharest, not Budapest. I must say this because many rock stars use to open their concert in Bucharest with a well known “Good evening Budapest!”
Romania Map:

3. The Revolution
Our recent history is divided in two: “before 1989” (communist era, of Ceausescu) and “after 1989”. On December 15, 1989, a revolution started in Timisoara (a city in western Romania). It quickly spread to the entire country. It was a bloody revolution, hundred of thousands of people went out in the streets, many people died, but finally the dictator was caught, sentenced to death and later executed with his wife on December 25, 1989.

4. Myth of Dracula
Most Romanians don’t consider Dracula representative for Romania. What you probably don’t know is that there was a Romanian leader back in 15th century, count Vlad Tepes (also called Vlad Dracul, after his father). He used to impale murderers, persons sentenced to death for various crimes and war prisoners; probably this is why he inspired Bram Stoker for his novel.

Vlad Tepes:

5. Famous people
If we’re talking about reputation, I can give you some examples of Romanians we consider to be famous: sculptor Constantin Brancusi, historian/philosopher Mircea Eliade, composer George Enescu or athletes such as Gheorghe Hagi (soccer player), Nadia Comaneci (gymnast who got the first score of 10 in Olympics history, in Montreal 1976), and Ilie Nastase (tennis player, winner of Roland Gaross in 1973 and US Open in 1972).

Endless Column - sculpture by Constantin Brancuşi:

6. Territorial organization
Romania is divided in 41 counties, but there are three main historic regions: Transylvania(northwest), Moldova(northeast) and Tara Romaneasca (The Romanian Country) (south). Romania’s eastern neighbor, Republic of Moldova, was part of Romania until 1945 when Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill agreed in connection to Russian influence in Europe and decided to take it away from Romania and give it to USSR (Yalta Conference).

Romania counties:

7. Influences
Because throughout the history Transylvania was under western foreign occupancy (Austro-Hungarian most of the time), there you will find some mixed cultural influences and similarities, especially with Hungary and Austria. This led to some kind of superiority complex of Transylvanians, and of course that people from other Romanian regions (especially “the southerners”) did not like this. Also, in Transylvania, the nationalism feeling is more pregnant than in other regions of Romania. The reason is the same: foreign occupancy in the past.

Cluj-Napoca (Transilvania): statue of Matei Corvin - King of Hungary born in Transilvania

8. Food
The traditional Romanian food is very tasty, even though not very healthy (pretty fat). Most traditional dishes are pork-based. But if you’re here in a vacation for just a few days, you can eat as much as you want, it’s safe. Nothing bad will happen. If you’re here for the Christmas – New Year celebrations, do not miss “cina porcului” (pork supper) – a meal based on fresh made pork dishes. Some of them could be strange but tasty as well. You must also try the Romanian traditional “mici” and “sarmale” (main courses) and “papanasi” for desert. If you find this interesting, you should stay for a few days in a small family-run B&B in the countryside. You’ll probably get some of the above-mentioned. And one more thing: every year, when orthodox holidays are coming (Christmas and Easter), the number of calls at 112 (Romanian / European version of 911) is huge. The reason: above-mentioned courses eaten in industrial quantities. And of course, alcohol.

Pork's supper:

9. Facts
Romania is a country of contrasts: if you travel to the countryside you will see people performing agriculture works using archaic methods: plowing with horses or oxen, carrying stuff with carts pulled by horses, manually hoeing or mowing, etc. But you’ll be very surprised when you’ll get to your B&B or hotel room and you’ll see that your internet connection is faster than in most of the places you’ve stayed before. Romania’s 3rd in top world internet speed connection, after Hong Kong and Japan. And after you’ll see the archaic farmers in a village, at 10 km away you’ll be able to find a big city with modern malls, pubs, restaurants and everything a modern civilized life involves. Also, on Romanian roads you’ll see 20-30 year old cars next to luxurious cars, but don’t be surprised; this is Romania.

My father mowing in the garden:

Modern building in Bucharest:

10. More facts
When Romanians travel to western Europe (“civilized countries” - we like to use this cliché when talking about the western states), they like speeding on the highways. That’s maybe because we don’t have too many highways in Romania. There are less than 400kms of highway in Romania, and this is frustrating. Romanians must thank for this to the politicians that, by the way, are mostly hated. But I think this is nothing new. The rest of the roads are “national roads” or “county roads”, most of them having only one lane for each direction. So, driving your car in Romania for a few hundred kilometers could be tedious if you’re not used to it. If you have to drive on secondary roads or on any other kind of local roads you must expect the worst: unpaved roads, macadam, many holes, etc. We are on one of the last places in a world-ranking top concerning roads quality.

Some of the roads look like this:

11. The countryside
As a regular basis, the countryside people are mostly naive, friendly and well intentioned. If somebody approaches you, talking to you, you don’t have to be too cautious. They’re just friendly and curious. If your car breaks somewhere in the middle of nowhere, don’t be surprised if somebody comes to help you, even if you didn’t ask to. And after that maybe you’ll get something to drink or eat, without asking anything in return for this. I can’t say the same if you’re in a big city, where the communist age left deeper marks on people’s mentality, especially on elders. Of course, exceptions can occur anytime.

Countryside (view from my native village, Bistrita-Nasaud county):

12. Landscape
The landscape has much to offer: We have the Black Sea, Carpathian Mountains (with Moldoveanu Peak, the highest – 2,544 m), and the Danube Delta, which is a Unesco protected site due to life diversity (biosphere reservation). It’s the best preserved delta in Europe; you can find here over 3,400 wildlife species. Also, here you can admire maybe the last herds of wild horses in Europe, also called the Romanian Mustang.

Wild horses in Danube Delta:

13. Incomes
Romanians’ salaries are almost the lowest in Europe, and definitely the lowest in European Union (approximately the same as in Bulgaria – minimum net income less than EUR 200,-). That’s really frustrating and that’s why people choose to go abroad for work. Lots of drama happens because of the children being left with their grandparents, while their parents go to work abroad. I am talking about Romanians, and yes, I said to work, not to steal. I really must highlight this issue because sometimes in countries like Italy, the word Romanian equals Gipsy, which is a great injustice for us. Gypsies (Rroma or Rromani people) is just an ethnic minority in Romania, and unfortunately, yes, they are going abroad especially for stealing and begging. Exceptions could occur in this case as well.

I am aware that some essential issues regarding Romania are not mentioned above, please feel free to add if you consider necessary. Thank you!

Here you can see some more pictures from Romania. I do not own copyrights, they can be found on internet:

Cheile Bicazului (Bicaz Quay)