Romania is in Eastern Europe, not far north of Greece and Turkey.

Map 1: Where is Romania?

Most people in Britain know very little about Romania because it never had strong trade or cultural links with us. For the second half of the twentieth century the country was inaccessible to Western Europe because it was in the area controlled by Russia. It was in effect part of Russia’s communist empire. Romania is about the same size as the UK, but is much more compact, and shaped like an oval.

Romania has the same latitude as central and southern France. It gets extremely hot in summer, but because it is well away from the Atlantic, its winter weather can be seriously cold. For example, Bucharest, the capital city, can have summer days averaging 38° C (100° F) and winter ones of -24° C.

Its population is about 23 million (UK: 58 million) and 56% of these live in towns and cities (UK: 95%).

b) Why are Ceausescu and Russia so important?

Ceausescu ruled the country as a dictator, with Russia’s ‘permission’, from 1967 to 1989. (Most people pronounce his name "Chow-cheskoo".) He tried to industrialise the country but his methods included:

• forced relocation of rural people into towns
• removing educated people from their jobs and having many of them killed
• refusing to allow money to be spent in the countryside
• using the secret police to terrorise any opponents

He was therefore very unpopular with most of the population.

Russia was part of a larger country called the Soviet Union until 1991. It controlled most of Eastern Europe as well as Ukraine, Belarus and several other countries in Asia such as Kazakhstan. Romania was like a colony, ruled by another country and having to obey its rules. Russia made sure that Romanians:

• couldn’t travel abroad
• had no political or economic links with the USA, Britain, or the rest of Western Europe
• supplied Russia with food and factory goods at very low prices
• couldn’t organise their own country how they wanted, or take the initiative in setting up their own businesses

All of this came to an end around 1990 when Russia was too weak to carry on controlling other countries, and gave up its communist empire. This meant that rulers like Ceausescu no longer had ‘protection’ from Russia. He was captured and executed on Christmas Day of 1989 when the Romanians rebelled against him.

c) Why leave the countryside?

Claudiu Tarziu is 14 years old and lives in the village of Dirja, deep in the Transylvanian region of Romania. He lives here with his mother and father and his four brothers. They own a few cows, a pig, some chickens and a horse.

Life is much like Western Europe in the nineteenth century. With almost no agricultural machinery, everything is done with primitive tools. Claudiu’s elder brother is sharpening a scythe which they use for cutting grass. The working day for Claudiu and his brothers depends mostly on the seasons. Start when there’s light in the sky. Stop when it gets dark. In summer that can mean 16 hours at a stretch.

After all this work, the whole family manages to earn only £4 a week – which has to pay for everything they need. This is why young people feel there’s no future in the countryside.

Claudiu doesn’t want to be like his dad. He’s thinking of packing it all in, and taking the 50km journey to the nearest city – Cluj-Napoca.

d) Contrasts in the city

Cora Silvestru is 13 years old and lives in the city of Cluj-Napoca. It has 380,000 inhabitants and is the capital of the Transylvanian region.

She lives in a block of flats with her mum and dad. There are many people in Cluj who are very poor compared with them. They can only afford to buy bad-quality stuff in the cheap Russian and second-hand shops. But she’s able to wear quite fashionable clothes, so she knows she’s lucky. All the money in her home comes from her dad who is a scientist.

Most girls like shopping for clothes, so she often goes with her friends to see what’s new. But the problem is that anything fashionable is really expensive in Romania. It can cost several months’ wages just for a party dress. They have to save for a long time to afford the clothes they like. So buying them is a real treat.

If for some reason she had to live in the countryside, she says she wouldn’t be happy at all. She is not going to live the rest of her life in Romania. Her father wants them to emigrate to Canada – to have a better future there. Here in Romania, there’s no future for them. Their leaders have not helped them – the people. They have not helped their country to develop, to become stronger and richer; Romania is rich in natural resources, but many people here don’t know how to use them properly.

e) The future for the countryside

Rural areas have a lot in their favour. There is beautiful scenery, good skiing and fertile land.

Romania’s range of scenery is striking – the sort that would stand out in any holiday brochure. In the Carpathian Mountains where bears and wolves still live, there are areas of the country that have stayed truly wild.

Even more important perhaps, the Romanian countryside really is – by European standards – untouched above and below ground. With tourism still rated as one of Europe’s fastest-growing industries, this countryside is something that Romania could easily sell as a totally new tourist experience.

Indeed, it has already started. Many Romanian villages, like Albac, for example, have been twinned with others in Western Europe. And tourism development money is coming from the European Union to help publicise the region and put up new signs.

Mircea was an engineer in the city. But now he sees a bigger opportunity here in the mountains, by offering his services as a guide, and opening accommodation for visiting tourists. He received a grant of £300 to get things going. It may seem a small amount, but in Romania, it’s a whole year’s wages.

Tourism has a big multiplier effect – one job always leads to another. This is benefiting people in the Romanian countryside where, unlike in Western Europe, the old skills still survive. Using local materials, wood-carvers and weavers are being encouraged to sell their traditional products as souvenirs. Slowly, the locals are getting a boost from this new rural industry. Nearby, workmen install the first ski lift to be installed in the region. There’s guaranteed snow every year, and still plenty of space on the uncrowded slopes.