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This is not a blog which opines on current events. It rather uses incidents, books (old and new), links and papers to muse about our social endeavours.
So old posts are as good as new! And lots of useful links!

The Bucegi mountains - the range I see from the front balcony of my mountain house - are almost 120 kms from Bucharest and cannot normally be seen from the capital but some extraordinary weather conditions allowed this pic to be taken from the top of the Intercontinental Hotel in late Feb 2020

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Law-breaking in Romania

One of the few signs of public kindness left in Romania is.... hitch-hiking. At the exit of all cities you can see a few people waiting for lifts – which they will generally get in 10 minutes or so. As you leave the car – after a trip of 50 kilometres say – you will simply put a note worth a couple of euros in the driver’s hand as you leave. But hitch-hiking in Romania is being banned – with the guilty party now designated as the driver (as if we were the customers of prostitutes). 
So where does that place me when I am on the 6 kilometre stretch of track from the main road to the village where I live in the summer when I encounter villagers? No justification has been given for this stupid new law which, hopefully, will be ignored by all, not least the police (as it was for a previous effort some years back apparently). As if Romanians were not being crushed enough!

I referred some months back to a great book of black and white photographs of Ceaucescu‘s Romania by Andrei Pandele  which got a nice review on the BBC magazine. 
The author of the piece, Tessa Dunlop, wrote a novel recently about the period – To Romania with Love 

Finally, for those who want to know more about aspects of Romania’s history, there is an interesting review of the second-world war dictator Antonescu here

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