Romania: "And We Sent Them Home..."

I'm at the point where people get, when they say, "This is Monday, so it must be Romania."  Each day we seem to sail to a new city, spend a day and sail off to a new different city.  And there are many similarities amongst these Eastern European countries who were formerly part of the USSR.

Bos decided he did not want to spend 3 hours on a bus to get to Bucharest and 3 hours to get back from Bucharest, so we opted to explore Constanta, the port we landed in.  And we were very happy we did!  You see, Constanta has a very long history stretching back to the Greeks -- and you know how I love history!  Originally it was called Tomis and was a Greek colony as part of Scythia Minor.  Actually, it is the oldest city in Romania, founded around 600 B.C.  In 29 B.C. the Romans captured the area and in 8 A.D. Emperor Augustus banished the poet Ovid to Constanta -- for his too racy poetry!  Wonder what could be too racy for those racy Romans?!  Ovid moaned and groaned about being at the ends of the earth, meaning the Roman empire, and died 8 years later. But they have a statue to him in the center of the city square!

The city, which is currently 300,000 people, has a wonderful archaeological museum with stunning pieces of Greek and Roman artifacts and, since this really was the ends of the ancient world, most of them were undisturbed for centuries until uncovered.  The archaeological museum had lots of Greek and Roman statues, jewelry, even baby feeding cups, utensils, weapons, even mosaics.  In fact, they recently uncovered a huge floor of a former building that was entirely a mosaic the size of a football field!  But there are lots of reminders of the city’s past mixed in with the Soviet reminders as well.  The tall block buildings, which are apartments, look gray against the deep blue color of the Black Sea and aqua sky.

From the archaeological museum we went to the ethnographic museum, containing Romanian items like costumes, pictures of various houses typical of a region, weavings,  and furniture.  

This is where it happened.  I got my hand slapped.  As she was talking about the “Happy Cemetary” in Transylvania (yes, that was its name!), I said, “When we hear about Transylvania in the states, we all think about Count Dracula.”  She paused and said, rather crossly, “There are lots of good things about Translvania.” Period.  Enough said.

Then, to continue my bad form, we went upstairs to the halls of Romanian costumes from various areas.  The first room was, she scoffed, GREEK costumes, so we were supposed to ignore, I guess.  The second room was Romanian -- which in my opinion, looked just like the Greek costumes.  And, frankly, they ALL looked like the Scandinavian costumes we saw in Norway and Sweden.  So (I guess I hadn’t learned!) I said, “I know the Vikings came through here on the Amber Road to the Black Sea.  Isn’t it great how we all borrow things like costumes from one another.”  Her comment: “They may have come through here, but we sent them home.  And I am ‘damn proud’ of my country!”  Oh well...

Are they happy about the demise of the USSR?  We got the feeling that they liked the Soviet style of socialism, where everything was taken care of. As a member of the EU, they have made good use of the money that the EU sent them for roads, schools and improvements.  They still do not use the Euro.   

When we got back to the ship, we had time to reflect on what we had seen and heard and, if you read my friend Kay Jarvis’s comment about her father, I mused, as did he, “What have we done to deserve all this?” -- And to me that “all this” is the freedom, the creativity, the wealth that is America, even in a recession!!