Circumspencing the Globe

After Hungary, I roamed to Romania, accompanied by Sarah.  While there, I encountered four different maniacs who, in my book, put the “mania” in Romania.

         

The first “maniac” is Count Dracula.  Anyone who sucks human blood and can transform into a bat (and wolf and other things, by the way) “counts” as maniacal.  Dracula, the fictional brainchild of author Bram Stoker, hails from Transylvania, the rural heartland of Romania.  We visited Dracula’s Castle as an excursion from Brasov, a medieval baroque town where we spent two nights (Nov. 5 and 6).  Brasov was gray and very cold, below freezing.  Mountains surround it, and the nearest one supports a huge, white-lettered “BRASOV” sign, clearly inspired by the Hollywood sign.  In contrast to that unusual modern feature overlooking the town, farmers driving horse carts can still be spotted within the town.  

Dracula’s Castle looms over the nearby town of Bran.  Although the vendor tents lining the path to the castle sell Dracula paraphenalia, there’s no hint of vampires at all in the castle itself.  The interior walls display quite a few photos of a Queen Marie, who frequented the place in the 1920s, but in none of them is she wearing a cape or sporting fangs.  The only link to Dracula the 1378 castle can boast is a single visit made by a real person named Vlad Tepes in the 15th century.  Vlad is Maniac Number Two.

Below:  the main square in Brasov, exterior of the Bran (Dracula) Castle, interior of same, an inadvertently artistic shot of Sarah.

Romanians may take issue with the “maniac” designation for Vlad.  Mr. Tepes led Romania in a struggle against the expansionist designs of the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century.  But I think he qualifies as a maniac because of his penchant for torturing his Turkish enemies and for the way he did it.  “Tepes” means “impaler,” and the appellation fits because Vlad oversaw the impaling of his captives with long wooden stakes that would be driven into their rectums and out of their underarms, ensuring 48 hours of conscious suffering before death.  Mr. Impaler is believed to be the inspiration behind Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula.  “Dracula” means “son of the dragon” and Vlad’s father, Vlad Dracul, was a knight of the Order of the Dragon.

I encountered Count Dracula and Vlad Tepes in books.  But I encountered the third maniac on the street after leaving Bran Castle.  We shall call him “unknown male assailant.”  I was walking to a van with John, an English guy from my hostel in Brasov.  Suddenly, a guy stumbled onto the walkway in front of us, yelling venomously.  At first I thought he was yelling at some individual out of view, then I realized he wasn’t yelling at anyone in particular but at everyone around him.  His rage turned violent when he picked up objects from the street and held them up threateningly.  John and I made the mistake of making eye contact as we passed him, and so he turned his attention to us.  At that moment, there were four options, it seems to me:  run for safety, turn and face him in order to defend against a possible attack, turn and face him and attack him first, or saunter on by without watching him and pretend he isn’t there.  I chose the first option and darted to safety behind a parked car.  As I ran, though, the crazy guy threw at me a heavy stick–maybe a furniture leg–and grazed my butt.  That’s assault and battery, people.  Meanwhile, John chose the last option, ignoring the man.  But Unknown Male Assailant didn’t ignore John.  He followed him from close behind.  I shouted for John to run, but he just strolled along with his back to the nutcase.  The man struck John in the leg with the stick and also in the back of the head with a rock-clenched fist.  That’s now three counts of battery.  Fortunately, the man then lost interest in John and ranted in a different direction.  In the van, John rolled up his pant leg, revealing a bleeding cut.  I don’t know whose behavior is more inexplicable–the assailant’s or John’s!

The van took us to another castle before returning to Brasov.  Rasnov Fortress (Cetatea Rasnov) is a 13th century hilltop structure in the middle of a multi-colored forest.  It’s largely in ruins.  On the premises are weapons, medieval carts, a torture rack, a hanging human cage, a human skeleton, donkeys and a horse.  On the hillside just below the fortress walls is another Hollywood-style sign spelling out “RASNOV.”

Below:  shots of, or taken from or within, the Rasnov Fortress.

The fourth and final maniac is not someone I personally encountered but someone who caused much more bloodshed than Unknown Male Assailant.  Nicolae Ceauscescu was a maniac of the “megalo” variety.  He ruled Romania from 1965 to 1989 in Soviet communist style.  Romania had aligned itself with Russia during WWII and eventually adopted communism.  But the country acted in double-minded fashion.  At first, it had backed Nazi Germany, resulting in the slaughter of 400,000 Romanian Jews in concentration camps.  (They had numbered 800,000 in 1941.  Now there are only 10,000 Jews in Romania.)  While in power, Ceauscescu showed such utter disregard for the people of his country that they revolted and ultimately executed him by firing squad in 1989.  During his reign, he murdered and tortured his detractors, sometimes using experimental methods of torture, such as cancer-inducing radiation exposure.  He exported food when his own countrymen suffered severe food shortages.  He embarked on a rural urbanization project that amounted to destroying 8,000 villages, including many in Transylvania, for the purpose of resettling the villagers in urban Soviet-style housing blocks.  He erected gigantic government structures in Bucharest, tearing down blocks and blocks of historic buildings in the process.  The most gigantic is the Palace of Parliament, the second biggest building in the world.  (The USA’s Pentagon is the first.)  He built a huge, fountain-lined boulevard modeled after the Champs Elysees in Paris, but made it six meters longer for bragging rights.  (Bucharest also has its own Triumphal Arch, but that was built in the 1930s, before Ceauscescu took power.)  He placed his wife, son and three brothers in important political positions.  It took a revolution to get rid of him. 

Sarah and I rode the train the 2.5 hours from Brasov to Bucharest and had one night (Nov. 7) to wander around the city.  Although Romania had abandoned communism in the early 1990s and become a member of the EU earlier this year (2007), the ill-effects of a megalomaniacal leader and an abysmal political system remain.  Many parts of Bucharest are an abject mess.  Open trenches, dirt piles, idle construction equipment, unfinished building projects, traffic jams, honking horns, etc., combine to make the city a place you just want to leave behind ASAP.  As we walked around, Sarah and I passed a large building still bearing the bullet holes from the 1989 revolution.  We saw the black cross and plaque that mark the spot where the first protester was killed in December 1989.  A couple children approached us and begged for money.  At one point, out of curiosity, we turned into the wide open doors of a cinema, but no one seemed to be around.  After we had been snooping about, two ladies emerged.  They confirmed there would be a film tonight.  When I asked if anyone had purchased tickets, one of the ladies said simply that others might come.  The other warned us that it’s cold inside.  We moved on.  We had dinner at a quaint restaurant with old-fashioned waiters and an accordion player.  During the meal, there was a brief but complete black-out.  On the walls were hung large framed black-and-white photos of the Bucharest of, I’d guess, the 1930s or 1940s.  How tragic a legacy the city has suffered since.

Below:  the Palace of Parliament, Bucharest’s Triumphal Arch, the memorial for the first victim of the 1989 revolution, and the Romanian flag.

The next day, November 8, we took a taxi to the airport and, once again, endured the sweet sorrow of parting company.  Sarah returned to London where she’s been working.  I flew to Greece.

Tags: Brasov, Bucharest, Romania, Travel

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 10th, 2007 at 9:02 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.