Comments on: News Update: Bucharest has banks & ATMs http://www.bucharestlife.net/2009/08/19/news-update-bucharest-has-banks-atms/ Capital living in Bucharest, Romania Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:44:38 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By: Parmalat http://www.bucharestlife.net/2009/08/19/news-update-bucharest-has-banks-atms/#comment-1110 Parmalat Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:33:23 +0000 http://www.bucharestlife.net/?p=1821#comment-1110 Yes, the mechanism was projected in order to maintain full control and still allow a certain level of freedom. But ordinary people didn't know about it until they did something wrong. The ones who speak today telling that the Securitate did God-knows-what atrocities don't have a clue about what was going on, they never saw a Securitate officer in their life. So the level of opression instituted by the Securitate back then was very light considering what could have been and people were enjoying social privileges as they are now, except being able to ride across the border whenever they wanted, owning foreign currency etc... which were not essential for their lives. Obviously the privileges were limited by the state of the Romanian society and finances. Even on the foreign field, the Securitate was between the top-rated intelligence agencies of the world, immediately behind the 3 big agencies - the CIA, the KGB and the Mossad. I don't know if you remember in 2006 or so when some Romanian journalists were kidnapped in Irak and the SRI (Romanian Intelligence Service) and the SIE (Foreign Intelligence Service) which were both created in 1990 by splitting the former Securitate activated their informational netting in Irak and in 2 weeks or so managed to bring home the Romanian journalists together with a French journalist that was being held for 5 months and nobody knew where she was. I know a lot about what happened back then because I was very close to the system. There are books written by former Securitate officers in 2000-3000 copies which couldn't be found in libraries, detailing parts and pieces of the history of the Romanian intelligence, explaining the reasons, explaining the thinking, explaining the actions from inside the system - not what the stupid media wants people to believe. The rest of the information that arrives on regular channels is 90% crap, produced by some frustrated people who were considered enough stupid back then so as to not be promoted on serious positions in the Romanian economy. The ones who were smart and made a good living by following legal ways before 1989 will never say a bad thing against the system. Yes, the mechanism was projected in order to maintain full control and still allow a certain level of freedom. But ordinary people didn’t know about it until they did something wrong. The ones who speak today telling that the Securitate did God-knows-what atrocities don’t have a clue about what was going on, they never saw a Securitate officer in their life.
So the level of opression instituted by the Securitate back then was very light considering what could have been and people were enjoying social privileges as they are now, except being able to ride across the border whenever they wanted, owning foreign currency etc… which were not essential for their lives. Obviously the privileges were limited by the state of the Romanian society and finances.
Even on the foreign field, the Securitate was between the top-rated intelligence agencies of the world, immediately behind the 3 big agencies – the CIA, the KGB and the Mossad.
I don’t know if you remember in 2006 or so when some Romanian journalists were kidnapped in Irak and the SRI (Romanian Intelligence Service) and the SIE (Foreign Intelligence Service) which were both created in 1990 by splitting the former Securitate activated their informational netting in Irak and in 2 weeks or so managed to bring home the Romanian journalists together with a French journalist that was being held for 5 months and nobody knew where she was.
I know a lot about what happened back then because I was very close to the system. There are books written by former Securitate officers in 2000-3000 copies which couldn’t be found in libraries, detailing parts and pieces of the history of the Romanian intelligence, explaining the reasons, explaining the thinking, explaining the actions from inside the system – not what the stupid media wants people to believe. The rest of the information that arrives on regular channels is 90% crap, produced by some frustrated people who were considered enough stupid back then so as to not be promoted on serious positions in the Romanian economy.
The ones who were smart and made a good living by following legal ways before 1989 will never say a bad thing against the system.

]]> By: Davin Ellicson http://www.bucharestlife.net/2009/08/19/news-update-bucharest-has-banks-atms/#comment-1108 Davin Ellicson Fri, 21 Aug 2009 07:48:28 +0000 http://www.bucharestlife.net/?p=1821#comment-1108 Fascinating Parmalat, but it all sounds pretty psycho to me! Just totally messing with people's minds. If I had visited here as a tourist I guess I would have had a hard time doing street photography then?! Ceausescu shouldn't have forgotten the cardinal rule of 'treat others as you would like to be treated' because ultimately he got a magazine full in the chest. Fascinating Parmalat, but it all sounds pretty psycho to me! Just totally messing with people’s minds. If I had visited here as a tourist I guess I would have had a hard time doing street photography then?! Ceausescu shouldn’t have forgotten the cardinal rule of ‘treat others as you would like to be treated’ because ultimately he got a magazine full in the chest.

]]> By: Parmalat http://www.bucharestlife.net/2009/08/19/news-update-bucharest-has-banks-atms/#comment-1106 Parmalat Fri, 21 Aug 2009 06:03:29 +0000 http://www.bucharestlife.net/?p=1821#comment-1106 Wow, those are some salaries! In Romania a newly employed policeman starts from 850 RON basic wage + some stimulents reaching about 1500 RON. And under the current scheme a Colonel (or Commisary - how it's called after de-militarization of the Police force) would reach about 5000 RON in hand. If you start a career in the Police you would reach a grade of Commisary around age 50. But now Emil Boc decided to cut the stimulents so imagine what's left... Wow, those are some salaries!
In Romania a newly employed policeman starts from 850 RON basic wage + some stimulents reaching about 1500 RON. And under the current scheme a Colonel (or Commisary – how it’s called after de-militarization of the Police force) would reach about 5000 RON in hand. If you start a career in the Police you would reach a grade of Commisary around age 50.
But now Emil Boc decided to cut the stimulents so imagine what’s left…

]]> By: Parmalat http://www.bucharestlife.net/2009/08/19/news-update-bucharest-has-banks-atms/#comment-1104 Parmalat Fri, 21 Aug 2009 05:54:06 +0000 http://www.bucharestlife.net/?p=1821#comment-1104 @Davin: before 1989 most State institutions had their own Securitate officer who was responsible mostly with counter-intellingence and political supervision. In every important Police (Militia) station (not the ones from villages, those were too small) there was an office where a Securitate officer performed his duty. The Securitate had many branches and dealt not only with counter-intelligence in the classical meaning (catching foreign agents) but they were also involved in case the Militia was overwhelmed by a certain situation. For example in the 70's when the only recognized series-killer in the history of Romania made victims, the Militia was overwhelmed and the Securitate came in and through their informational wires managed to solve the case. It is important to tell that the informational netting of the Securitate began literally from the street corner: in every neighborhood, that is 4-5 blocks of flats, there existed an informant who would provide informational notes to the Securitate on a regular basis about suspicious things that happened in the past period. These notes ranged from "person X spoke badly about Ceausescu" to "person Y is under suspicion of owning foreign currency" or "person Z is rattling with Kent cigars and whisky". Rarely were these informations used against that person, they were stacked in a file and only if the Securitate considered that a certain person would endanger the stability of the regime - only then they would intervene. Otherwise they would use the information to assess the psychological state of the society. As such, in the 80's the Securitate knew very well what was the state of the Romanian society and General Iulian Vlad (commander of the Securitate from 1987 to 1989) would inform Ceausescu on a regular basis about the situation. The Political Executive Commitee of the Communist Party considered him to be a "bringer of bad news" and they didn't like him at all. They preferred to keep Ceausescu blind and tell him that everything is perfect and for this reason not even Ceausescu would listen to Iulian Vlad and he became suspicious on the Securitate. Otherwise, the Securitate officers (recruited only from the best people available in every domain and after heavy testing) were living and acting as regular people: dressed normally even when they were at work, drove a colorful Dacia 1300, had a wife and a family (compulsory condition in order to be recruited) and were enjoying some privileges like the possibility to buy consumers' goods from stores in a closed circuit, medical treatment in clinics and hospitals in a closed circuit, vacations in hotels functioning in a closed circuit etc... not to mention the possibility to open most doors in the Romanian state. The DSS (formal name of the Securitate - "Directia Securitatii Statului") was part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and all the privileges that the Securitate officers had were also granted to the Militia workers. Similar privileges were granted to the Ministry of Defense. Being a Securitate officer was considered more important than being a Militia worker or working for the military because the Securitate officers were the best people available in Romania at that time. @Davin: before 1989 most State institutions had their own Securitate officer who was responsible mostly with counter-intellingence and political supervision.
In every important Police (Militia) station (not the ones from villages, those were too small) there was an office where a Securitate officer performed his duty.
The Securitate had many branches and dealt not only with counter-intelligence in the classical meaning (catching foreign agents) but they were also involved in case the Militia was overwhelmed by a certain situation. For example in the 70′s when the only recognized series-killer in the history of Romania made victims, the Militia was overwhelmed and the Securitate came in and through their informational wires managed to solve the case.
It is important to tell that the informational netting of the Securitate began literally from the street corner: in every neighborhood, that is 4-5 blocks of flats, there existed an informant who would provide informational notes to the Securitate on a regular basis about suspicious things that happened in the past period. These notes ranged from “person X spoke badly about Ceausescu” to “person Y is under suspicion of owning foreign currency” or “person Z is rattling with Kent cigars and whisky”.
Rarely were these informations used against that person, they were stacked in a file and only if the Securitate considered that a certain person would endanger the stability of the regime – only then they would intervene. Otherwise they would use the information to assess the psychological state of the society.
As such, in the 80′s the Securitate knew very well what was the state of the Romanian society and General Iulian Vlad (commander of the Securitate from 1987 to 1989) would inform Ceausescu on a regular basis about the situation. The Political Executive Commitee of the Communist Party considered him to be a “bringer of bad news” and they didn’t like him at all. They preferred to keep Ceausescu blind and tell him that everything is perfect and for this reason not even Ceausescu would listen to Iulian Vlad and he became suspicious on the Securitate.
Otherwise, the Securitate officers (recruited only from the best people available in every domain and after heavy testing) were living and acting as regular people: dressed normally even when they were at work, drove a colorful Dacia 1300, had a wife and a family (compulsory condition in order to be recruited) and were enjoying some privileges like the possibility to buy consumers’ goods from stores in a closed circuit, medical treatment in clinics and hospitals in a closed circuit, vacations in hotels functioning in a closed circuit etc… not to mention the possibility to open most doors in the Romanian state.
The DSS (formal name of the Securitate – “Directia Securitatii Statului”) was part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and all the privileges that the Securitate officers had were also granted to the Militia workers. Similar privileges were granted to the Ministry of Defense.
Being a Securitate officer was considered more important than being a Militia worker or working for the military because the Securitate officers were the best people available in Romania at that time.

]]> By: Davin Ellicson http://www.bucharestlife.net/2009/08/19/news-update-bucharest-has-banks-atms/#comment-1103 Davin Ellicson Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:13:13 +0000 http://www.bucharestlife.net/?p=1821#comment-1103 Parmalat: During Communism was there a normal police force as well as the Securitate? I assume the Securitate were not really visible, correct? They didn't drive around in Dacias with 'Securitate' written on the side, right? They were sort of a ghost organization? But did they work with the normal police to monitor people? I mean was the normal police involved with the Ceausescu regime or were they just there like they are today for emergencies and not enforcing the law. Parmalat:

During Communism was there a normal police force as well as the Securitate? I assume the Securitate were not really visible, correct? They didn’t drive around in Dacias with ‘Securitate’ written on the side, right? They were sort of a ghost organization? But did they work with the normal police to monitor people? I mean was the normal police involved with the Ceausescu regime or were they just there like they are today for emergencies and not enforcing the law.

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