Romania

Where did all the Romanians go?

by Craig Turp February 3, 2012 Romania

 Remember the census carried out by the INS last year? Well, preliminary results were released yesterday. You can browse them at your leisure here. Edited highlights: The population of Romania has fallen by more than two and a half million since the 2002 census. The current population of Romania is now just 19,042,936. It has [...]

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Nastase Seven Houses

by Craig Turp February 1, 2012 Romania

 We assume that even the most ill-informed of visitors to Bucharest Life is aware of the fact that former Romanian prime minister Adrian Nastase was sentenced to two years in prison on Monday for corruption. Nastase remains a free man for the time being, pending an appeal. Here is the Reuters report on the matter. [...]

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Proxies & VPNs: Watching the BBC in Romania

by Craig Turp January 30, 2012 Romania

 Earlier this month TV Proxy UK, the company whose services made watching the BBC (and much else) in Romania possible, closed. We have spent the past couple of weeks looking for an alternative, and have finally settled on a good, if slightly more expensive service. It is provided by these people, Scothosts, and the Virtual [...]

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Rosia Montana in a nutshell

by Craig Turp January 28, 2012 Romania

 A large number of people from Rosia Montana – the proposed site of a controversial gold mining project – came out onto the streets of their small Transylvanian town on Saturday to protest against what they see as outside interference in their affairs. ‘We want to work,’ ‘We want jobs’ and ‘We’re fed up with [...]

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On second thoughts, are Romania’s roads really all that bad?

by Craig Turp January 24, 2012 Romania

 As you will probably know if you have read this, we spent the festive season at our in-laws in Petresti, Satu Mare, at the other end of the country. Having completely forgotten to book flights back when we should have done in October, we ended up driving. The experience was, surprisingly, not all bad. It [...]

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What does a responsible city guide do about these protests?

by Craig Turp January 21, 2012 Bucharest

  Here’s a problem we have never faced before: What does a responsible city guide do about these protests (a couple of which have ended violently) currently taking place every evening in Bucharest? We have a deadline approaching ahead of the publication of the February – March issue of Bucharest In Your Pocket, and are [...]

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More in English on the Bucharest protests

by Craig Turp January 19, 2012 Bucharest

 First off, try this piece from the AP for size, which looks at the situation in Romania in a wider, Eastern European context. This piece offers some background on the man whose resignation was the catalyst for the protests, Raed Arafat. Then there is this from the BBC, written by an old friend, Sorin Ionita, [...]

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