Romania

The Romanian education system, again: Religion

by Craig Turp March 10, 2012 Bucharest

 Once again the subject of teaching religion in Romanian schools is creating a fuss. It happens every year or so, when small groups of parents get their knickers in a twist at the prospect of their children having to learn about Jesus, Mary and Joseph and what not. What has sparked off this most recent [...]

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Top Romanian pop stars set to compete for honour of finishing 17th in Eurovision Song Contest

by Craig Turp March 9, 2012 Romania

  The cream of Romanian pop and rock will tomorrow night compete for the prestigious honour of representing Romania at May’s Eurovision Song Contest in Baku, Azerbaijan. Fifteen acts will do battle at 9pm tomorrow on TVR1 for the right to go to Baku and finish a disappointing 17th, before returning home amidst accusations of [...]

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New adventures at the post office

by Craig Turp February 28, 2012 Bucharest

 Anyone remember this post of two years ago bemoaning the Kafka-esque bureaucracy involved in picking up a package from a Romanian post office? Well, we had another run-in with Posta Romana yesterday, courtesy of one of its employees who successfully did her job and managed to keep us far away from the package we had [...]

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What does ‘Modernising the education system’ mean to you?

by Craig Turp February 14, 2012 Romania

 We’ve written about the Romanian education system before. Everybody’s favourite Csíkszereda-based Englishman, Andy Hockley (who has something of a teaching background) has recently written a lot more. As always, he’s worth reading. In not entirely unrelated events, this World Vision campaign was brought to our attention yesterday. They are raising finds to buy a minibus [...]

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Romania’s biggest cities

by Craig Turp February 8, 2012 Romania

 More from the Census. The list of Romania’s biggest cities (excluding Bucharest, which is the only city in the country of any real size) has been changed radically by the data released last week. The 2002 list looked like this: 1. Iasi 321,580 2. Cluj 318,027 3. Timisoara 317,651 4. Constanta 310,526 5. Craiova 302,622 [...]

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Photo Opportunity

by Craig Turp February 7, 2012 Romania

 Dear Bucharest Life As it looks increasingly likely as though Elena Udrea will not be part of the new Romanian government, it is probably a fair assumption to say that she can look forward to having a great deal of spare time on her hands in the very near future. I therefore wonder if you [...]

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A quick word on Romania’s (proposed) new prime minister, Mihai Razvan Ungureanu

by Craig Turp February 7, 2012 Romania

 Romanian president Traian Basescu yesterday named the head of Romania’s foreign intelligence service Mihai Razvan Ungureanu as prime minister. Ungureanu now has to try and form a government and have it approved by parliament. The full story is here. Definitely an upgrade from Emil Boc and a rather nice man (we’ve met him: he was [...]

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