We first highlighted the quite shocking cost of lift passes at Romanian ski resorts over a year ago, in a rant about the general state of skiing in the country.

Since then there has been improvement – infrastructure wise, at least. Besides the opening of the Arena Platos near Sibiu (more hereafter) new lifts and runs have been opened at both Sinaia and Poiana Brasov. We covered these improvements (and much else, including the fact that there are still many problems) in the feature on Romanian skiing we published in the December-January issue of Bucharest In Your Pocket. Read it here.

Bizarrely, a report at the weekend in German tabloid Bild listed Predeal and Poiana Brasov amongst the cheapest resorts in Europe. As we have long insisted, they are no such thing.

The Bild report used hotel prices as main reason for claiming skiing in Romania was cheap. This is misleading. In every resort in the world (including Courchevel, Verbier and Gstaad) you can find a cheap sleep if you try hard enough. Likewise, you can find very expensive hotel rooms in Predeal and Poiana Brasov (and you don’t even have to try particularly hard).

We think that when it comes to ranking ski resorts by price, the only formula worth any salt is our idea of taking the cost of a day’s lift pass and dividing it by the amount of skiing available.

So this morning we did just that, taking the main Romanian resorts, and comparing their prices with a handful of the world’s best – and usually thought of as the most expensive – ski resorts, from all over the planet. Prices are for one day, for an adult, midweek in January (June in the case of Portillo). All amounts converted to Euros:

Azuga €32/12km = €2.66 per km
Busteni €57/2km = €28.50 per km
Poiana Brasov €27/23km = €1.17 per km
Predeal €22/10km = €2.20 per km
Sinaia €62/40km = €1.55 per km

Note: Poiana Brasov – which has not increased lift pass prices despite adding two new chairlifts this year and almost doubling the amount of pistes – now in fact offers by far the best value skiing in Romania.

Are €43/98km = €0.43 per km
Courchevel/Three Valleys €49.10/600km = €0.08 per km
Portillo €38/45km = €0.84 per km
Verbier €56/410km = €0.14 per km
Winterpark €49/230km = €0.21 per km

Conclusion? Skiing in Romania does not generally offer what we could even begin to term ‘good value’.

Apropos of all this, we spent a couple of days last week in what could well be the world’s smallest ski resort, the Arena Platos at Paltinis, near Sibiu. We didn’t ski, as it hardly seemed worthwhile. Buckling up our boots would have taken longer than skiing down any of the short slopes. We would guess that the total length of the five pistes here is less than two kilometres.

Arena Platos, Paltinis

That said, however, everything about the set-up at Arena Plato is highly impressive.

There are as many drag lifts as there are pistes (keeping queues to a minimum), people not skiing or snowboarding are forbidden from entering the ski area (we can’t be the only people who have many times had to dodge tarts in high-heels walking across the pistes at Poiana Brasov?) the slopes are all floodlit and open until 10pm, there is a car park right at the bottom of the slopes and while the price of a day’s lift pass would be high when the euro per kilometre formula (see above) is applied, skiing here is, all-in-all, a cheap day out (lift pass and ski hire cost less than 100 lei).

If the same people administered Romania’s other ski resorts they might not be in the (generally) sorry state they are.

We know you are longing to find out what the cover of the new Brasov In Your Pocket mini-guide looks like, so here it is:

The actual guide can be picked up in all the usual places in Brasov (such as Tourist Information).

Now that Brasov is in the bag, we are about to start work on a brand new Romanian In Your Pocket mini-guide: Sibiu, which will – if the wind blows in the right direction – be out by Christmas.

Is done and dusted.

It features lots of new places to eat and drink in the capital (assuming that they do not burn down between now and the time you read the guide), as well as a feature on skiing in Romania. This year has finally seen a fair bit of investment in the skiing infrastructure up at Sinaia and – especially – Poiana Brasov.

All we need now is some snow.

We also have a major feature on the Romanian Revolution of 1989, as well as the usual guide to just about everything worth knowing about Bucharest.

Anyway, here is the latest issue of Bucharest In Your Pocket in all its glory on Issuu:

As usual there is a PDF of the whole thing available here.

Those of you with an iPhone can download the Bucharest In Your Pocket app here.

You can read about the cover, which is also on the current Bucharest IYP Mini-Guide, here.

Yet again, Romanian television station Pro TV came up with the goods last week – and no, we are not talking about Romanii au talent – when it broadcast a report exposing the trade in Certificate de Revolutionar (Revolutionary Certificates).

Basically, these certificates ‘prove’ that the holder was directly involved in bringing about the Romanian Revolution of 1989, and as such is entitled to all sorts of benefits, from a generous monthly stipend to reduced rates of income tax.

(The report in question alas is not – yet – on the Pro TV website, but this earlier report calling for the withdrawal from circulation of 2,000 such revolutionary certificates is).

Anyway, you can probably guess the rest…

These certificates have become valuable documents and are highly sought after. As such, unscrupulous officials allegedly sell them to anyone willing to pay the right price. You need not be an actual revolutionary, and many of those who hold Certificate de Revolutionar were apparently nowhere near the action in December 1989. Some were even – allegedly – on the other side of the barricades. At the same time, many genuine revolutionaries do not have certificates, either because they were turned down by the issuing authority, were unwilling to pay or simply have yet to apply, fearful of being asked for bribes and dealing with the six hundred levels of bureaucracy involved. As one man said ‘I do not need a certificate to prove I took part in the revolution.‘

Anyway, today – March 2, 2011 – marks the 22nd anniversary of one of the many forgotten* stories of the last months of communist Romania: the self-immolation of Liviu Babes, a 47-year old man who, in front of horrified western European holidaymakers in Poiana Brasov, walked on to the Bradul ski-slope and shouted ‘Living in Romania is like living in Auschwitz‘ (or words to that effect) and set himself alight.

Ion Ratiu's 'Free Romanian' published in London, in April 1989, called Babes 'The Jan Palach of Romania.' Alas, Palach is far better remembered. Click image for source.

The story made newspapers worldwide (although not, unsurprisingly, in Romania), and Babes has every right to be considered one of the first martyrs of the revolution.

*Babes is not entirely forgotten: the memorial below stands in Poiana Brasov, close to where he set himself alight; a street in Brasov is named after him, and there are apparently plans to raise a statue of him in the city.

We’ve just sent our latest Brasov guide to the printer. You will be able to find copies in and around Brasov early next week: the best place to find a copy is at Tourist Information, in the Old Town Hall on Piata Sfatului.

This issue, by popular demand, we have included Bran Castle and Rasnov Fortress: both places are, contrary to various reports, still open to the public.

Reports of their demise have been premature.