Toate drepturile rezervate ã S.C. International Constructions Business & Tradings S.R.L. 2007
ADDRESS:
Radu Voda st., no. 1, bloc B8, Scara B, apt. 39, Sector 4, Bucharest, ROMANIA
Tel/Fax: 031.40.72.161, Cell: 0744.881.514
The Carpathians mountains are in the center of the country, bordered on both sides by hills and plateaus and finally the great plains of the outer rim. Forests cover over a quarter of the country and the fauna is one of the richest in Europe including wolves, bears, deer, lynx and chamois.
The mighty Danube forms the southern boundary of the country terminating in the Delta on the Black Sea, a heaven for countless native and migratory birds.
Countries sharing borders with Romania are: Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Republic of Moldavia and Ukraine.
Romania is situated in south-eastern Europe between latitudes 43 37' 07" north and longitudes 20 15' 44" east, extending approximately 480 km north to south and 640 km east to west. The country has an area of 237,750 sq. km and a population of over 23,000,000 of which 89% are Romanians, 7% Hungarians, 2% Gypsies, with small minorities of Germans, Slovaks, Turks, Russians, Bulgarians, Croats, Tartars, Czechs, Greeks, Jews, Americans, Polish, Albanians...
The climate is temperate-continental, characteristic of Central Europe (hot summer cold winters, very distinct seasons, abundant snowfalls especially in the mountains). Warmest areas are in the south.
Annual average rainfall is 677mm, more in the mountains (1,000 - 1,400) and less on the coast below 400m).
The area of Romania is 91,699 sq. miles (237,500 sq. km and its population, according to the 1992 census, is 22,788,993, mainly Romanian, alongside Hungarian, German and Gypsy minorities. About 55% of Romania's inhabitants live in urban areas, and the rest in rural areas.
Romanian is a Romance language with some archaic forms and with admixtures of Slavonic, Turkish, French and Magyar words. There is a wealth of folk tales, legends, poetry, music and dance passed on through the centuries. The main religion is the Romanian Greek Orthodoxism (86.9%). The other significant denominations in Romania are: Roman Catholicism (5%), Lutheranism, Calvinism (3.5%), Greek-Catholicism (1%), Pentecostalism (1%), Baptism (0.5%), Islamism (0.24%) and Judaism (0.04%).
Population in the main cities: Bucharest (1)(2,300,000); Brasov (3)(353,000); Iasi (330,000); Cluj-Napoca (318,000); Constanta (316,000); Sibiu (169,000); Târgu Mures (165,000); Suceava (106,000)
Although international cuisine is available in better quality restaurants, make sure that you savour the local Romanian dishes. Romanian cooking is rich, tasty and substantial, as befits a country were all food is still naturally grown, where fruits and vegetables follow their normal season, and when the winter is cold.
Pork is a special favorite, but you will find good beef, veal, and chicken too. They are delicious simply grilled. Typical Romanian specialties include a range of soup - " ciorba ", a sour soup made from fermented bran , bacon, potatoes and beef or chicken. Hearty stews such as " Tachitura Moldoveneasca " are accompanied like many Romanian meat, and " Mititei " is small grill sausages perfumed with aromatic herbs. Among Fish dishes sample carp on the spit, a local specialty in the Danube Delta.
A range of excellent white and red Romanian wines of the famous vineyards of Murfatlar, Cotnari, Jidvei, Dealu Mare, Odobesti, Valea Calugareasca, accompany local and international dishes to perfection, while " Tuica " the local plum brandy is often drunk as a digestive. But beware, it carries a sting in its tail! The local Romanian beers are excellent.
Foreign citizens who travel to Romania shall obtain a visa from a Romanian embassy or consulate, unless they are short-term visitors, citizens of the countries that concluded with Romania agreements concerning abolition of visas.
Visas can also be obtained at the border, by the citizens of EU and NATO member states, as well as by the citizens coming from Australia, Switzerland, Japan and Israel.
In order to get a visa, the applicant shall apply personally to any Romanian embassy or consulate. The delay of issuance is between 2 and 30 days to obtain a visa.
Visa is issued for single or multiple entries.
Visa is issued in the passport or in any other travel document, if it is valid and recognized by the Romanian state.
Romania is the perfect land of contrasts and paradoxes: the country of Constantin Brancusi, Eugene Ionesco, Emil Cioran, Mircea Eliade, and Nadia Comaneci, but also of Dracula and Nicolae Ceausescu. The Old World of Romania is a vast museum of ancient heritage and still alive even if only through its famous painted churches and monasteries, its folk art, or its feudal castles in the Carpathian Mountains. The New World may be embodied by the Parliament Palace and the subway network in Bucharest, or by the Western styles of life adopted by Romania's townsfolk.
Romania lies in South-Eastern Europe. Its neighbours are Bulgaria (South), Yugoslavia (South-West), Hungary (North-West), Ukraine (North), Moldavia (East), the Black Sea (East). The area of Romania is 91,699 sq. miles (237,500 sq. km and its population, according to the 1992 census, is 22,788,993, mainly Romanian, alongside Hungarian, German and Gypsy minorities. About 55% of Romania's inhabitants live in urban areas, and the rest in rural areas.
Romanian is a Romance language with some archaic forms and with admixtures of Slavonic, Turkish, French and Magyar words. There is a wealth of folk tales, legends, poetry, music and dance passed on through the centuries. The main religion is the Romanian Greek Orthodoxism (86.9%). The other significant denominations in Romania are: Roman Catholicism (5%), Lutheranism, Calvinism (3.5%), Greek-Catholicism (1%), Pentecostalism (1%), Baptism (0.5%), Islamism (0.24%) and Judaism (0.04%).
Romania is a Republic as a form of government.
Romania's capital city is Bucharest, with an area of 1,521 sq. km and a population of 2,351,000 inhabitants.
The Romanian currency is Leu. The Romanian flag has three vertical bands - red, yellow and blue. The National Day is December 1 - in memory of the Romanians' Great Union (December 1, 1918)
Beginning with the 10th century, documents of Slavic, Byzantine, Hungarian and Latin sources bear witness to the existence of state formations throughout present Romania's territory. These formations were known as dukedoms, knezdoms and voivodeships, commonly termed by the people as "tari" (terrae)=lands, countries. The first were recorded in Transylvania and Dobrudja, and then in the lands east and south of the Carpathians.
The Transylvanian state formations reached a relatively high level of political and military organisation, putting up a long resistance to the military pressure of the Hungarians between the 9th-11th centuries. In the end, they had to give in and formed one single voievodeship, Transylvania, under Hungarian leadership. However, some of its areas continued to have local autonomy.
By the end of the 11th century and most of the 12th century, Transylvania gradually fell under Hungarian domination; yet, it preserved its own organisation, being ruled by a voivode - a specifically Romanian form of government generalised all over Transylvania until the l6th century, when this status was changed into that of a prince. In order to secure the defence of their frontiers against the inroads made by some populations (Petchenegs, Cumans and especially the Tartars), the Hungarian kings encouraged other ethnic groups of people to settle in Transylvania. This process began in the mid-12th century, when groups of Szeklers (a population mix of steppe migrants, who had followed the Hungarians on their way to Europe), and of Saxons (from Flanders, Luxembourg, the Mosel and the Rhine regions, as well as from Saxony) were brought in.
The changes that took place in Europe in the l4th century, alongside the weakening of the more than one-hundred-year-old Golden Horde, gripped the Romanian lands that lay south and east i.e. Wallachia and Moldavia. The leading Romanian circles from Transylvania, then in conflict with the Hungarian Crown because of the latter's intentions to dissolve the local autonomies, contributed to the process of unification unfolded across the mountains. As people kept crossing the mountains, a new demographic inflow and further political experience were brought to the south-and east-Carpathian leaders.
The economic exchanges, the development of boroughs and of towns linked through transit trade routes with the commercial world abroad offered a good chance to the Romanian political formations to place their unification projects on a viable basis. Once their independence from the Hungarian Crown had been won in battle, the Romanian Principalities - South and East of the Carpathians began to play an increasingly important political, military and cultural role in South-Eastern and Central Europe. The founders of the independent Romanian states were voivodes Basarab I (1324-1352) in Wallachia, and Bogdan I (1359-1365) in Moldavia.
In 1918, Romania's political unity, based on the principles of peoples' right to self-determination, was completed. On March 27, 1918, the Council of the Country (Sfatul Tarii) convened in Kishinew, and decided on the "unification of Bessarabia with Romania for now and all times". On November 28, 1918, the General Congress of Bukovina cast a unanimous vote for the "unconditioned and everlasting unification of Bukovina within its old borders up to Ceremus, Colacin and the Dnestr, with the kingdom of Romania". On the 1st of December, 1918, the great national assembly in Alba Iulia proclaimed the "unification of all Romanians from Transylvania, the Banat, Crisana and Maramures with Romania for all ages to come". Romanian forces in Transylvania drove into Hungary in 1919, after the communist forces there gained ground under Bela Kun, who, starting from early 1919, had launched an attack across the Tisza River against the Romanians. In 1919, the Romanians seized Budapest and occupied it for several months. The unification of all the lands inhabited by Romanians was mentioned in the Versailles peace treaties (1919-1920) after the First World War, and sanctioned by the crowning of King Ferdinand I and Queen Maria at Alba Iulia in the year 1922.
After 1918, Romania made important steps forward toward strengthening national state life, by enacting major reforms: the universal ballot (1918), the land reform (1921) and the Constitution of 1923. Benefitting from large natural resources and boasting a constitutional regime based on a democratic system, the country recorded a strong upsurge of development. The depression of 1929-1933 caused social unrest and instability within the country and paved the way for Carol, King Ferdiand's son, who was in exile with Elena Lupescu, his mistress. He ascended the throne in 1930, as Carol II, and brought Elena along. A fascist movement was founded in 1927 by Corneliu Codreanu, who later renamed his followers the Iron Guard. The Iron Guard grew in strength during the 1930s, and King Carol had thousands of them imprisoned, and Codreanu shot. In 1938, King Carol II abolished the constitution and proclaimed a royal government. As far as foreign policy - as represented by the great Romanian diplomat Nicolae Titulescu - was concerned, it militated for European security, with Romania playing a major role within the Society of Nations at Geneva; it also masterminded regional alliances like the Little Entente (1921), comprising Romania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and the Balkan Entente (1934), including Romania, Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey.In 1940, Romania underwent severe territorial losses: Bessarabia and the northern part of Bukovina were snatched by the Soviet Union (June 26-28),
northern Transylvania was annexed by Hungary under the Vienna Diktat (August), while Bulgaria seized the southern part of Dobrudja i.e. the Quadrilateral area (September). This was mainly due to the fact that Romania had strained relations with both the U.S.S.R. and Germany, which joined together in the Ribentropp-Molotov Pact (1939), establishing the spheres of influence in Central and Eastern Europe.
The serious crisis of 1940 led to the abdication of King Carol II in favour of his son, Mihai I (Michael of Romania). In the fall of 1940, a Nazi military mission entered Romania. This situation, together with the hope of regaining Bessarabia and the northern part of Bukovina, and the danger of Bolshevism, made the government (led by Ion Antonescu) decide to side with Germany, and declare war on the Soviet Union (June 22, 1941), and subsequently, on the U.S.A. and the U.K. Ion Antonescu became Romania's state leader. The military defeats after 1942 led to many attempts made by Antonescu's government and the democratic opposition to break Romania from the alliance with Germany.
As a result of a coup d'état supported by the major political parties and King Michael's personal involvement, on August 23, 1944, the Antonescu regime was overthrown. Romania turned arms against Germany and placed its whole military and economic capability at the service of the anti-fascist coalition. Romania took part in the war until the May 1945 victory. After having pushed the enemy out of the country, the Romanian army fought to liberate Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
The Paris Peace Treaty (1947), stating the 1940 Vienna Diktat null and void, made Romania re-establish its sovereign rights over Transylvania. But Bessarabia, northern Bukovina and the Herta area passed under Soviet occupation.
As the result of the military occupation and the agreements of I. V. Stalin and W. Churchill in Moscow (in the autumn of 1944), Romania fell into the Soviet sphere of influence, with communism becoming its governing system. The communists gradually increased their ranks in the government, with Soviet support. A pro-communist government headed by Petru Groza took over power. On June 1946, Marshal Ion Antonescu was executed. On December 30, 1947, King Michael I was compelled to abdicate; democratic opposition forces were brutally liquidated.
After 1948, Romania entered the network of Soviet satellite countries. Soviet-style nationalisation and collectivisation followed the communist take-over. Industrial entreprises, mines, banks and transport facilities became subject to a planned economy. In 1951, five year plans were introduced to develop industry and agriculture. But in the 1960s, under the leadership of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and his successor, Nicolae Ceausescu, the Communist Party of Romania began to implement a foreign policy independent of Soviet goals. Socialist state ownership and central planning fostered the rapid growth of heavy industry and forcibly turned Romania from an agrarian into an urban sociey. During the 1970s, Ceausescu attempted to modernise the Romanian economy further, by investing huge amounts of money borrowed from Western credit institutions. Due to his grandiose development projects, the Romanian people were submitted to a rigorous austerity programme in the 1980s since Ceausescu wanted to pay off the country's accumulated foreign debt within a short period. The standards of living plunged considerably as Romania exported much of its food and fuel production. The populace was controlled by the secret police (Securitate) and the government, dominated by Ceausescu's family, squandered much of the nation's remaining wealth on megalomaniac constructions and feasts. For nearly 25 years, Ceausescu's regime slowly dragged the Romanians into an economic, social and moral deadlock. All these years were dominated by lies, corruption, terror, violation of human rights, and isolation from the Western world. When communist regimes across Eastern Europe fell in 1989, Ceausescu resisted the trend and reassessed his unpopular policies. All these things and many more heightened popular discontent and triggered the forced overthrow of the dictatorial regime in December 1989. In mid-December of that year, however, antigovernment demonstrations erupted in the country's cities, and, when the Romanian army joined the uprising against him, Ceausescu fled. He was arrested by the new provisional government, tried and executed (December 25, 1989).
After 1990 the democratic multipartite system was reformed, and the parliamentary system as well as the free press were reinstated in Romania. In 1991 the new Constitution of Romania was adopted. The former traditional parties - the Peasants' Christian and Democratic National Party, the Liberal National Party and the Democratic Social Party reappeared on Romania's political stage along with the Front of National Salvation (FSN) made up after December 1989. In 1992 the FSN broke up into two factions: the Party of the Social Democracy in Romania (PDSR) and the Democratic Party (PD). Although the 1990 elections were definitely won by the FSN, in 1992 the results indicated a visible increase of the opposition political forces' popularity; in 1996 the PDSR lost political power, the elections being won by the alliance of the opposition forces, i.e. the Romanian Democratic Convention (CDR) and the PD. In 1990 and 1992 Ion Iliescu was elected president of Romania; in 1996 victory was achieved by Emil Constantinescu, the candidate of the CDR, backed up by the PD and the Democratic Union of the Magyars in Romania (UDMR).
A factor of stability and equilibrium in South Eastern Europe, Romania has embarked upon integration within the European Union and the NATO structures. In 1993 Romania became a member of the European Council and of the Partnership for Peace - a formula of cooperation between NATO and the associate states on their way to membership.
Steps have been taken for the transition to a market economy based on privatisation. Beginning with early 1997, significant efforts were made by the newly set up government, with Victor Ciorbea as a prime minister and its other members from the coalition between the CDR, the PD and the UDMR.
By the end of 1997, subsequent to disagreements between CDR and PD, Victor Ciorbea was replaced by another member of the Democratic Convention, Radu Vasile, who became a prime minister in April 1998.
Romania has continued to strive towards hastening the process of economic and political reform, towards strengthening democracy and its institutions.
Romania has become a potential candidate to the negotiations regarding its adhesion to the European Union.
A strategic partnership with USA has been set up and further actions were carried on towards Romania's admission within NATO.
In fact, Vlad was called Tepes (the Impaler) only after his death (1476). He ruled in Wallachia between 1456-1462 and in 1476. In 1462, having been defeated by the Turks, Vlad took refuge in Hungary. In 1476, with the help of the Hungarian king Matia Corvin and the Moldavian prince Stephen the Great, Vlad took over the Wallachian throne again for a month. A battle followed, during which Vlad was killed. His body was buried in the church of the Snagov Monastery, on an island near Bucharest. His body lies in front of the altar. In 1935, a richly dressed but beheaded corpse was exhumed at Snagov, a fate known to have overtaken Dracula, whose head was supposedly wrapped, perfumed and dispatched as a gift to the Turkish sultan.
They say that impalling was one of Dracula's favourite punishments, but he was not the only one who made use of it at the time. Other German and Spanish princes would do the same. He used the method for boyars, thieves and criminals, Turks, Saxons and those who conspired against him; more than once it happened that a whole forest of sharp stakes with enemies' heads would rise around Târgoviste, the capital of Wallachia at the time.
Horrified by these atrocities, the Saxons printed books and pamphlets in which they told about Vlad's cruelty. These booklets also reached Germany and Western Europe, where Dracula became known as a bloody tyrant.
In 1897, the Irish writer Bram Stoker published Dracula, which made Vlad the Impaler famous world-wide. Stoker read the stories about Dracula printed in the 15th and 16th centuries and was struck by his acts of cruelty. He decided to make him his character; he also read several books about Transylvania (a name of Latin origin, meaning "the country beyond the forests"), and thought that this "exotic" land would make a proper setting for Dracula's deeds.
In fact, Stoker used Vlad only as a source of inspiration, since in his novel, Dracula is not prince Vlad the Impaler, but a Transylvanian count living in a mysterious castle where he lured his victims. His story takes place in the Bistritza area, and the castle lies near the Bârgau Pass (in the Carpathian Mountains). As Stoker had never visited Transylvania, most places and happenings were pure fiction.
Legend and true history about Dracula intermingle and are being kept alive by tourist destinations like the Monastery of Snagov near Bucharest, or Bran Castle near Brasov.
DRACULA BETWEEN LEGEND AND REALITY
Dracula or Vlad the Impaler was the son of Vlad Dracul (1436-1442; 1443-1447) and grandson of Mircea the Old (1386-1418). Vlad Dracul was dubbed a knight of the Dragon Order by the Hungarian king. All the members of the order had a dragon on their coat of arms, and that is what brought him the nickname of Dracul (the Devil). Vlad the Impaler used to sign himself Draculea or Draculya - the Devil's son -, a name which was distorted into Dracula.
Dracula's renown reached the West through the Saxons from the Transylvanian towns of Brasov (Kronstadt) and Sibiu (Hermannstadt), who often gave shelter to those who claimed the Wallachian throne. In order to escape the peril of losing his throne, Vlad would punish the Saxons. Sibiu and the neighbouring area were pillaged and burnt down by Vlad, and many Saxons were impaled. The same happened to the Saxon merchants who came on business to Târgoviste.
She was a highly cultured person and a poet. Her literary name was Carmen Sylva, and she acted as a patron of arts and culture in Romania. Carol introduced a lot of important reforms and made modern Romania'a constitutional monarchy.
In 1914, Carol died, and his successor was Ferdinand, his brother's son. He became King Ferdinand I (1914-1927); he married Maria (Mary), niece of Queen Victoria. Although a German officer and a member of the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen family, Ferdinand joined the Entente (France, Russia, U.K.) during the First World War, and, in 1922, he and Maria were crowned at Alba Iulia as monarchs of Greater Romania.
The son of Ferdinand, Carol, was a controversial figure. He enjoyed adventures and a life of luxury. In 1920, he married Elena (Helen) of Greece and in the next year a boy was born. His name was Mihai (Michael) of Romania. In 1927 Ferdinand died, and because Carol had already given up the throne, Mihai was proclaimed King of Romania. As he was only six years old, a Regency was settled. Three years later, his father, Carol, decided to return to Romania. He did so, and became King Carol II. In 1938, he imposed his personal government. He proved to be an intelligent but unstable character since in decisive moments of the Romanians' history like the summer of 1940, when Romania lost north-western Transylvania, Bessarabia and south Dobrudja, he would not adopt a firm stand. He was forced to abdicate by Marshal Antonescu for his lack of authority as a monarch. His son Mihai swore the oath on September 6, 1940. For nearly four years (1940-1944), the power actually belonged to Ion Antonescu, state leader. But on August 23, 1944, after a coup d'état, Antonescu was arrested, and Romania joined the United Nations alliance. In the next four years, the young king tried hard to oppose the communist onslaught on Romania's politics. But on December 30, 1947 he was forced by the communists to abdicate. He left for Switzerland, where he still lives today. After 1990, he has visited Romania several times and since 1997 has engaged himself in actions to serve his country's interests of integration within Euro-Atlantic structures.
THE ROMANIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH
The Romanian Orthodox Church is among the largest autocephalous, or ecclesiastically independent Eastern Orthodox churches in the Balkans today. It is the church to which the majority of Romanians belong.
NICOLAE CEAUSESCU, A MODERN DESPOT
Nicolae Ceausescu (1918-1989) was a communist official who was leader of Romania from 1965 until he was overthrown and executed during the events of 1989.
A member of the Romanian communist youth movement during the 1930s, Ceausescu was imprisoned in 1936 and in 1940 for his communist party activities. In 1939 he married Elena Petrescu. While in prison Ceausescu became a protégé of his mate, the future communist leader Gheorghe Gheorghiu Dej, who would become the communist leader of Romania beginning in 1952. Ceausescu subsequently served as secretary of the Union of Communist Youth (1944-1945). After the communists' full accession to power in Romania in 1947, he headed the nation's ministry of agriculture, and then, from 1950 to 1954, he served as deputy minister of the armed forces. Under Gheorghiu-Dej, Ceausescu eventually came to occupy the second highest position in the party hierarchy, holding important posts in the Politbureau.
With the death of Gheorghiu-Dej in March 1965, Ceausescu succeeded to the leadership of Romania's Communist Party as first, and then general secretary; with his assumption of the presidency of the State Council (December 1967), he became head of state as well. He soon won popular support for his independent political course, which openly challenged the dominance of the Soviet Union over Romania. In the 1960s Ceausescu ended Romania's active participation in the Warsaw Pact military alliance, and he condemned the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact forces (1968) and the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union (1979). In 1974 Ceausescu became president of Romania as well.
While following an independent policy in foreign relations, Ceausescu resisted all pressures for liberal reforms, and he adhered closely to the communist orthodoxy of centralized administration at home. His secret police (Securitate) maintained rigid controls over free speech and the media, and tolerated no internal opposition. In an effort to pay off the large foreign debt that his government had accumulated in the 1970s, Ceausescu ordered the export of much of the country's agricultural and industrial production. The resulting drastic shortages of food, energy, medicines, and other basic necessities drove Romania from a state of relative economic well-being to near starvation. Ceausescu also instituted an extensive personality cult and appointed his wife, Elena, and some members of his family to high posts in the government. Among his grandiose schemes was a plan to bulldoze thousands of Romania's villages and large areas of the city of Bucharest, and move their residents into new apartment buildings. Over one fifth of the built area of central Bucharest, including churches and historic buildings, was demolished during Ceausescu's rule in the '80s (26 UNESCO churches just to build the HOUSE OF PARLIAMENT).
Ceausescu's regime collapsed after he ordered armed and security forces to fire on antigovernment demonstrators in the city of Timisoara in December 1989. The demonstrations spread to Bucharest, and on December 22 the army defected to the demonstrators. That same day Ceausescu and his wife fled the capital in a helicopter, but were captured by the armed forces. On December 25 the couple were hurriedly tried and convicted by a military tribunal on charges of mass murder. Ceausescu and his wife were then shot by a firing squad at Târgoviste