Around the Globe

Predeal - Romania

2008-06-28T00:30:00.001-07:00

Predeal is a small town located in the Carpathian mountains just south of Brasov and just north of Sinaia. You can get to "Dracula's castle" in Bran in about a half an hour by car. Even more impressive is the nearby Rasnov fortress with a beautiful view over the valley below.

Predeal is also one of Romania's bigger ski restorts, but as you can see from these photos it also makes for a nice summer retreat. At the railway station, there are a few leftover signs from the Communist era. This statue below certainly counts as one...

The Predeal ski slopes in mid-summer. It's nice to escape Bucharest and get out into nature on days like this.
A view north looking up the Carpathian ridge toward Brasov.

A view South with the town of Predeal in the background.

A typical street scene in the upper parts of the city. Predeal is built on a hill and the roads stretch up about two miles before the pavement stops and the hiking trails through the mountains begin.

Random fields near the slopes on a hot summer day.

More views of Carpathian mountain nature. The mountains are still filled with bear, lynx, deer, and the very occasional wolf. You can see samples of various prize winning species at the Carpathian hunting museum outside Sinaia. Cafe life downtown on Predeal's main street as seen below.

A view from the railway station looking up the hillside.
More views from along the railway tracks below.

Alpine style hotels are typical in the region. Predeal is quiet in summer but packs with skiiers and winter sports enthusiasts once the first snow falls.

A typical style house in Predeal. The town is fast becoming an expensive destination resort, but only a few years ago it remained fairly sleepy.

The "After Dark" bar isn't as exciting as the name sounds, but it's a good place to grab a beer.

The Bella Predeal is our restaurant of choice up here. The food is good. The service is great.

A Brancovean style Romania building below.

More of the older cottage style pensions.

Ski slopes wait for winter....

A modern style Protestant church dominates the Predeal skyline.

A view from our window....

Getting rid of old furniture isn't usually difficult in rural Romania. There are always takers. In this case, however, the horse carts came to pick it up.

You'd actually be amazed how much stuff you can fit in a horsecart!

Mamaia - Romania

2008-06-16T02:32:00.001-07:00

My wife and I are in the process of renovating our place in Mamaia. Below are a few photos of our seaside apartment. We're looking forward to visitors later this summer... A view of Mamaia from our living room window. In the background the Black Sea meets the Romanian coastline in Mamaia, forming an 8 kilometer beach filled with hotels, restaurants, and more or less scantily clad beach-goers.
A slightly wider angle from our living room window.

The living room itself below. (Rather spartan, no?) Check out the "red rum" walls.

The lake in front in called Tabacaria - and the remaining trees are what is left of Tabacaria Park. The small narrow strip of land you see in the far background is what divides the city of Constanta from the beach resort of Mamaia.

More views...

Looking south toward the city of Constanta.

Bedroom pic.

Entrance way. As you can see, we need to get the floors done.

A close-up view looking south down Tabacaria Park toward Constanta.

The kitchen...

View from the living room window. You can walk to the Black Sea beach in about 10 minutes if you go through Vacation Village. Vacation Village is pretty much what it sounds like - imagine a local carnival atmosphere (complete with lots of carnie types) with low budget rides, games, etc.

A view on to our street - for now. We expect crappy development much sooner rather than later.

Below, a view from our kitchen window...

Montenegro - Budva & Saint Stefan

2008-06-13T02:48:00.000-07:00

Last March, I attended a regional Country Director's meeting for my organization in Budva, Montenego. Flying into Montenegro on a two propeller plane was fairly fascinating and somewhat unnerving due to the high winds. We crossed over the Adriatic Sea and the mountains just jumped out as us. Montenegro is a stunningly beautiful location. One we arrived in Podgorica we set out for the coast by car
Beautiful scenic backdrops dominate the landscape as the mountains meet the sea.

A view of the oldtown of historic Budva.

A view from our resort. Much of the Montenegro's coastline is currently being developed. Russian money is coming in to build luxury resorts, casinos, and hotels. Like their Serbian neighbors, Montenegrians speak a Slavic language similar to Russian and are fellow Orthodox Christians. The mountainous location and isolation of the country kept it from Ottoman rule and allowed it to remain more or less autonomous for centuries. It was later incorporated into Yugoslavia as one of the nation's six republics.

This is the elite luxury resort island of Saint Stefan. Once an upscale resort for European elite during the Yugoslav era - Sophian Loren supposedly frequently visited - the small island resort of Saint Stefan is now undergoing a major rennovation. The King's beach is located on the right. It's called the King's beach because the royal family used this location as their summer residence.

A small sleepy fishing village also serves as a tourist destination. This was the view a few yards from our hotel.

The rocky coastline extends down the Adriatic Sea from Croatia to Albania. I noticed the hills in Montenegro were slightly more forested than in neighboring Croatia, and ths seem less bleech white in color. Most of the trees along the Dalmatain Coast were cut down by the Ottomans and the Venetians, when the great trading empire of Venice ruled the seas.

Georgia on my Mind

2008-01-10T09:33:00.001-08:00

Last winter I was part of an ENEMO-OSCE presidential election observation mission to the Republic of Georgia. Here I am below with our tanslator Guliko. Ironically, we were sent to a mostly Azeri area in southern Georgia where few of the locals actually knew Georgian. My Russian was better Guliko's so a few times I ended up translating for myself.

This was the polling station from hell. How many people can you pack into a precinct hallway? Apparently, a lot!

Getting out was madness. I'm amazed people were not killed.

It snowed heavily on election day, adding to the chaos. The roads were covered in a foot of snow and we had to limit our observations to populated areas outside Tiblisi.
This is Maria, my colleague from Romania. She is funny as hell. We enjoyed a huge Georgian lunch in a restaurant with little in the way of heating. Her incredible sense of humor kept me laughing the whole time. Georgian food is fantastic by the way. Khinkali would go over big time in the USA. They are a sort of massive sized meat filled dumplings. Khachapuri is the national bread with cheese melted on top. Toasting and wine are very important in Georgian culture. There is also an ancient Georgian tradition called a supra led by a tamada who tells stories and entertains while guests eat and drink. It's more complicated than that, but that's what Google is for if you are interested.
Infrustructure is rather primative, at least far more than I imagined it would be. The schools mostly had small wood or coal burning stoves. This picture brings back memories of when I lived in the USSR in 1991. In Sochi at that time they had the same kind of toilets. Not pretty stuff.

In Sochi in 1991, I came down with a horrible case of food poisoning. All we had were toilets like these, and this was a nice one by comparision. Ah memories...
A picture of election officials gathered around the stoves I mentioned earlier. Most of the population of this precinct was Azeri.

At 3:00 am we were still counting ballots. Fraud? Incompetence? Who knows, but the roads were getting totally snowed under so we had to assume the best. At 5:00 am we arrived back home in Tiblisi, after our car broke down. A long day...

Austria - Vienna Calling

2008-01-10T09:10:00.001-08:00

Irina enjoys the world famous Sachertorte at one of the equally world famous Aida cafes in Vienna. New Year's decorations were set up for 2008 festivities.
A light snowfall on New Year's Day in Vienna has us take the tram around the ring to avoid the cold. The tram cost us a Euro, the same bus tour cost 25 Euros each. The tram had equally nice windows. I'd say skip the bus tour.
Stephansdom church, Vienna.
Ina bought a walking cane that she will use, let me guess, "zero times" ever.

Views from around the Vienna Ring including the Rathaus.

A Russian World War II memorial. Unlike the rest of Eastern Europe, the Soviets occupied but later departed from Vienna. The city remained a spys nest all throughout the first decades of the cold war.

Austria - Vienna - Schloss Belvedere

2008-01-10T08:57:00.000-08:00

The smartest thing I did the entire trip was visit Schloss Belvedere. Irina met her counsins from the night before who were also partying in Vienna on a Romanian group tour. They all decided to spend the day at Europe's largest outlet mall somewhere on the outskirsts of the city.

I imagined a day of full terror with thousands of shoppers pushing and shoving for crap they probably didn't need so I slipped out the back door to explore this stunning palatial complex. Belvedere is a baroque palace complex built by Prince Eugene of Savoy. One of the great generals of European history, Eugene set out from France and ended up serving Habsburgs in their endless wars with the Ottomans for control of the Balkans. At his death, Eugene was one of the wealthiest men in Europe as his masterpiece palace demonstrates.

The art gallery in the lower section of the palace was fantastic. The art gallery in the upper section was even more stunning.
In a tribute to his military skill he was named by Napoleon as one of the seven generals whose campaigns were worthy of study. This is the classic painting of Napolean crossing the Alps.
Outside in the gardens it snowed. Heavily...

Austria - Vienna - A Night at the Opera

2008-01-10T08:37:00.001-08:00

On New Year's Eve we went to the Staatsoper to see Die Fledermaus, otherwise known as "The Bat." The Bat is a comic operetta composed by Johann Strauss II. In "The Bat", the libretto is sung and spoken in German, and even with 5 years of German under my belt, I didn't get much of it. Every now and then one of the characters, Prince Orlovsky, would break out into Russian at which point I could understand what was going on.

In the operetta, Prince Orlovsky plays the part of an exceedingly wealthy 19th Century member of the Russian elite, living in the West, who'd made a fortune off the country's vast natural resources. There are of course no parallels whatsoever from that experience in modern Russian today.

Ramdom pictures from around the opera house.
The vaulted ceiling of the state opera house.
Irina looking serious.

Germany - Among Old Friends

2008-01-10T08:22:00.001-08:00

Czech Republic - Prague Winter - Charles Bridge

2008-01-09T08:03:00.001-08:00

Czech Republic - Prague Christmas - Old Town

2008-01-09T07:52:00.000-08:00

Czech Republic - Prague Winter - Prazsky hrad

2008-01-09T06:00:00.000-08:00

Delia's Bucharest Birthday Bash!

2008-01-09T05:46:00.001-08:00

Double Dare!

2008-01-09T04:46:00.001-08:00

The Original Dare

2008-01-09T04:25:00.000-08:00

I lifted this text straight from my buddy Pat Sheehan's blog. Pat's now in Bosnia and this commentary is from our original trip up to the fortress at Poinari. All copyright credits thus attributed accordingly...

Saturday, January 27, 2007
AMERICAN DUO DARES DRACULA'S LAIR!

That's how the headlines should have read after I and my NDI colleague Scott Andersen spent a boy's weekend earlier this month in search of a legend. After a three hour Saturday drive due north from Bucharest into the Transylvanian Alpine town of Arges, seeking the true mountain fortress retreat of the infamous Romanian ruler Vlad Tepes III, or Vlad "The Impaler."

Most know that Vlad was a partial inspiration for Bram Stoker when he set about writing the world's most notable vampire tale: Dracula. In point of fact, Stoker mades his Dracula a 19th century Transylvanian Count who claims direct lineal descent from the 15th century Vlad Tepes. The real Vlad was son of Vlad Dracul, from whence comes the name Dracula. "Dracul" is the Latin/Romanian word meaning Dragon. Vlad the Impaler's father had the name added to his own in recognition of the fact that he had been made a knight in the Holy Roman Emperors' famous Order of the Dragon. The Vlad family were lesser nobles in the H.R.Empire, tasked by the Emperor to protect the southern flank of Christendom against the Turks along the border between the mountainous region of Transylvania and the flat Wallachian plains below to the South. The Real Dracula's castle guarded an important pass through the mountains into the heart of Christendom. Vlad failed to hold the fortress continuously, but his ruthless and bloody means of terrorizing his Turkish and political enemies made him a legend beyond his own borders and time.

Legend has it that Vlad impaled 20,000 Turks outside his fortress. The site was so abhorrent that the Turkish ruler Mehmet who had just moved north fresh from sacking Constantinople, fleed with his forces back to the city the Turks would now call Istanbul. Yet, Vlad impaled thousands of his own people as well. In the town of Sibiu (see more about this beautful city below) 10,000 subjects were punished in this gruesome manner. Such gory tales have led to tales and legends of ghosts and curses surrounding the true castle ruins of Dracula - Vlad the Impaler, all faithfully handed down from Romanian father to son.
Scott and I dared to find out what this site had in store for its visitors ourselves...

The castle of Vlad lies 1,470 steps straight up the side of a mountain! The pain you feel in your lungs and legs as you make the long climb, breathlessly fighting the desire to quit and turn back, is enough to make anyone believe the place is cursed! It also reminds Americans why Dracul is a swear word in Romanian!

Somehow, asthmatic and out of shape, I made it to the top. I admit, I thought twice about giving up and rolling down the stairs back to the car! But curiousity and a little dash of shame kept me moving up! (Had it not been for the three couples of young Romanian teenage lovers that came happily racing down past me as we neared the top, I probably never would have sucked it up and pressed on, but I wasn't about to look like the lazy American who couldn't climb the same stairs teenaged girls climbed without a drop of perspiration!) Scott, the nephew of a famous American mountain climber, made it up in far better shape. A conquering hero atop the Transylvanian world!

A recent Discovery Channel program told of Romanians who made the same trek up to the Fortress at the turn of the 20th century, and the ghostly blue lights they witnessed swirling up from the valley floor through the dense forests of the mountains surrounding the ruins. We saw no lights, but the view of the valley was spectacularly memorable nonetheless!

Tired but filled with enthusiasm after our triumph, we returned to the little town of Arges for the evening and spent a relaxing night eating in the town's newest restaurant: INDIA. The food was cheap and actually tasted Indian... a bonus.

England - London Town

2008-01-09T04:08:00.001-08:00

England - Chelmsford - The Higgins Wedding

2008-01-09T03:31:00.000-08:00

France - Paris

2007-11-06T12:14:00.001-08:00

Croatia - Dubrovnik/Ragusa

2007-11-06T11:29:00.000-08:00

Bosnia & Herzegovina - Sarajevo

2007-11-06T02:52:00.000-08:00

Moldova - Chisinau/Kishinev

2007-11-06T02:40:00.000-08:00

Turkey - Istanbul - Final Images

2007-11-06T02:17:00.001-08:00

Turkey - Istanbul - Pera and Beyogulu

2007-11-06T02:06:00.000-08:00

Turkey - Istanbul - By Boat

2007-11-06T01:57:00.000-08:00

Turkey - Up the Bosphorus

2007-11-06T01:39:00.000-08:00

Turkey - Istanbul - The Grand Bazaar

2007-11-06T01:33:00.000-08:00

Turkey - Tuzla - Around the Office

2007-11-06T01:24:00.000-08:00

Turkey - Istanbul - Galata Bridge

2007-11-05T08:33:00.000-08:00

Turkey - the Blue Mosque and Suleymaniye Mosque

2007-11-05T08:11:00.000-08:00

Turkey - Istanbul - Topkapi Palace

2007-11-05T07:52:00.000-08:00

Turkey - Istanbul - Golden Horn

2007-11-05T07:42:00.001-08:00

Egypt - Final Images

2007-11-03T13:35:00.000-07:00

Egypt - Luxor

2007-11-03T13:22:00.001-07:00

Egypt - Karnak

2007-11-03T12:57:00.001-07:00

Egypt - Valley of the Kings

2007-11-03T12:33:00.000-07:00

Egypt - Up the Nile

2007-11-03T12:07:00.001-07:00

Egypt - Aswan

2007-11-03T12:01:00.001-07:00

Egypt - Cairo

2007-11-03T11:52:00.001-07:00

Egypt - Giza

2007-11-03T11:35:00.000-07:00

Romania - Transylvania

2007-10-08T03:28:00.001-07:00

Romania - Muntenia

2007-10-08T02:52:00.001-07:00

Constanta - Wedding 2006 (Part III)

2007-10-08T02:16:00.000-07:00

Inside on the Casino staircase with our good friend and wedding saver, the beautiful Ms. Kammy.

My father and step mother look on to the festivities.
My wife's brother and his wife dance solo.

Inside the wedding room hall for the reception.

Constanta - Wedding 2006 (Part II)

2007-10-08T01:43:00.001-07:00

Queue the music....

Mom and me

Probably a little too windy for those candles. Glad our Godparents Pat and Jamie Sheehan were the ones who had to hold them.

Constanta - Wedding 2006 (Part I)

2007-10-07T11:31:00.000-07:00

Since we are talking about Constanta, this is as good a time as any to post some of our wedding pictures I guess. Our wedding was held on September 2, 2006 in the port of Tomis in Constanta. The reception was held at the famous waterfront Casino, the symbol of the city.

The bride, Ms. Inutza.

The groom, Mr. Scotisor

Inside the casino up the grand staircase.

Outside at the Constanta lighthouse,
and on the casino balcony where fireworks are traditional at Romanian weddings.

Romania - Constanta

2007-10-07T11:08:00.001-07:00

One of my favorite cities in all Romania.

Located on the coast of Dobrogea along the beautiful Black Sea and possessing a laid back Mediterraneann atmosphere; Constanta is a city rich in 19th century art-nouveau architecture, boasts a Greek heritage from the 7th Century BC in the old port of Tomis, is the resting place of the great Augustinian era poet Ovid, and sits adjacent the modern hedonistic golden sands of Mamaia. Constanta has a little bit of everything, including splendid Orthodox cathedrals and in this case, Turkish style Sunni mosques. That I long ago met my wife and was married here many years later only adds to its luster.

The Conducator

2007-10-07T10:35:00.000-07:00

In 1971, Nicolae Ceausescu toured North Korea, China and Vietnam with disasterous results. The Cultural Revolution and Kim Il Sung's cult of personality left a lasting impression upon Ceausescu and within days of his arrivial back in Romania, the dictator (conducator) commenced his own grandiose visions of eastern European Neo-Stalinism.

By 1972, Ceauşescu had instituted a process called "systematisation". Promoted as a way to build an ideal socialist society, the program consisted of demolition, resettlement, and the re-construction of Bucharest and much of the countryside. In the capitol, over one fifth of central Bucharest, including dozens of churches and historic buildings were demolished in the 1980s to rebuild the city. The People's House (presently the Romanian parliament, but then know as the House of the People or "Casa Poporului") became the world's second largest administrative building after the Pentagon. Ceauşescu also destroyed hundreds of villages in order to move the peasants into blocks of flats in the cities, as part of his urbanisation and industrialisation programs. Today Bucharest is a bizarre mix of old style Parisian buildings, socialist megoliths, and increasingly American style suburban sprawl spawned by the increasing economic growth and prosperity.

Bucharest under Ceausescu

2007-10-04T08:33:00.001-07:00

It's hard to do megalomania justice in a blog post. Most readers have probably heard of Nicolae Ceausescu, former President and Communist Party boss of Romania. Ceausescu ruled the nation with an iron fist and a mischievous foreign policy from 1965 until his execution on December 25, 1989. "The anti-Christ is dead on Christmas," one man was quoted as saying in the New York Times from an article I remember following the Revolution. I can't begin to expound upon the impact of Ceausescu's policies and personality in such a short space. What I will cover is the impact his grand design for a Communist uber-capitol had upon the Bucharest skyline and the city's urban landscape.

"The Paris of the East"

2007-10-04T08:26:00.000-07:00

Bucharest was never destined to be the capitol of Romania. Before Romania became a united polity in the 1860's, Romania was divided into three major regions (as noted in a previous post) - Wallachia, Moldova and Transylvania. Transylvania was under constant occupation and/or administration by Hungary and the Austro-Hapsburgs. Iasi was the capitol of Moldova and shows more Russian influences than the other regions of the country. At least two other capitols existed for Wallachia, one at Curtea de Arges and the other in Targoviste. When the Ottoman empire pressed forward across the Balkans, the Danube river posed a natural obstacle to Turkish advances just as it had to the previous Roman and Byzantine empires.

The Sublime Port in Istanbul never succeeded in occupying Romania in its entirety, but instead set up a tribute system. Much of Romanian history from the 15th to the 18th centuries consists of attempts to ward off Turkish oppression, just as most of the 19th to 20th centuries consists of efforts to mitigate Russian influence. At any rate, Bucharest was a compromise capitol. For centuries Romania was culturally in a rather unique geo-political position as a Latin speaking, Christian Orthodox people wedged into a vortex between the three dominant empires of the East - the Catholic Austro-Hungarian empire, millions of Orthodox Slavs in the Russian empire, and the Islamic Ottoman empire stretching from Balkan forests to the sands of the Arabian penninsula.

Security has therefore always been a primary concern of the Romanian people, and as such, unlike those great cities clearly within the Hapsburg realm (Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest) Romania's immediate proximity to the Ottoman occupied Balkans meant the nation could never afford to build a majestic capitol along the Danube. As Romania gained political independence and national unity under King Carol I after 1866, however, Bucharest began to thrive. The Balkan wars and Russo-Turkish conflicts destroyed much of the city on several occasions, yet by the 1920's growing economic prosperity, the collapse of the Central Powers following WWI, ever modernizing Western infrustructure (the Orient Express ran through Bucharest for example), and a strong French influence lent a certain charm to the city which became known as the "Paris of the East."

Wallachia and Bucharest

2007-10-04T07:50:00.000-07:00

To Americans, Wallachia might readily conjure up images of Kansas and Nebraska. It's probably the least beautiful region of Romania in many ways, but it is home to the capitol, Bucharest. Wallachia is bordered to the north by the Carpathian mountains and to south by the Danube river. The Danube defines Romania's border with Serbia and Bulgaria with the exception of a region called Dobrogea, which extends to the Black Sea and into the vast wildreness of the Danube Delta. I'll describe the Delta region and Dobrogea in separate posts, but for now I'll talk a bit about Bucharest.

Romania's Regions

2007-10-04T07:42:00.001-07:00

Technically, Romania breaks down into a number of micro-regions including Bucovina, Moldavia, Dobrogea, Muntenia, Oltenea, Banat, Crisina, Transylvania and Maramues. The more casual visitor would probably best be served by breaking the country up into three larger geo-politcal regions - Wallachia, Moldova and Transylvania. Each is fairly distinct and I'll try and describe them in greater detail in the posts that follow.

Romania - Geography

2007-10-03T10:33:00.000-07:00

I've lived in Bucharest since early 2006, so it seems that a general discussion on Romania affords an ideal way of opening this blog. I first visited the country as a graduate student in the summer of 2001, when I took a course on Romanian language, culture and civilization at Ovidius University in Constanta. I fell in love with the Romania almost immediately, and have laid down deep roots here since that time. I'll briefly try and explain a little bit about Romania in these first few posts. I'll do that by opening with the subject of geography since it's fairly determinative to the development of any civilization. Moreover, because the Romanian landscape is so stunningly beautiful and diverse, it's worth a few posts.