Romanian leaders - Are they doing a good job?

There have been many Romanian leaders over time. Many have been brutal in their approaches but are still kept in high esteem.

The current president, Trian Basescu, seems like a nice chap. He speaks slowly and clearly - making it easy for me to follow his speeches on why Romanian - already one of the lowest paid in Europe - need to accept a 25% pay cut and a 5% tax increase - and weirdly enough Romanians seem happy to follow this logic. He has been forced to have a referendum on did he sell off the Romanian navy to the Greeks via his brother and was even accused of making magic spells so his opponents lost the recent election - but as this is Romania, nothing is surprising.

Another famous Romanian leaders was Nicolae Causecu. Depending on who you are he was a hero or villain. He was shot after a kangaroo court after the revolution. He did a lot of good for the country - reduced national debt to zero -at horrendous costs to the population (he sold all their food abroad and brought in collective farming).

He built huge housing blocks and sold each apartment for $100 so everyone could afford a home - plus they were easier for the security forces to watch. He did flatten huge areas of the city and after the major earthquake in 1977 he increased this spree. Villages were destroyed and peasants moved into the city.

He kept Romanian like prisoners - no one could leave as a family -only one at a time. If you did manage to escape - your house was given to someone else.

This Romanian leader did however love big projects. He built the underground and rumors have it that below Bucharest there is a huge lake with boats on it and that the ground is riddled with secret tunnels. Apparently there could even be a metro line to his People's palace - put in if things go bad and he needed to escape quickly.

Despite his cruelty and misplaced ideas, there are still lots of people who would happily return to those days where poverty was not so rife and food prices were still affordable.

The most famous leader was Vlad Tepes - loved by Romanians -hated by the Turks. Even when he died - his head was sent to Turkey as proof and the rest of his body mysteriously vanished from his grave in a monastery on an island near Bucharest.

He would dress up as a peasant and do his shopping in the local markets and if he was cheated (as a foreigner you will be certainly repeatedly cheated), he would bring n the seller the next day and lop off a hand etc as a punishment. The story is that you could leave a Gold cup by a well and no-one would touch it - as counting to ten on one hand is a tad tricky.

He was known as Vlad the impaler as he once caught lots of Turkish soldiers and impaled each on a spike along the road he knew the Turkish would come to attack him - by the time they arrived they were not really in a fighting mood.

Oddly - for such a vicious man - he also was responsible for building some of the nicest monasteries - you must come and visit them sometime!

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