SOME COOL LINKS:    Mostly about Moldova

Moldova.org  good for news and events in and about Moldova.

Clipa.Siderala  works to provide better lives for orphans.

Peter Myers' Blog contains the adventures of a Peace Corps teacher in a nearby village.

Mary Magoulick's Blog a colleague of mine from GC&SU, who is on a Fulbright in Croatia this semester.

SPIA the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia--my graduate alma matter.

 

 

The Moldova "Quasi-Blog" IV:

Flag of the Republic of Moldova

 The Adventure Continues...and continues

Links to all of my on-line ramblings and other useful information.


29 April...A Quick trip to Bucuresti...with Lee, we were off to the capital of Romania for 60 hours (including 28 hours on the train).  The train itself was an experience as we spent several hours having each train car hoisted and then having the carriages switched from Soviet gauge to Western gauge rail at the Moldovan-Romanian border.  Soviet rail gauges are wider than other places in the world, to make a rail invasion from the west more difficult.

I had read a lot about Bucharest (Bucuresti in Romanian) and wanted to see the city that was the scene of the bloodiest struggle to overthrow a Communist dictator of the 1989 revolutions. Romania had allied with the Nazis in the first half of World War II and then switched its allegiance to the allies toward the end.  That last minute switch did not save it from being invaded and occupied by the Soviets who installed a Communist regime in 1946.  Differently than in other eastern bloc countries, the Romanian leader, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej was successful in making a break with Moscow in the 1950s but the break only extended to a "re-Romanization" of the country (swapping street names, restoring Christian holidays, etc).  Romania remained a brutal Communist police state under Dej and his successor, Nicolae Ceausescu until 1989.

Ceausescu was among the most brutal dictators the world has seen in recent times.  He was known for poisoning rivals, torturing dissidents, and annihilating villages to suit his particular objectives.  Under his regime, some Romanians were injected with cancerous cells as punishment for misdeeds against the state.  He bulldozed the southern section of Bucharest to make way for a monstrous seat of government that was ironically called "The House of the People."  The process of resettlement of people was done in a manner where individuals had to flee their houses with whatever they could carry, leaving pets behind (and a stray dog problem that continues to today).  He also ordered the confiscation of food from farmers to be sold abroad (good for Romania's balance of trade, bad for starving people).  His wife, Elena, was made head of the university system and was equally ruthless.  All said, few would mourn their eventual demise.

After successful revolutions in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and other neighboring countries, revolution came to Romania in December of 1989.  As protestors marched in central Bucharest, barricades were installed to insure that the protestors, mostly students, could not retreat and bullets were fired with over 1,000 protestors being killed.  Ceausescu tried to control the media but ultimately the revolutionaries took control with the aid of military units that had begun to defect.  Ceausescu and his wife fled the city but they were apprehended by revolutionary forces in the north of Romania and were tried, and executed.  Of all the revolutions of 1989, Romania's involved the greatest bloodshed and Ceausescu was the only leader to be executed for his crimes.  Memorials to those that died in the 1989 revolution are all over Bucharest.

Romania has worked hard to shed its past and is scheduled to join the European Union on January 1, 2007.  While this is great for the Romanians, EU immigration standards will mean that Moldovans will have to get a visa to go to Romania and that has caused a great deal of frustration in Moldova.  There are many Romanian-speaking families that straddle the border.

   The Palace of the Parliament (also known as the People's House) was built in the Ceausescu regime and is the second largest building in the world (in sq. ft.)

The Bullet holes  left in a building near the Piata Universitatii remind us that the overthrow of Communist dictators wasn't always peacable.

    Statues of a withered tree and a broken man commemorate the massacre of 1989 in front of the former Communist Party headquarters.  Over 1,000 people were killed in this square demanding the end of the Ceascescu regime
Sleeping car compartment for the 14 hour train journey from Bucharest to Chisinau.  More than four hours were spent at the border.  

Adventures of Dr. Chris Grant of Mercer University/2006 Fulbright Scholar

 

Moldova Patria Mea means Moldova, my homeland...my guess but my Romanian to English translations are imaginative if not always accurate...

E-mail me: chris_grant1234@yahoo.com or grant_jc@mercer.edu

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This page was first created on 03/01/05 by Prof. Chris Grant of Mercer University.  Dr. Grant is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Mercer University and is the Assistant Director of Service-Learning at the Mercer Center for Service-Learning and Community Development.  The site was last updated on 11/10/06.  You may e-mail Prof. Grant by clicking here or you may return to his homepage by clicking here.