Sunday, January 22, 2006

Out in the Cold

The news (both Hungarian and Romanian news-es) have been banging on for the last two days about this vicious cold snap which is liable to arrive today or tomorrow. Advice has been given to people about how to avoid getting frostbite, how to avoid accidents on the road, and on how to start their cars. The predicted temperatures? As low as -15 in parts of Hungary, and as low as -20 in parts of Romania. Well, boo-fucking-hoo. We've just emerged from an entire week of being down at that level, and have we been featured on the news? Have the residents of Harghita county been given tips on national TV as to how to deal with the conditions? Have we bollocks. Romania is dead against any form of autonomy for Székelyföld, yet as far as any form of national media is concerned, it seems we're not actually part of the country anyway. Treat people as outsiders and they'll behave as outsiders.

Mind you, the low temps in Romania are apparently likely to hit Iasi and other parts of Moldavia, which I'm told, are often accompanied by some vicious wind called the Criviţ, which will of course make it a lot mlot worse than the conditions we have to face. (By the way, I've no idea how to actually spell the name of that wind, I've just transcribed it as I would imagine it to be rendered in Romanian. Apologies if its wrong.)

Long baby related post is still under construction, and will hopefully make it up here later today, to mark Paula's one-month birthday

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Low temperatures are commonplace in Szekelyfold so perhaps they figured there is no need to tell people how to deal with it, as they know too well.

PS: I saw the other day on TV a piece of news about some minor scandal in a Miercurea Ciuc highschool.

Anonymous said...

BTW, in Judeţul Suceava, there has been a temperature of -28°C with a wind-chill factor of -40°C.

Andy said...

And people are dying round the country from hypothermia, so i do kind of regret this post - that wind is the real freezing factor - it's the one thing that living in a depression helps you avoid.

(But just to reiterate my point about the forgotten part of the country - yesterday morning the news in full on "shock horror" mode reported the lowest temperature of the country was Vaslui at -21. The temperature here at that time? -23.)

Anonymous said...

The maps on "Meteo" generally show only major cities.
I think that Miercurea Ciuc gets more press than many other Romanian cities of comparable population. (I can see on my map some cities having the same population as Miercurea Ciuc and the last time I heard something about them was in the geography class)