What does Kosovo mean for Székelyföld ?

Obviously I have a few travelogues to file at some point on this blog, but since I arrived back here on Friday night one issue has dominated the Romanian and local news. That is the issue of Kosovo's independence and what it means for Székelyföld autonomy.

Romania is (it seems) looking askance at this development with the eyes of a country who would rather this can of worms were not opened. This is partly down to good neighbourliness, but partly to do with worries about Székely demands for more autonomy. So, do they have a reason to worry? Are there any points of commonality between the two?

In some regards there are distinct similarities between the two places. Both Yugoslavia and modern day Romania emerged from the post WW-I shake up of Europe. Until last weekend both Kosovo and Székelyföld were regions in which a national minority were in the local majority. In both cases the simplistic nationalist line that you hear from the Serbian or Romanian far-right is along the lines of "If they don't like it here, they should piss off to their own countries" (which of course leaves aside the significant point that Hungary/Albania isn't "their own country").

But that's about it, to be honest. There is no danger of Székelyföld declaring itself independent. The responsibility for the existence of Kosovo as an independent nation lies almost entirely with Milosevic. Without his murderous policies of ethnic cleansing in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo there is absolutely no chance that this unilateral declaration would garner any attention, let alone recognition. Post-Ceausescu Romania, for all its faults, is not brutalising and oppressing the Székelys. It has not attempted to drive them out of the country. It might not be a completely level playing field, but it's completely uncomparable with Kosovo. Indeed (and paradoxically) the only way that Székelyföld would ever stand the slightest chance of becoming some kind of independent nation (and to be totally honest, I don't actually know anyone who wants such a thing anyway), would be the election of some vile extremist PRM/PNG coalition government from hell, which then set about attempting to turn Transylvania into the new Bosnia. Such a thing is (thank fuck) not likely to ever come about, so in turn, there is no chance of an independent Székelyföld. What is up for debate, though, is a level of autonomy.

The words have been flying. Hungarian politicians have been on talking about the opportunity provided by Kosovo to get the issue of autonomy back on the table (I disagree, by the way, and think this is a bad time to raise it because the EU will be looking to keep a lid on all this talk despite the precedent they have set). Funar, bigot-xenophobe-wanker ex-mayor of Cluj has come out with a proposal to ban Hungarian medium education, stop Hungarians talking to each other and generally attempt to suppress dissent and oppress a significant minority of Transylvanians (I'm told that Funar is actually quite an intelligent bloke, but this strikes me as being the most stupid thing anyone could have said - if there's one thing that's likely to give Transylvanian Hungarians a chance of being heard beyond Bucharest and Budapest it's proposals like this one). Meanwhile Basescu has repeated his insistence that Székelyföld will have no more nor less autonomy than anywhere else. This is not a position with which I disagree in principle, but since he trotted it out two years ago and has done absoultely nothing towards decentralisation in Romania since, it is clear that what he means by "Covasna will have the same amount of autonomy as Calarasi and Constanta" is, in fact, "absolutely none". I know he's fully locked into the Bucharest political scene, being ex-mayor of that city, but I suspect he needs to get out a bit more.

It will be an interesting few weeks. And all this while the final of the Romanian Ice Hockey championship is being fought out between TWO teams from Csikszereda.

Soz

Sorry for not posting anything here for a while. Been very busy with work and not really had the chance. I am currently in Kathmandu, and do realise that I have a lot of catching up to do.

Dubai the by

So in a miracle of rapid reorganisation, my Afghanistan trip has been placed in Dubai. That means that not only do I have a new destination, but so do a bunch of Afghans, Iranians and Kyrgyzstanis. Within 3 days of the bomb going off (and I mean that literally) more or less everything bar a few last minute visa hitches had been put in place for the new venue.

Hence I sit here in the Emirates lounge at Munich airport, bound for the highly peculiar city of Dubai. (I was actually the first person in this lounge so I got the run of the place including the TV remote, meaning I am sitting here sipping a very nice "Schneider Weisse" beer, watching Tunisia vs Senegal on a big screen TV and pootling about on my computer. It's all very civilised. To begin with I was outnumbered 10-1 by staff, but now others have arrived to disturb my center-of-attention status. None of them have ventured into my zone though, finding themselves uninterested in African football - which is sad for them as it is a cracking match.)

I had been hoping for a spectacular temperature differential between Csikszereda and Dubai so I could flaunt my destination in people's faces and tell them I'd be on the beach while they shivered in sub -30 icy chills, but in a curious turn of fate, on Monday this week it reached 11 degrees in Szereda (that's PLUS eleven) while the temp in Dubai was a mere 18 (and even dipped as low as 9 at night). So, my heartless gloating was put on hold. This morning was much better though as we drove through a raging blizzard to get to the airport (much better from a "ha ha I'm going to Dubai" perspective, rather than a safe driving perspective).

Last weekend we went up to the local ski resort, amid the slowly melting snows in the unseasonal thaw. You may not be aware but in your house you have an almost perfect sledge. Slick, glossy, plastic, slightly cambered for minimum friction. Know what it is yet? Well, I'll tell you. It's a toilet seat. We found one on the mountain (presumably used by someone else for the same purpose - at least that's what I'm telling myself), and zipped down the snow in our virtually frictionless way (note to any scientifically minded pedants whose fingers are as we speak hovered over the keyboard angrily composing a response - yes I know it's not frictionless or even close to being so, but it's poetic licence. If you'd flown down the side of a mountain on a toilet seat you'd use the same level of hyperbole. Honest). More sedately, I went cross country skiing for the first time in bloody yonks, and remembered how much I like it. In Dubai apparently there is a shopping mall with a ski resort in it (that's Dubai for you). I wonder if they have any cross-country sections?

Kaboom

This time next week I was due to be in Dubai, pootling around that odd city back and forth to the Afghanistan Consulate to get a visa ready to fly there on the 24th (on that well know airline "United Nations Humanitarian Air Services" - anyone know whether they offer free beer or peanuts?)

Sadly however, I will not now be doing that. I was to be in Kabul doing a 5 day workshop in the fancy Serena Hotel, while staying in the same place. If that name rings a kind of recent bell in your mind it is because the Serena Hotel made the news on Monday when it was attacked by the Taliban.

Now when I was first told that the next stage of this project would take me to Kabul, my first reaction was slightly nervous, but after I had assured myself that it was safe and would actually be pretty interesting, I was looking forward to it. I'd read up as much as it was possible to read up (since tourism isn't especially big, and anyway the situation has been fairly, let's call it fluid, ever since the Soviet invasion), and was beginning to really feel enthusiastic. Over the course of various jobs and travels I have been lucky enough to meet a number of Afghans and, without exception, the ones I have met have been wonderful people.

Anyway, the news is obviously much more terrible than the small fact that it has meant my trip has been cancelled. Is there any country that has suffered more in the last 30 years? I suppose most places that have been at the centre of what is euphemistically called "Global politicking" (which as we all know actually means "Creation of human suffering"). Palestine I guess would be up there.

Still, I won't be in Kabul next week, thanks to those lovely people in the Taliban, and I have no idea where I will be. Almost certainly Csikszereda at a guess, but there are other faint possibilities of a plan B for the Kabul workshop. We'll see.

Two legs better

There's a famous story, or parable I suppose, which I'm quite sure you've heard before, but I'll repeat it anyway, because I've obviously got too much time on my hands.

So there's this rich successful retired businessman wandering along the beach in some tropical paradise one afternoon. He sees a young man lying in a hammock and goes over to talk to him. I'll tell it in dialogue since it makes slightly more sense that way:

Rich bloke: "How come you're lying around in this hammock and not working?"
Local layabout: "What for? I went out this morning, caught some fish for my family and others in the village, and now I'm relaxing"
RB:"But you could go out and catch more fish"
LL: "Why would I do that?"
RB: "You could sell it"
LL: "Why?"

(from this point onwards the story becomes a bit repetitive so bear with me. There is a punchline. Honest. Do parables have "punchlines"?)

RB: "So you could buy a better net"
LL: "But the net I have is good enough to catch all the fish I need"
RB: "With a better net you could catch more fish, and when you've caught and sold enough you could buy a bigger boat"
LL: "I don't need a bigger boat"
RB: "With a bigger boat you could go further out, catch more and bigger fish and make even more money. Eventually you'd be able to buy a second boat, and employ someone to work for you catching even more fish"
LL: "Yes, yes, get to the point will you? Why would I be bothered with all this? Why would I go to all this trouble?"

(In the original parable he doesn't actually say all that, but I am already desperate for RB to get to the point and allow me to therefore get to mine - which, I'll warn you now, is probably not worth it)

RB: "Well, after you've made enough money, hired enough people to keep your business running successfully for you, you'll be able to retire"
LL: "And what would I do then?"
RB: "Well you could spend your days lying around on the beach"

I'm sure I could have told that better, but you get the general idea.

Anyway, he says, finally reaching the long overdue point of this blog post, I was reminded of this story on our recent trip to the UK. On December 30th we, along with my parents, my brother and his family went along to "Wimpole Home Farm" which is kind of a touristy attraction type thing near my parents' house. Specifically it is a working farm in which various animals are kept and can be viewed/touched/groomed/fed etc, as children tend to like that kind of thing. It was all very nice, and we got to have fun, and eat a nice lunch, and be with the family and all that kind of thing - as well as see some piglets born that day, some goats, sheep, donkeys, horses etc etc. Paula, for whom animals are incredibly exciting and wonderful, was particularly happy.

But it occurred to me that the whole concept was kind of peculiar, and that anyone from a Transylvanian village (for example) would find it laughable that people in England would pay money (and we did pay money in not-to-be-sniffed-at quantities) to wander round a farm looking at animals. Since this is precisely what normal life offers for free here. [Another example comes from the time that Erika and I first met, which was in the town of Brattleboro, Vermont, USA. She happened to be there - where I worked - attending a course which took place during the weekend when Brattleboro offered up its annual "strolling of the heifers" festival - the local tongue-in-cheek response to Pamplona's "running of the bulls". When offered the chance to go downtown and watch a bunch of cows walk through the streets she laughed disbelievingly saying she could do that any day of the week here. And she was right.]

So is economic development like the parable of the rich industrialist on the beach? You slowly get rid of all your small scale agriculture, swallowed up and sold off to agribusiness so that vast warehouses full of battery chickens, concentration camps full of pigs, and factory farmed cows hyped up on steroids and antibiotics can supply your food needs cheaply and efficiently, and in this way your country/region becomes more and more "developed", until such time as you have enough money that you can set aside smallholdings where you can revive the lost art of animal husbandry and charge tourists large sums to come and groom a donkey or collect eggs from real live free range chickens? Your fresh food tastes like rubbish and is full of chemicals and hormones, but at least you've entered the 21st century.

Transylvaniara

When one arrives at Luton airport to take the plane to Cluj, there is no mention of the city to which the plane flies - the departure boards and the check in lines all read "Transylvania" - I am struggling to think of any other place one could fly to in which the city is not mentioned. Malta is one, but then Malta is a small island which is (to all intents and purposes) one city with lots of bits. Transylvania is very large, and, well, you could be landing anywhere from Oradea to Brasov, two cities that must be getting on for 500 kms apart.

Anyway, it turned out to be a very good thing that we were flying back to Transylvania on Thursday, since, if we'd tried to fly to Bucharest we'd have been up shit creek without a paddle, as it appears the entire south of Romania was blanketed in a blizzard of epic proportions that day, and both of Bucharest's airports were shut for hours (and hours) . So, hurrah for Transylvania, in which the roads were clear, the sky was blue (though it was - and still is- colder than a witch's tit) and the parking was miraculously free at the airport (and the car started first time despite sitting outside in sub -10 degree temperatures for a week).

The upshot of this is that I am now back home and will resume blogging in a 2008 stylee very shortly.

Compliments of the Season

Eid Mubarak, Crăciun fericit, and Boldog Új Évet. I'm off line for the next two weeks, enjoying the festive fun and frolics with various families in Marosvasarhely, Cambridge, and elsewhere. Normal infrequent blogging will resume in 2008. Cheers to all, and have a good holiday

Dracula

I had been meaning to re-read Dracula for ages. It was probably 20 years ago when I first read it, and ever since I moved to Transylvania I thought I should probably re-read it since it is basically the only reason that anyone from outside of Hungary and Romania has even heard of Transylvania.

So anyway I read it again last week, and it's bloody brilliant. I remember enjoying it and thinking it was a cracking read when I read it before, and I'm not usually a fan of literature from before 1900 (though to be fair Dracula was written in 1897 so it's not that far off).

Anyway, on to my first major surprise of the book - that is when we first meet Count Dracula in his castle on the Borgo pass between Bistrita and Bukovina. Jonathan Harker (our hero) journeys from Budapest to Cluj and on to Bistrita before heading into the pass, passing as he does various ethnic groups on the way - Saxons, Szekelys, Magyars, and "Wallachs" in the main, but he also mentions "Slovaks" who actually sound very much like the Gabor clan of Rroma from his description, and Szgany (obviously a corruption of Cigany/Tigani) . Anyway, we meet Count Dracula, who is in fact a Szekely! This is not something I had remembered (to be honest when I read the book before, I'd never heard of the Szekely and it would have flown right over my head). He launches into this big speech about the heroism and bravery of the Szekely. He comes up with some curious historical explanation of the Szekely as being some kind of cross between the Vikings and the Huns, and then launches into a list of the invaders and foes they had beaten back - Magyars, Turks, Bulgars, Lombards, Wallachs, and Avars (whoever they are).

"Ah, young sir, the Szekelys - and the Dracula as their heart's blood, their brains and their swords - can boast a record that mushroom growths like the Hapsburgs and the Romanoffs can never reach"

Just in case there are Szekelys reading this (and I know there are) who are now getting a tad upset that this infamous anti-hero is a Szekely, I should point out that he it was because he was such a great leader, and a strong and intelligent warrior when he was alive that he is so powerful and successful a vampire once he became un-dead. At least that's what it says in the book.

So anyway, I'm not going to retell the book, but I thought I'd do a little bit of digging into how Stoker came to write this novel and set it where he did, with the characters that he did. Firstly it's not thought that he ever visited Transylvania, he just spent a lot of time in the library doing research. He apparently first thought about setting the novel in Austria, but was told that it might be too close to another vampire novel called "Carmilla" set in France, so he decided to relocate it to Transylvania. (Though in fact very little happens in Transylvania in the book - just the opening and closing. The rest is in Whitby and (mostly) London).

The character of Dracula himself is often thought to be have been based on Vlad Tepes ("the Impaler") who was also known as Vlad Dracula (son of Dracul). It is now thought that the only thing the character owes to Vlad is the name, and that probably Stoker knew nothing about Vlad Tepes. Another historical character who may or may not have provided some inspiration is a Hungarian countess named Elizabeth Bathory. "The most infamous serial killer in Hungarian and Slovak history".

The tourist industry of Romania seems to rely very greatly on this one story, which is quite impressive in a way, though extreme lengths are gone to - Bran Castle, which I read somewhere is Romania's most visited tourist attraction, markets itself as "Dracula's Castle", based on the disputed possibility that Vlad Tepes may once have spent the night there. Don't get me wrong, Bran Castle is a nice place, but it has about as much connection to Dracula as the Sydney Opera House does. Sighisoara, which is Vlad Dracula's birthplace, is littered with Dracula Internet Cafes and Vampire Coffee Shops. There was even going to be a Dracula themepark outside Sighisoara, which thankfully got nixed. Apparently someone has even built a castle cum hotel on the Borgo pass where they think the castle might have been in the book.

I reckon the Szekelys need to grab a slice of this lucrative pie and set up some "Real Dracula" attractions. There's money in this myth.

In a round about way

When I arrived in Romania, which is not that long ago let’s face it, there was, to my knowledge, not a single roundabout in the country. At least I never encountered one. However, in some kind of apparent desperate EU inspired anglophilia, they have been appearing everywhere. I can only imagine that all of Romania’s mayors were taken to England on some kind of junket, and introduced to the smooth and sensible traffic flow of the humble roundabout. And maybe offered EU funds to install roundabouts wherever they could. Now, in Csíkszereda alone there are 5 of them, and I’m guessing more will come. There are even roundabouts where none seem necessary – indeed a couple I’ve seen (in Sinaia and Cluj) seem designed to merely slow the traffic down, like a particularly elaborate and expensive sleeping policeman.

There is still some way to go before the cult of the roundabout reaches English proportions (anyone doubting their ubiquity in the UK ought to drive the ten miles from Luton Airport to Hitchin, whence one spends more time circling a central island than one does actually driving in a straight line).

Maybe this is something to do with me. My last residence, Brattleboro, Vermont, USA installed one while I was there too, much to everyone’s confusion. Am I the vector carrying these roundabouts, like some kind of virus? Where else have I infected?

I have to say though, that the locals here have adapted much faster to these alien traffic moderators that Vermonters did, where for months and years afterwards, the benefits of the roundabout as a traffic flow system were outweighed by the utter chaos that accompanied its existence. Indicating seems to present a particular challenge to the unwary driver – especially the need to indicate left when one’s first turn is to the right.

Still, it’s a rum do. I’d love to know what was the spur for this mushrooming of the roundabout.

Uninteresting miscellany

Just discovered through a friend that the Romanian Orthodox Church in London (which actually exists inside another church called St Dunstans) is led by the marvellously named Father Pufulete. A pufulete is a kind of repulsive puffed corn snack that dissolves into dust in your mouth. They are very popular in Romania for some unknown reason (though it is quite amusing to put a couple in your mouth and then say "pufulete" since it occasions hilarious amounts of corn and additive dust exploding into the air around your mouth).

Just in case you don't believe me: Romanian Orthodox Church in London (scroll down about 1/3rd of the way on the left hand side under contact details). Pufuleti (that's more than one pufulete) as reported upon by Sean Romerican, sadly no longer with us (he's not dead, just living in Texas, which to an non-Texan sounds almost worse).