Mystery & Intrigue - A Communist Era Guide To Cluj (Lost Lands #217)

It has been almost 35 years to the day that Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown and fled from Bucharest. A few days later, he and his wife Elena were captured, tried by an ad hoc court, lined up against a wall and shot. The world watched in shock as this unfolded with lightning speed. Romania has never been the same since then, though Ceausescu’s ouster did not immediately set in motion political, economic, or social improvements. Those would take more ousters of Ceausescu cronies at the voting booth. Romania has made remarkable progress since 1989, but the long shadow of the Ceausescu era still hangs over Romania. Trying to get a complete picture of that era is difficult. Memoirs from insiders cannot be trusted, foreign journalists were light on the ground and their movements closely monitored. One of the better specific snapshots of that time is the Transylvania section of Richard Bassett’s A Guide To Central Europe. As part of the research for my itinerary on the lost lands beyond Hungary’s border, I have found Bassett’s tour around Cluj (Kolozsvar/Klausenburg) particularly enlightening.

Rather Backward - For The Sake of Comparison

The scale of misery during the latter part of Ceausescu’s regime in the 1980’s only became apparent after his ouster. The insidious spy network, the economic deprivation, the illicit abortions, and orphanages filled with abandoned children which were the product of the regime’s family policy were startling. In retrospect, Romania was in such a terrible state during this period that it is hard to conceive of anything approaching normalcy. The country was extremely insular. Ceausescu had even managed to alienate the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries. Few foreigners traveled around the country, especially in remote regions such as Transylvania. One who did was Bassett, the Times (London) Vienna correspondent who was working on his travel guide to Central Europe. Bassett had enough experience to avoid drawing attention to himself from the authorities. This allowed him to go where few others could.

Crossing the border from Hungary into Romania was notoriously difficult during the 1980’s, One of the surprising aspects of Bassett’s trip to Transylvania was that he crossed with relative ease. On his way to the border, he notes the contrast in the tidiness of the Hungarian houses with what he would find in the “rather backward” Romania. Another sign of this backwardness were the uniforms of the border guards that “look like something of a cartoon.” At the border crossing little of note happens other than one of the guards taking an interest in Bassett’s copy of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The first city Bassett visits in Transylvania is Cluj. He finds it to be “a far less flashy place” than Oradea, where he first stopped in the Crisana region after crossing the border. Oradea is an architectural treasure chest, while Cluj pales in comparison. 

Menacing Absurdities - The Show Goes On

The first building Bassett notices in Cluj is the Hotel Metropole with its “seedy café-restaurant.” He has an eye for decadent details which come with sound travel advice. For example, Bassett mentions that giving a waiter a pack of cigarettes results in greater choices of food available at restaurants in Transylvania. Chewing gum and fruit are also suggested when a bribe might become necessary. The fact that Romanians could be bribed with chewing gum illustrates the deprivation of a society under a regime that was obsessed with heavy industry and keeping Ceausescu in power.

Bassett soon finds his way into the old city center. He calls the controversial Matthias Corvinus statue a "clumsy object". It is interesting that Ceausescu never had the statue taken down since it symbolizes two things he detested, monarchy and Hungarians. On the other hand, Corvinus was born in Cluj of mixed ethnic ancestry and for many he was then, as he still is today, a point of pride for the city. To that end, Bassett says that "he (Corvinus) on this side of the frontier is considered a Romanian hero." 

As he strolls further along, Bassett’s observations begin to have greater bite. While admiring an avenue with fine examples of 19th century townhouses, he mentions that Cluj's skyline in the old city center has gone untouched despite population growth that led to "endless suburbs every bit as inhuman as anything to be seen in Russia." Signs of high and low culture exist side by side in Cluj, nowhere more so than at the Opera House, which was the work of the Viennese dynamic duo of Helmer and Fellner. Their creations still can be found in cities across that had once been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Despite the Opera House’s elegant architecture, the Romanian language performance Bassett watches is a form of menacing absurdity. Bassett takes in one of these shows which includes partisans getting machine gunned. High culture by communist standards. The performers outnumber the audience. Like everything else under the Ceausescu regime, the show went on no matter how bad.

Survival Mode - A Sad Situation

Bassett next takes the reader to the nearby Romanian Orthodox Church where he finds another less than stellar performance from a choir. This leads him to comment that "there are few places in the country where Romanian voices are heard to worse advantage." The comments on cultural attractions continue at the Ethnographic Museum where the reactions of somnolent women are symbolic of the sad state of visitor attractions in the country. Bassett remarks, "It is symptomatic of the Romanian approach to tourism that surprise is the most common reaction to a request for a ticket."

Food turns out to not be much better than the cultural fare. While Bassett mentions that the Transylvania Restaurant might be able to offer a good meal depending on the circumstances, he recommends an omelet with chips. Edible, but not exactly fine dining. He characterizes this as “the least pretentious and disappointing" of the food offerings in this part of Europe. He finishes up his tour of communist era Cluj by recommending the Sport Hotel as "the most satisfactory place to have dinner" despite the less than satisfactory gloomy architecture of the place.

Bassett's guide to the tourist sites of Cluj is valuable as a snapshot of the city during the worst years of the Ceausescu regime. The city comes across as offering some nice architectural wonders in surprisingly decent condition considering the country was reduced to poverty. Less impressive is the tourist infrastructure. The food is mediocre, the cultural attractions and museums subpar at best, ridiculous at worst. This sad situation is unsurprising since Cluj had very little tourist infrastructure. The citizens were just trying to survive. Tourists were forced to do the same.