Budget day

It’s budget season; later on today is Glasgow City Council’s budget meeting, and finances are being determined across local authorities and in Holyrood.

The legacy of the credit crunch and recession is going to be a long one. Although the economy is improving, local and national government are staring at two to three years of austerity. The money that the UK government spent on the banking bail-out has to come from somewhere.

It’s horribly unfair that public sector workers – or any workers who have lost their jobs - have to pay for the excesses of bankers, and pay for the mistakes of the UK government in failing to regulate the financial sector properly.

But, local governments don’t have much leeway to argue about the justice of the situation; they have to tailor their spending to the money provided by central government. They could increase council taxes, of course, but that would only make life harder for everyone.

This budget are going to involve a lot of hard decisions across the country; next year and the year after may be even tougher. Particularly if the Tories get in, as they seem to be slavering over the prospect of public spending cuts (of course, both the main UK parties will have to cut back to right the economy; it’s just that the Tories seem more enthusiastic about doing so.)

Romania

Back in July last year, Craig and I spent the best part of three weeks travelling around Transylvania and Hungary. I kept a diary and had always intended to write it up for the Flag once I got back. However, the Glasgow North East by election got in the way. However, just now, before the budget and when the news has been relatively quiet, seems like a good time to adapt this for the Flag; particularly since it‘s 20 years since the Romanian Revolution. I’m intending to split this into two editions, the first one covering Romania and the second Hungary.

I’d always wanted to go to Romania and Transylvania. I’d guess this is for a number of reasons. One of the first major news events I can remember is the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent independence of states across Eastern Europe. The Romanian revolution stuck vividly in my seven year old mind; I think this was largely because the news showed footage of Ceaucescu’s dead body. I remember asking my pal’s mum about it who said it wasn’t a suitable subject for little girls. Of course, my curiosity was immediately piqued. No-one in my world liked Thatcher, but killing a national leader and dumping their body in a pit seemed a bit extreme.

Then, I read Dracula as a teenager. Dracula in particular, and books and films in general, always paint Transylvania as an otherworldy place, and I wanted to see if it was all it was cracked up to be. Finally, the accession of Eastern European states meant that hundreds of Eastern Europeans settled in Glasgow, some of them Romanian; I was curious to go and find out what life was like in those countries.

And so, after the council went into recess, Craig and I set off to Prestwick early one morning. We had a small amount of luggage, a very cruddy Romanian phrase book and a better Hungarian one, and no idea what Romania was going to be like. We flew from Prestwick to Budapest, got the train from the airport into town, stocked up on essentials (beer, cheese, crisps, smoked sausage) and then got on another train from Pest to Arad, in the Western fringes of Romania.

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Our first impression of Romania wasn’t a particularly pleasant one. We stopped at the last town before the border and had our passports inspected by a smart young woman. Then the train seemed to crawl forward to the next station, and stopped again at the first town in Romania. The heat was stifling, we’d been in the carriage for about three hours, the beer was warm and we were both fed up. Then another official, this time a Romanian in an elaborate and brightly coloured uniform, came into our carriage. He gave Craig’s passport a cursory glance and then I handed him mine. He took it over to the window and began to leaf through it; thoroughly examining every page. I was beginning to sweat even more; why on earth was he taking so much time over my passport? I was just on the point of asking him when, thankfully, he handed it back without saying anything.

Then, we finally drew into Arad and got completely lost. We’d booked a youth hostel that claimed to be near the centre of Arad. We walked along the road that seemed to head out into the suburbs, gave up and then went on another path that through a park. We were both fed up, hot, arguing with each other, and wanted to go to bed. In the end, we got a taxi. The taxi driver was a cheery soul, chatting to us in broken English. As we paid him he shoved my backpack on my back, shook our hands beamed at is and proclaimed “Welcome to Romania!” before driving off into the night.

As it turned out, most Romanians were far more like the taxi driver than the dour customs official. Arad turned out to be a pleasant town on the banks of the Mures river. We stayed there three nights, and in the evenings generally decamped to the leisure park beside the river to have a few beers. The Romanian people were in generally really welcoming, and spoke excellent English.

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Although Arad was pleasant enough, our main reason for staying there for an extra day was to do a day trip into Timisoara. Timisoara. It’s close to the borders of both Sebia and Hungary, and the architecture was an assembly of different styles that all seemed to work well together. Unlike other bits of Europe, the people there also seemed to get on well together; all the nationalities living there added up to make Timisoara vibrant, cultured and sunny.

We passed by the cathedral on the way to the city; a service had just finished, and as we stopped to take a photo the priest, young and wiry under his enormous beard, passed us a card with his contact details as he did to everyone else going past. It was a Friday, and we wandered through the elaborate gardens near the centre of town and joined the locals having a drink or ice cream in the main square; the cafes there had an impressive system of pipes attached to sun shades that let out a cooling mist every few seconds. It was hot, and Timisoara had a lazy, laid back air.

However, one our reasons for going to see Timisoara was because it was the birthplace of the Romanian revolution, which I’d studied at Uni. The Museum of the Revolution was definitely on our list of things to do. As with many things in Romania, getting to it was less than straightforward. The map provided by the otherwise helpful tourist office had it marked on what turned out to be an anonymous apartment block. The museum turned out to be located several blocks away, in what also appeared to be a residential building but with a tatty sign outside.

Once inside, a small, elderly but incredibly enthusiastic assistant gave us a guided tour. The museum had been set up by all the churches in the local area, and included children’s depictions of what they remembered of the Revolution, images and newspaper cuttings. It was both moving and alarming, including images of protestors on the steps of the cathedral we’d passed earlier.

I’m no expert on Romanian history. However, a potted version of the revolution is that everyone in Romania had suffered terribly under Ceaucescu. In a bid to pay off the national debt, Ceaucescu introduced draconian food rationing and exported much of Romania’s produce, leading to food shortages at home. He pursued forced industrialisation and urbanisation, moving people from the countryside to live in apartment blocks and work in giant factories. He also had little sympathy with Hungarian and other minorities in Romania. In the late 1980s, while other Soviet controlled countries began the process of moving to free market economies, Ceaucescu showed little inclination to follow.

The protest that began the revolution was initially over the state’s persecution of  a Hungarian priest, Laszlo Tokes. However, others joined in and the protest turned into a general anti-government protest, and then a revolution. The Romanian revolution was notable in that it was the only revolution in the region that turned violent; rather than accepting the inevitable, government forces fired on the protestors. However, within days, the cities across Romania joined the rebellion, Ceaucescu was removed from power and executed.

It seemed strange that a museum of national significance was so badly signposted by the city tourism office, and seemed to be struggling for staff compared to other local museums - we also went to a tremendously dreary art gallery, largely to get out of the sun, and it had very few other visitors but members of staff lurking around every corner. The literature we picked up that was produced by the city was keen to emphasize how Westernised and cultured Timisoara was, and that a new low cost air route was about to open from Timisoara to London. It certainly was more Westernised than some of the other places we visited and it’s a great destination for a city break; I’m just glad we went there when we did.

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We got the train further east to Sighisoara the next day, into Transylvania proper. As the train chuntered onwards from the plains into the foothills, there was a flash of forked lighting split the sky, followed by a booming crack of thunder. It was all immensely atmospheric, travelling by train past ancient castles while a massive thunderstorm went on overhead; you could instantly understand why Transylvania had been chosen as the setting for a classic horror novel.

Another thing that fascinated us was the countryside we travelled through. As well as the dramatic mountains, the social changes in Romania had left their own marks. We also saw people carrying out agricultural tasks using methods long obsolete in Western Europe; it wasn’t unusual to pass a solitary figure harvesting wheat with a scythe, or a farmer transporting crops on a simple horse and cart. Outside almost every town seemed to be abandoned factories, some of them covering the area of several football pitches. We guessed they were the relics of the failed industrialisation policy. Inside the towns, we saw groups and pairs of young people taking photos of each other on mobile phones and wearing American style hip hop clothing. It was an impossible mix of old fashioned agriculture, twentieth century communism and the bang-up-to-date. One image I have that sums up the juxtaposition is of a young boy clothed in a hoody and listening to an ipod leaning against a rusting freight train, while a chicken pecked around his feet.

We enjoyed Sighisoara itself, too. Sighisoara was one of the forts originally build by Saxon settlers in Transylvania. At its heart is a medieval walled town, with several towers. Each tower was constructed by a guild, who had to defend it in times of war. The most impressive tower has a clock, with wooden carved figures that appear at certain times of day, like something out of a Middle European fairy tale.

Architecture aside, Sighisoara is famous as the birthplace of Dracula. Rather than the aging chap with a widow’s peak and cloak, the real Dracula, or Vlad Tepes, seems to have been a medieval freedom fighter against the Turks and the Saxons. More like a Romanian William Wallace; although that’s probably a bit simplistic and Wallace didn’t seem to have the same penchant for impalements!

Sighisoara is a Unesco heritage site; although there were a couple of shops selling Dracula postcards and so on, it was nowhere near as touristy as anywhere similar in the West. It was a far cry from the Royal Mile, where the old buildings house multinational chains and there’s much more modern commerce co-existing with history.  A group of children played with a litter of kittens on the dusty street between the clock tower and the lower town; although tourism was evidently a big industry, Sighisoara seemed pretty timeless, as if life had gone on there in more or less the same way for centuries. Yet, things were changing; one of the reasons the town was so dusty was that all the paving stones in the old town were being replaced, apparently through some sort of EU funded project. What looked like a large hotel was being built below the entrance to the citadel. I’m sure it will get busier in years to come.

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Our final-but-one stop in Romania was Brasov. After an abortive attempt in staying in a soulless resort outside of town, we decamped to a room in the city centre. It was a very friendly, outgoing place, and we were never short of offers to help with directions or our Romanian. Legend has it that Brasov is where the children of Hamlyn were led to by the Pied Piper. It was all red roofs and gabling, with an elaborate fountain in the main square and a clutch of excellent restaurants and cafes. It looked very Germanic, but was peopled by outgoing and friendly Romanians, it was an excellent place to go out for a beer or two, and admire the Hollywood-style “Brasov” sign that had been built on the mountain above it.

There seemed to be things happening in Brasov all the time, always an excuse for a party. We were returning to our rooms one afternoon and noticed a small group of people in uniform marching along the street carrying musical instruments. Then we saw another. It turned out that Brasov was hosting some sort of Eurovision-style folk dancing festival, with entries from all the neighbouring countries. We spent a very happy evening sitting by the fountain in the square watching the entertainment, retiring to a nearby café table when we got thirsty.

Better yet, it had an authentic Scottish pub, adorned with Premier League football strips, a menu with chicken curry pizza and an extensive list of malt whiskies. Usually Craig has an aversion to theme pubs, but this one was really good. I don’t know why someone opened a Scottish theme pub in Brasov, but I’m glad they did.

Something I’d also not really thought about until Brasov was the absence of begging. The only time we were approached by beggars was at a terrace outside a pub in Brasov. Two young gypsy girls came up and, although we couldn’t understand them, seemed to be asking for money. The barmaid chased them off, so they ran off and came back again. Very quickly, two plain clothes police officers appeared from nowhere, flashed their badges at the children’s mother and took her aside. I’m not sure what happened next, although I thought it was interesting that Romania seemed to come down very hard and quickly on anyone begging; it was food for thought when in Scotland - unfairly - many people associate all Romanians with the Eastern European beggars that have become visible on the streets of our cities in the last few years.

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Our final stop in Romania was Cluj-Napoaca. Sighisoara produced Dracula, and Cluj Napoaca spawned the even-more-terrifying Cheeky Girls. Rather more impressively, Cluj is a university town, and famous for it’s culture and botanic gardens. It’s also an ancient Magyar city, with an immensely impressive Hungarian church. Both the Hungarians and the Romanians are very proud of their national identity. This was commendable, although we had enormous trouble working out whether we were speaking to someone from a Hungarian or a Romanian background. We almost inevitably started out using the wrong language, and then usually got a Paddington-style hard stare and curt response from whoever we’d offended. We found it impossible to get right - even a kebab shop with Hungarian signs out front seemed to be staffed by Romanians. It was pretty tiresome, although I suppose American tourists must get the same thing whenever they mix up the Scottish, Welsh and English on trips to the UK.

More happily, we were walking the train and bumped into David Beckett, one of our opposite numbers in Edinburgh, who was in Cluj on a course. It was all very random; we hadn’t met another Scottish person for the last ten days, then suddenly ran into someone we knew. I suppose it goes to show that there’s now so many SNP councillors that we get everywhere!

Romania had one last surprise in store for us. On our last morning, we went to see the famous botanical gardens. It was quiet and we had them largely to ourselves, apart from a dog who attached himself to us as we wandered around (every park and town square seemed to have it’s own resident mutt). We were admiring the gardens when a wedding party appeared to have photos taken. It all seemed normal enough.

Then we wandered down along the river into another park. I could hear taped music and see people up ahead, and assumed it was some sort of fair. Then I noticed another bride walking down the path towards us. And another. And another.

It turned out that the park was a venue for weddings; this was a Saturday afternoon, and there must have been dozens of them held that day. A party would be called to a pavilion next to the park, and a bridal march would play as they assembled. Then the celebrant would perform a ceremony, with the party and everyone else watching applauding at the end. Then some oddly military-sounding music would play and the party would leave the stage. Craig timed one of the ceremonies and it took four minutes from the bridal march beginning and the party leaving the stage. It seemed odd to us, but there was something nice about everyone getting together to celebrate their weddings in a more communal sense. Although, once the ceremony was over each party seemed to go off to it’s own separate way; I felt sorry for the brides and mothers who had to compete with each other to find a venue!

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Overall, I really enjoyed travelling in Romania and felt I’d learned a lot about this mysterious country at the far end of Europe. The history and cities were fascinating and well worth a visit; I’m glad we visited when we did as I think that soon more and more people will travel there, particularly as air routes are opening up. However, more than anything else, I really liked the Romanian people; they were unfailingly polite, and there was always someone who offered help if we looked lost. They were more friendly and outgoing than most other places I’ve travelled to.