Cluj
Today we drove to the relatively large northwestern Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca, formerly Cluj (until 1974 when Ceaucescu decided to underscore its Roman heritage), and before that, Kolosvar (to the Hungarians), and before that Klausenburg (under the Austrians Germans and Saxons), and . . . I think that's all the names.
Because of Transylvania's multi-owner history, many of the major cities share Romanian, Hungarian, and German, and sometimes Latin names:
Alba Iulia – Gyulafehérvár – Karlsburg – Apulum
Sibiu – Nagyszeben – Hermannstadt
Braşov – Brassó – Kronstadt – Corona
Sighişoara – Segesvár – Schäßburg – Castrum Sex (presumably Castle Six, and nothing suggestive)
You get the idea.
Cluj is nice — it owes a lot architecturally to its Hungarian and Austrian past. It's like travelling in a time machine, to walk between all the 17th century building facades, and to stumble upon the occasional renaissance-era cathedral. Unfortunately, its residents are not always equally charming.
As we continued our photo walk through some smaller back streets, the cashier at a [indescribably incongruous] Chinese restaurant came sprinting out the front door of the shop and started shouting at me. The ensuing stream of angry Romanian was more rapid than I could even hope to follow, but once O caught up to me, was translated into something to the effect of, "Hey mister, you can't just take photos on a public street like that!!!" [I can't?] "Have some consideration! At least walk into each of the shops and ask their managers for permission to take photos of their street!" [Uh...] "Erase those photos! Right now!"
"Okay, da," I responded meekly, and fiddled with the camera's buttons a little bit.
A few minutes later, "You didn't really erase the photo of the weird Chinese restaurant because of its stupid bitchy fast food worker did you?"
"No, I just pretended to."
"That's why I love you!"
* * *
Not long after that, as O was answering a phone call from her parents near the steps of a department store, an oddly dressed man nearby saw his opportunity. With seemingly supernatural speed, he suddenly materialized next to me and handed me one out of a stack of maybe 50 laminated paper cards with a picture of a religious icon on them and text in Greek.
"Nu, mulţumesc," I answered, and tried in vain to hand the card back to him. He refused to take the card, so then, figuring he was some kind of Orthodox missionary or something (the mere thought of which sort of annihilated itself in my brain, being one of the more self-contradictory religious ideas I'd run across) I concluded that the card must be mine to keep, to ponder upon in times of religious need. Oh boy. This incited a whole new level of fervour from the man, and it was clear that I was not to keep the card without some kind of exchange of money.
About this time, O had caught up to me, and began translating. "They have an orphanage, with 20 hungry children. They're looking for donations."
I was feeling slightly charitable, and felt that parting with two or three Lei to get rid of this guy was acceptable. I handed him 1 Leu from my pocket.
"No, no, no, we have 30 children to feed. Trei." ("I thought he said 20 kids before." "He did." "They got 10 new recruits in the time he's been talking to me?" "Who knows.") With a little sigh, I fished out two more Lei to make the requested three and held the bills out to him.
Then the man went into an even more animated fit. "He says, not three, three hundred. He wants three hundred."
Needless to saw, I grabbed back my 3 Lei, shoved the stupid little card back into his hand, and walked off.
We were never really sure (because of Romania's aforementioned confusing currency revaluation) whether "300" meant literally 300 New Lei (about $180 CAD), or 300,000 Old Lei with an equivalent of 30 New Lei (an extraordinarily confusing and common pricing habit around here — you never know if 500 means 500 or 50 [500,000]), but either way, it was more than anyone had the right to casually ask passersby on the sidewalk for. Chances are, there was no orphanage anyway, so I don't really feel too bad about it.
* * *
Cluj's other oddity is that it claims owernship of what is likely the largest and nicest shopping mall in all of Romania. That normally wouldn't be saying much, but in this case, they really raised the bar: where most of its competition are communist era buildings with crumbling tile floors and random assortments of poorly organized products, this was a huge glistening construction of glass and marble, with nice (and expensive) western stores, towering glass elevators in a huge atrium, and giant fountains whose water was directly choreographed to the overhead music.
It was, frankly, the nicest mall, by any standards, I've ever seen.
I think my favourite part was actually the foodcourt, which was like a little Epcot Centre of dining opportunities:
The obligatory McDonalds and KFC
An authentic wood-burning oven Italian pizzeria
A Hungarian cafeteria
A Transylvanian fast food place (called "Ardealan" or something similar)
Not one but two Mexican style counters (neither of whose foods bore much resemblance to anything you'd find in Mexico, but it looked good nevertheless — one had some kind of spicy roasted chicken, and the other had various tortilla wrap sandwiches)
A couple of kebab stands
A baked potato bar
A Chinese food place
I was sad to have to choose just one.
Because of Transylvania's multi-owner history, many of the major cities share Romanian, Hungarian, and German, and sometimes Latin names:
Alba Iulia – Gyulafehérvár – Karlsburg – Apulum
Sibiu – Nagyszeben – Hermannstadt
Braşov – Brassó – Kronstadt – Corona
Sighişoara – Segesvár – Schäßburg – Castrum Sex (presumably Castle Six, and nothing suggestive)
You get the idea.
Cluj is nice — it owes a lot architecturally to its Hungarian and Austrian past. It's like travelling in a time machine, to walk between all the 17th century building facades, and to stumble upon the occasional renaissance-era cathedral. Unfortunately, its residents are not always equally charming.
As we continued our photo walk through some smaller back streets, the cashier at a [indescribably incongruous] Chinese restaurant came sprinting out the front door of the shop and started shouting at me. The ensuing stream of angry Romanian was more rapid than I could even hope to follow, but once O caught up to me, was translated into something to the effect of, "Hey mister, you can't just take photos on a public street like that!!!" [I can't?] "Have some consideration! At least walk into each of the shops and ask their managers for permission to take photos of their street!" [Uh...] "Erase those photos! Right now!"
"Okay, da," I responded meekly, and fiddled with the camera's buttons a little bit.
A few minutes later, "You didn't really erase the photo of the weird Chinese restaurant because of its stupid bitchy fast food worker did you?"
"No, I just pretended to."
"That's why I love you!"
* * *
Not long after that, as O was answering a phone call from her parents near the steps of a department store, an oddly dressed man nearby saw his opportunity. With seemingly supernatural speed, he suddenly materialized next to me and handed me one out of a stack of maybe 50 laminated paper cards with a picture of a religious icon on them and text in Greek.
"Nu, mulţumesc," I answered, and tried in vain to hand the card back to him. He refused to take the card, so then, figuring he was some kind of Orthodox missionary or something (the mere thought of which sort of annihilated itself in my brain, being one of the more self-contradictory religious ideas I'd run across) I concluded that the card must be mine to keep, to ponder upon in times of religious need. Oh boy. This incited a whole new level of fervour from the man, and it was clear that I was not to keep the card without some kind of exchange of money.
About this time, O had caught up to me, and began translating. "They have an orphanage, with 20 hungry children. They're looking for donations."
I was feeling slightly charitable, and felt that parting with two or three Lei to get rid of this guy was acceptable. I handed him 1 Leu from my pocket.
"No, no, no, we have 30 children to feed. Trei." ("I thought he said 20 kids before." "He did." "They got 10 new recruits in the time he's been talking to me?" "Who knows.") With a little sigh, I fished out two more Lei to make the requested three and held the bills out to him.
Then the man went into an even more animated fit. "He says, not three, three hundred. He wants three hundred."
Needless to saw, I grabbed back my 3 Lei, shoved the stupid little card back into his hand, and walked off.
We were never really sure (because of Romania's aforementioned confusing currency revaluation) whether "300" meant literally 300 New Lei (about $180 CAD), or 300,000 Old Lei with an equivalent of 30 New Lei (an extraordinarily confusing and common pricing habit around here — you never know if 500 means 500 or 50 [500,000]), but either way, it was more than anyone had the right to casually ask passersby on the sidewalk for. Chances are, there was no orphanage anyway, so I don't really feel too bad about it.
* * *
Cluj's other oddity is that it claims owernship of what is likely the largest and nicest shopping mall in all of Romania. That normally wouldn't be saying much, but in this case, they really raised the bar: where most of its competition are communist era buildings with crumbling tile floors and random assortments of poorly organized products, this was a huge glistening construction of glass and marble, with nice (and expensive) western stores, towering glass elevators in a huge atrium, and giant fountains whose water was directly choreographed to the overhead music.
It was, frankly, the nicest mall, by any standards, I've ever seen.
I think my favourite part was actually the foodcourt, which was like a little Epcot Centre of dining opportunities:
I was sad to have to choose just one.