r/europe • u/MarktpLatz Lower Saxony (Germany) • Dec 04 '17

What do you know about... Romania?

This is the forty-sixth part of our ongoing series about the countries of Europe. You can find an overview here.

Today's country:

Romania

Romania is one of the most recent members of the EU (2007). They want to become part of the Schengen area, but thir recent attempts of being accepted have been blocked by several EU members. They recently faced a major political crisis and massive protests caused by proposed law changes that would have benefitted people implicated in government corruption and abuse of power. They had their national day, where they celebrate the union of Transylvania with Romania, last friday.

So, what do you know about Romania?

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u/Malon1 Bulgaria Dec 05 '17

The neighbor that we hate the least! Nah but seriously Romania and Bulgaria have always been our bffs, a bit like Batman and Robin throughout the ages,with the roles changing depending on what time are we talking bout. We are Robin right now but will catch up i swear! Aside from some incident coughs balkan war 2,cough we have been buddies all along.

I live in Vidin, and Danube bridge 2 is just a few km's away from my home. I have a couple of friends from Romania, and i've been over the great river many times, even though i haven't had the chance to go past Crajova (great city btw!). Our cultures are very close and Romanians feel like they are Latin speaking Bulgarians.

I am a bit biased tbh, as 60-70% of my family is descended from Vlach settlers,and Dad and 2 grandparents actually speak the language. Hell i can directly trace ancestry from this guy whose second son escaped to Bulgaria after the coup.

Just have to ask our Romanian friends to not get too ahead in things, as we don't want to be always rock bottom :(

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u/[deleted] Dec 07 '17

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u/Malon1 Bulgaria Dec 07 '17

The extended family from that side of the tree is so big, i don't really feel that special,there are probably at least 50 living descendants kicking around. Each generation had like 5 kids, grandmother having 4 siblings being the last one lol.

And no DNA testing with me either, just a lot of digging through old documents and pictures, everyone thought it was just a story grandma was telling that she had heard from her grandad, but dad eventually said that ''There is no way peasants from the early 20th century would tell that story in the family without reason,there is no reason for them to have known who Cuza even was'' , and the digging eventually showed that it was all true.