Vama Veche - An exotic destination at the Black Sea

Dear all,

I would like to share with you a secret destination. It is the most southern point on the Romanian Black Sea coast, right at the Bulgarian border.
Unlike other resorts which have become too popular and too consume oriented, this place targets people who want to enjoy an uncomplicated holiday at the sea. It doesn't attract fancy people who want to show off their material belongings: cars with 8V engines, haute couture and whatever else you understand through trendy.

In this place everybody is friend with everybody, social boundaries are down, as well as taboo subjects or actions. However, the one important liberty rule is regarded: "you have the right to do everything as long as your actions don't limit another person's liberties".

Typical for this place is not to be accommodated in hotels or other agri-hotels, but to come with your own tent and set it on the beach wherever you like it. Despite this freedom, the "spontaneous order" takes care of everything. This means that you won't be bothered by people's cars too close to the sea or by tents built almost in the sea. Not only this contributes to this bohemia atmosphere.

If you go in the restaurants, pancake or ice cream stands, you will find "odd names" for the food, such as: thrown pancakes, perverse pancakes, "mar'dute" (pancake with apples; it is a nice word combination which loses its meaning through translation).

After the sunset, a new life begins on the beach. Every 50m you find one beach location with different music; however, in this resorts, rock and metal music of different strengths dominate.

What it stroke me is seeing a young man, a rocker, lifting a trash can that was on the ground. This event made me look at rockers through a different light. At that moment I thought for myself: some rockers seem to be more educated than the fancy people strolling through Mamaia (which is THE RESORT for showing off).

Finally, I hope that this has aroused your interest in this place called......Vama Veche (the Old Border).

Bucharest through my eyes

Dear all,

Last week I've been to Bucharest and during the few days spent there I've felt like a visitor. So, here is Bucharest seen through my eyes and captured by the camera. I will try to share with you my feelings when visiting those places. One more thing before I begin: this is my very personal view of Bucharest at that moment and might not be an accurate picture of what the city is like.

Tourism idea for Ro

Salut din nou/ Hi again,

Being on holiday, I'm inspired by anything that I see or experience here in Romania. So, here it goes my latest idea. This time is for the tourism branch.

I've read today in the Neuer Zürcher Zeitung about a bus trip through the woods of Macedonia, Albania and Bulgaria. Under the name "Exploring Silva Magna Bulgariae", a bus takes you on a 17-day trip through the nature of these three countries. What is special in all this is the fact that tourists can see the untouched, virgin nature. Although for my Romanian fellows this might not seem extraordinary, it seems that in the countries of central and western Europe you don't really find such places anymore.
So, a tourism agency called Silvatur Reisen from Zurich is organising similar trips to other Eastern European countries except for Romania.

Now, I'm wondering why shouldn't one offer similar tours throughout Romania? Undoubtedly, I strongly believe that the nature in Romania is one of our most valuable assets to leverage for touristic purposes.

What can we offer?
We have countless forests of different kind and a natural, well kept vegetation and fauna. I am thinking of the nature in three main categories:

- mountain areas - with fir trees and other ones from the same family. Given the fact that the mountains have on average 1700-2000m altitude, you can always see typical flowers (e.g. stone flower) and other plants. As for fauna/animals, there are: bears, reindeers, and birds (e.g. the mountain cock, which is a protect big bird). Nonetheless, you can admire the sheep herds, the huge, white dogs that take care of them and even have a philosophical chat with the shepherd. You can even listen to some poems which have this theme written by well known Romanian poets. Let's not forget the spread, small villages on the hills of the mountains. Who visits them will definitely be impressed by the hospitality of the villagers, despite the hard life and isolation which they are confronted to.

- hill area - around 1000m - here you will find a totally different kind of vegetation, fauna....and even the people are different. Whereas the former led a very simple, traditional life, the ones living in the latter area benefit from more connectivity to the "civilized world" if I may put it this way. How will you notice that? Pay attention to how they decorated their houses, the way they are dressed and you will notice a mixture of popular/traditional clothing and modern clothes.

- plain area - usually along the rivers (Mures, Olt, Danube). Apart from the nature differences, what it strikes me most whenever I visit these places is the difference in housing. Because of the wind and the higher average temperature, houses are spread horizontally and don't have more than one floor. This is different from the hill area, where houses are higher and give you an impression of wealth.
Ok, I could continue talking about this, but let's move forward and see what we need in order to be able to organize such tours.

What are the resources involved?
- Basically, we need accommodation options for each of these areas...and not any kind of accommodation, but specific, real life like accommodation. I believe this wouldn't be so difficult, as you can always find people who move to the urban centers and leave behind their houses.
- Secondly, the road network and accessibility to some areas plays a decisive role. This may be problematic in the mountain regions, especially during the wintertime. However, this can be solved with some SUVs.
- Thirdly, we need a guide that knows every place and has stories for each of them. This is not so difficult, as everybody can learn from books general information about the area. More specific information will be gathered from discussions with inhabitants from the area. Word of mouth stories are always the most valuable as they are unique and cannot be found in other countries.

What are the risks incurred?
- Not enough people interested in such tours - However, if we look at the success of Silvatour Reisen who has already tested this kind of tourism, the level of risk is lower in this case. I assume that people who have done one similar tour and liked it will be interested in going on other tours in other countries.
- Difficulty of receiving finance for the resources needed (houses, SUVs).
- The weather conditions prevent from organising such tours during wintertime or cause delays/cancellations.

All in all, this is a very grob idea that I've presented here, which needs to be further brainstormed on and analysed more carefully. However, it is a new business idea for Romania.

Keep your eyes and ears open to the world and you will receive more ideas that your brain can process...
L.

Some ideas for a green area in Reghin

Dear all,

This idea came to my mind today while I was jogging on the meadow close to my house. During jogging, I haven't met anybody on the entire meadow, although it is huge. This made me wonder why the inhabitants of my town don't use the meadow and the forests located so close to their houses. And on that second, I had a flashback and I remembered jogging last year in a park in D.C. There are so many similarities between that area in Washington D.C. and the one in my town that it would be a pity not to apply the best ideas from somewhere else if they fit so well.
Here are some pictures of how the area looks like now:

Let me explain to you my idea more thoughtfully. I don't intend to build anything, or cut trees or destroy in any way the green space. What I have in mind is to bring at different "stations" on this meadow wooden sport "installations". How do these look like? Check out the pictures below:

I want to target two kinds of people:

- the ones who are very active and do sports several times a week, but mostly indoor sport. This could complement their sport activity in a healthy, fresh air outdoors.

- the ones who are not sporty, but who like walking in the woods and on the meadows. They will choose this track as it will become more popular and can also get a glimpse of their more active fellows.

Corruption in Romania - An Article from "The Economist"

Dear all,

While reading the daily RSS News Feed, I've come across an article in The Economist about corruption in Romania. Naturally that I've read it carefully to see what the views of the authors are. To sum it up, it mainly says that the level of corruption in Romania is more acute than what the European Commission states in their periodical reports about Romania's progress. The authors go even further and explain how Romania joined the EU. They mention the help of France who "pushed" Romania on the EU Enlargement Agenda. So, this is what they say. What do I think about this?

First, it is true that the accession of Romania to the EU didn't take place because we really deserved it. However, he did make a lot of progress in the last 18 years since the communism fell. What is more, we are connected to the EU in the values that we share: liberty, respect and tolerance, multiculturalism. The ones among you living in Romania may ask me: where do you see tolerance or multiculturalism? I would simply take the example of Transilvania where Romanians live together with the Hungarian minorities. The Hungarian minorities have the right to education in their own language starting from kindergarten to university level. If you go to the public administration, they will greet and talk to you in both languages. This extends to every shop and stores, from the small boutiques to the shopping malls. Maybe these proofs might not impress my Romanian fellows, but having the example of other European countries, I would say that we handle multiculturalism issues pretty well.

To the corruption issue, I have to be very straightforward and say that I consider this to be the biggest challenge in Romania's changing process. Why? It's not because we haven't seen yet any "high level corruption case" solved. What concerns me are the small corruption acts which take place every day, the so-called "spaga". For this to change, I see the need for a change in the education of people right from school. It's there where small corruption acts begin and that's where you can end it. However, a change in mentality, in not thinking anymore that you might solve your problem easier or quicker if you give the other person "an attention", requires time....time, education and permanent reinforcement of the principle "no gift, no attention needed".

Secondly, it it true that the accession of Romania was mainly due to geopolitical and economic reasons. Geopolitical, because of its location and its access to the Black Sea, which we share with Bulgaria, Ukraine, Georgia and Russia.
The economical reasons are obvious. Being a developing country, almost any market segment that you take is not saturated yet and represents a large potential distribution market for the European companies. Even if the purchasing power is not comparable to the rest of the EU, the quantity (population of 22 mio. inhabitants) compensates for this. Furthermore, there is need for important infrastructure investment, which represents a big opportunity for the European construction companies, given the fact that the EU construction market is stagnating.

Thirdly, looking at the EU overall, if it wants to keep competing with the big world players (US, China), it needs to grow. We see that on average, the "old" EU countries grow with 2%. In comparison to this, because of the "catching up effect", the new EU countries have a growth rate of min. 5-6%.

Finally, I haven't forgotten that the citizens from the old EU countries pay for the development of the "new EU". However, I think that this money have a multiplier effect in terms of investments in the latter, which help the EU companies maintain their competitiveness and the jobs in the old EU countries.

To sum it up, this is the way that I see these problems in Romania. Overall, the information conveyed in the article are true, but they fail to offer an overall picture of what Romania is really like, with its main pluses and minuses. It is exactly this gap that I've tried to cover in this post and I encourage you to write what comes to your mind about the issue. There are also some interesting comments from the readers included in "The Economist" after the article.

Here is the link to the article:
In denial

Cultural bike tour

Dear all,

As part of the Reenerländchen cultural bike tour project, I've been on the localisation of the Cultural Route Uila, Logic. These are two villages about 20 km away from Reen (the German name for Reghin, my hometown). They are part of the Reenerländchen Region, which comprises all the villages within aprox. 20 km around Reen.

So, what is so special about these villages? Why a bike tour there?

First, it needs to be mentioned that these villages are "at the end of the world" so to say, that is, they are very isolated. As other isolated villages in Romania, they lack most of the facilities of a civilized world. Thus, you might imagine that people there must feel miserable. However, what stroke me most while I was biking through these villages was that people looked happy. You could read in their eyes and on their faces their calm, their kindness and hospitality. I asked my friend if he thought people were happy and he confirmed my impression: people looked happy with their lives.

Another interesting thing was their perception of the distances. You must understand that these villages are not connected to any highways. Furthermore, although some people have cars, most of them have traps (Pferdewagen in German). Thus, when we asked them: what's the distance to another village, different people gave a similar answer..."that's far and you won't make it there because it has been raining in the last days and you will get stuck with your bikes". However, we took our chance and went by bike to the nearest village. Our GPS showed that there were about 12 km until there. Some areas on the route were more delicate to go through, but it was doable.
What I wanna stress is that for these people who live in isolated villages they're Europe is restricted to the village in which they are born.

Let me tell know something about the landscape so that you better understand the pictures. This area has the largest orchards in the country, mostly apples and cherries. It is a plane area, at 400m altitude.

So that you visualise the place, here are some pictures:

I hope you enjoyed them and will sometime in the future be interested in visiting these places.
For more information about the cultural bike tour project, visit Velocult website.

More about our image in Switzerland

Dear all,

What?
look at this picture:

This is a sketch from an article published in the French speaking part of Switzerland. The topic was the "liberty of movement", which Switzerland should extend to Romania and Bulgaria.

Once more, this is the perception of some West European countries about Romania. I've discussed on this topic with my roommate, originally from France. She told me that in France Romania is viewed as a third-world country, that doesn't even have universities. Even herself has always thought about Transilvania like a dark place.
Furthermore, while talking to another friend about my home in Reghin, he was surprised at hearing that I have a pond, a waterfall and a pool. I don't wanna know what he imagined about the housing conditions in Romania.

So what?
I believe that it's obvious that we need to do something to show what Romania really is, that is not only gipsies and beggars. Although I personally don't feel that people look down on me because I'm from Romania, sometimes it's clear to me that they have no idea about the country.

How?
What's within my reach is to tell stories, show pictures about my countries and use the word-of-mouth and personal example to change their perceptions.
What are you doing in this regard yourselves?

Switzerland is self-appraising

Dear all,

So that we all understand why the Swiss feel so unique from the other EU nations, try and read the following article. It's in German, but it's a good training for the ones who want to learn German. Anyway, I will try and summarize the main ideas later today.

Until then, here's the link:


Kleines Land mit grosser Wirkung

Bilateral Treaty with the EU on the Freedom of Movement

Dear all,

On the 12th. June, the Swiss Parliament has decided to "pack":
- the extension of the Bilateral Treaty with the EU for the Person Free Movement for the 25 member states
with
- the inclusion in the same treaty of Romania and Bulgaria

I would say that this is a big advancement for Switzerland and we should consider ourselves lucky because if they had voted for having a separate article with Ro and BG, it wouldn't have passed the referendum. O, yes, the referendum, because remember, this is Switzerland, the land that organizes a referendum for everything. :-)
So, having both laws in the same "package" will ensure that the treaty will be accepted by the population.

But, what happens if the population votes "NO"?
For Switzerland, there are very negative consequences that would affect:
- the airspace and air traffic
- technical aspects in the commerce with the EU
- agriculture
- R&D
That having been said, even if it's called Switzerland, they don't afford to become isolated.

L.

Swissness

Dear all,

I've just read an article in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung about Swissness. It is a study done by the The Marketing Institute at the University of St. Gallen. They interviewed 8000 people from 70 countries and came up with the following conclusions.

So, let's start with explaining the definition of Swissness.Under Swissness the authors of the study understand the features/brand connections when the consumer thinks about the Swiss products.
The study shows that Swiss brands are associated with: high quality, reliability, luxury and premium prices.

In addition to this, other main insights of the study are:
- the industries most often mentioned - chocolate, cheese, clocks, banks
- negative associations - with the political attitudes and the position of the banking industry
- symbols - Swiss cross, or similar signs of origin: "of Switzerland", "Swiss made"

If you ask me, the results are not fantastic, unexpected, extraordinary. It's rather common sense what they've found out. If I were to judge their study according to Whetten's 7 criteria for evaluating the quality of a research, they would fail the test:
- What's new? - what new insights does this study bring? what is its value added?
- So what? - how can the results be used to help practitioners achieve a competitive positioning and how does it develop the research stream?
All in all, the study is rather testing some hypothesis and does not come up with something new.

Here is the link to the article:
«Swissness» bewährt sich als Kernbotschaft von Marken