Here are some highlights from our cruise director Leonard's experience, growing up in communist Romania.
Every year they would be forced to take all the food out of their fridge from October to March and put their food out on their balcony, because the government thought the food could be kept cold enough outside. Their fridge had to be taped up and not used.
Every evening power would be turned off between 7-8 pm. He would have to do his homework by gas lantern, and always claimed to have a headache from the gas fumes, so his mother would let him go out and play.
They were told to keep the temperature in their apartment no warmer than 13C in the winter. Of course they did keep it warmer, and developed warning systems between neighbours when the secret police would come to check with their thermometers. They would rush to open windows to make it colder, put hats on, and grab the thermometer they kept outside on the balcony.
They only had hot water for 2 hours daily, so only took baths once a week.
They might have one lightbulb that had to be unscrewed and taken to the next room when needed.
On Sundays, only cars with even numbered licence plates could travel one week, and odd numbered licence plates the following week. If you were rich and had more than one car, you could bribe officials to make sure you had one of each kind of licence plate.
There was alot of bribing. You had to bribe the doctor to see you.
They were allowed limited amounts of meat, butter, and milk. They might line up for days to get a chicken. They started leaving a bag instead of lining up, then people would squeeze their bags into line ahead of you. You might start out at number 20 in line and end up number 123, and there would be no chickens left.
Making the people worry about food was one form of crowd control. The other control came through education. Leonard was taught in school that coke and jeans (both representing America) caused cancer.
Besides controlling access to information, the government controlled your contact with foreignors. Once when Leonard was 8 or 9, he made friends with a German boy at the seaside. His new friend gave him a Toblerone, which he had never seen before. The next morning the secret police came to his home and confiscated the Toblerone.
The government controlled all media as well. Every day from Monday to Friday there would only be 2 hours of TV that was aired. The first hour was all about Ceausescu, and the second hour was groups of people singing and dancing in Ceausescu's honour. On weekends they would air a movie, but the beginning and end were removed, and the title was changed. He remembers seeing The Sound of Music but it was called The Captain's Seven Children, and he didn't know if they survived in the end.
Leonard remembers many villages being demolished and people being forced to leave homes they had lived in for centuries, and leave pets behind. They had to move into blocks of apartments where the goverrnment could control them better.
People with disabilities were forced to stay home to preserve the image of a healthy happy communist country.
Even today bribing is still part of the culture. When Leonard's mother was in the hospital with cancer, she did not have a proper sized bandage for her wounds. He bought some for her. The next day, they had disappeared from the drawer. His mother said the night nurse had taken them because "she had cancer and wouldn't need them anyways." When Leonard wanted to report the nurse, his mother stopped him for fear that her sheets would not be changed the next day.
No comments:
Post a Comment