Timisoara

Arad is one of four cities in the very western part of Romania that are more "European" and more prosperous than other parts of the country. This is also the place where the revolt against the Ceaucesu regime really began in the late 1980s.

We wanted to go to Timisoara because I remember hearing about it on the news. Paula said she would take us there. Now, a word about driving in Romania. It's an experience in itself. To an outsider, it looks like complete chaos, but there is actually an intricate system of mutual cooperation and respect that people are expected to follow, and if they do, things generally work out. Let's just say, though, that the drive to Timisoara was, uh, exciting.

Timisoara is a very beautiful university city. The place we wanted to visit was the square running between the orthodox cathedral and the theatre where people began a candlelight vigil in December 1989, to protest the dismissal of the pastor at a Hungarian Reformed church whom the government did not like. Gradually this vigil swelled to a mass protest which was taken up in other cities. Ceaucescu panicked, turned the secret police and the army on the crowds and many were shot. Eventually his own military turned against him, he was apprehended trying to escape, tried along with his wife and summarily shot.

This is where it all took place.