Tuesday, Sep 19th, Bucharest, Romania

Greetings!

When the revolution came to Romania in 1989, one of the most shocking news that emerged to the rest of the world was the number of children that were living in orphanages in complete squalor.  In order to fulfill Ceausescu's grand plan to build Romania into a super-power, he encouraged (required) mothers to increase the number of children they bore to absurd numbers.  All families were to have seven children, and bonus were given for every child beyond that.   Abortions were illegal, and housing was distributed to large families.  At the time of the revolution, over 100,000 children were living in 1700 orphanages at a subsistence level barely sustainable.  This morning, we met Ionut, a 36-year old who told us about that history as a result of his research after attending school with some of the children of the orphanages.

Most of our group went to see Ceausescu's house this afternoon, while Pat and I went to the Museum of Geology.  We took a taxi, and walked back down the main street of Bucharest (Victorie).  The museum was the greatest collection of rocks I've ever seen inside a building, and the displays, though few with English translations, were very well done.   Romania claims that it was the first country to discover the complete set of minerals in the world, and I believe that they are all there.  There was also an extremely imaginative display outside of the museum of the dinosaurs around the world.

To see all of the photos taken today, click on Tuesday, Sep 19th, Bucharest, Romania.



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