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00:30National Day in Tiraspol, the capital of Transdniestr, a place most people have never
00:59heard of. It's actually a break-away state of the Republic of Moldova, another place
01:04most people have never heard of, which makes me doubly glad to be here.
01:08I've never witnessed anything quite like this before, a National Day parade for a nation
01:21that doesn't exist. This is Transdniestr, they have their own army, they have their
01:25own currency, but no single other country in the world recognises them. But today they
01:30recognise themselves. Transdniestr, literally across the Dniester
01:36River, consists of 4,000 square kilometres and just over half a million people. Oh, and
01:43a helicopter. When the old Soviet Republic of Moldova won
01:54independence in 1991, those on the east bank of the Dniester River felt let down. The majority
02:01of them were Slavs, they used the Russian language and the Russian alphabet, whereas
02:05the rest of Moldova spoke Romanian, a Latin language. So in 1992, after a short civil
02:12war, the Transdniestrans declared themselves independent, which is what today's festivities
02:18are all about. These people want so much to remain Russian that in most of their lifetimes,
02:41it looks increasingly unlikely that the rift with Moldova will ever be repaired.
02:52After crossing the Dniester, I shall pass through the rest of Moldova, into northern
02:57Romania, south to Transylvania and Bucharest, then on to the Danube.
03:04I'm coming into Chisinau, the capital of Moldova. This was once the far southwestern
03:17corner of the mighty Soviet Union. Now it's a tiny independent country trying to find
03:22its place on the new map of Europe. Chisinau is not without its problems, but
03:30first impressions are of a likeable, surprisingly verdant, easy-going city. I take a walk in
03:36the park with Tatiana Tabulyak, a local journalist, and for a moment it's like stepping back
03:42in time.
04:12It's a very small pension. Some of them were just left alone, you know. They're not rich.
04:19They just have very poor condition in life. And what they do every Sunday, they just put
04:24a nice dress on themselves, make a little bit of makeup, you know, put medals, nice
04:29suits, and they're coming here just to meet each other.
04:33They can dance with anyone here, can they?
04:35And a lot of love stories started here, you know.
04:38They're quite old, some of them, almost my age, you know.
04:49You can come here for a good dose of optimism for your week, you know.
05:03Even a man doesn't want to dance, a lady should have more courage.
05:09Oh, come on, man.
05:11Will you be able to dance?
05:12Ah, well, we'll see what we can do.
05:16Yeah, there we go.
05:17Oh, it's not so bad.
05:21Well, I just watched what happened after that.
05:39Is there much regret at the passing of the old Soviet Union?
05:44Do people feel nostalgic at all here for those days?
05:49Actually, a lot.
05:51If you would ask all these people you see here, they would start crying and they would
05:56say, we want back.
06:00Young generation, they are not so nostalgic, but we didn't even get too much from the Soviet
06:05period.
06:07I think people miss not the regime, they miss jobs, they miss pensions, they miss, I don't
06:17know, cheap food and good vacations.
06:22I also miss Soviet period, you know why?
06:24Because I was young and I had my parents alive and if this means to miss Soviet Union, yes,
06:32I miss.
06:33Because I was a child, I had my grandparents, I went to all these places, everything seems
06:39to be so beautiful.
06:41But now, logically, of course, I'm so happy that it's not here and I can speak with you
06:47today.
06:49Twenty years ago, this would be a crime.
06:51I would probably have a file now if you would come and I would tell you all these things,
06:55you know.
06:57And this is important to know and to keep in mind always.
07:00And everybody is nostalgic for something, but it's important to be realistic at one
07:05point.
07:06You miss the sensation of something, you miss the smell or the taste, but you cannot miss
07:11something which killed and made unhappy so many generations.
07:23Tatiana also helps run the UNICEF operation in Moldova.
07:28And tomorrow, she's going to take me to a village outside the capital to see their work
07:32in action.
07:34Moldova is the poorest country in Europe and many in the countryside can only support their
07:39families by working abroad.
07:42Those left behind are easy prey for drug dealers and people traffickers.
07:46With the help of UNICEF, the children of this village have put on a play to make people
07:51aware of the dangers that they face.
07:54What's the, what are really, what are they attempting to show and deal with?
08:00It's a story about trafficking.
08:02So here's a typical Moldovan village.
08:05People wake up to go to work, probably, you'll see, to field.
08:11Trafficking is a big issue in Moldova, actually.
08:15Because a quarter of the population is out, mainly women, working illegally.
08:22Abroad?
08:23Yes, abroad.
08:25These are people who went abroad and now they're coming back to recruit people for prostitution,
08:31for begging.
08:33Actually, they probably lived in the same village for many years and now they come here
08:38because people, they trust them because, you know, if you live with somebody 20 years,
08:43you trust that person.
08:45And actually, these are the main traffickers.
08:48Local people coming back to their own village?
08:50Local people coming back, they promise them like two, three hundred dollars per month
08:56and for them, this is huge money.
08:59They usually see, he injected some drugs to the girl, this is what is happening.
09:04Actually, they're living like three, four, five years drugged and being forced to prostitute.
09:12When they come back, we have a lot of cases here when they, we need years to recover them.
09:20Actually, children are very expressive.
09:22Imagine that every second has parents abroad.
09:26Every second child here?
09:27Every second child acting has parents abroad.
09:30Maybe they didn't see them for years, you know, five years, six years.
09:34They just receive money from them.
09:36Maybe that's why they're so good.
09:37They've just seen it on people's faces.
09:40I mean, the look on the faces is so intense and they've, you know, it's full of feelings,
09:45isn't it really?
09:46It's amazing.
09:48What you're doing here, the play, does it do any good at all if people are just going to go anyway?
09:53Do you think it does change lives?
09:54No, I think they, the main thing, the main message is that they inform them, you know.
10:00Now they can know that things like this can happen.
10:04You should be very careful with who are you talking, who is taking you abroad.
10:10You know, this is, you want to do for this and they are doing actually.
10:15Of course people will go, but they will ask themselves ten times what they are doing,
10:21with who they are doing, you know.
10:24So what's happening now, she's being sold.
10:26How much, what sort of money is involved when they're sold, do you know?
10:31Up to 5,000.
10:33But for this money she will have to work like years and years in prostitution, years and years.
10:40We had cases when women were telling us that they've been forced to sleep with 40 men per day.
10:49Young girls, like 18 years old. This is a tragedy.
10:58In the end, good defeats bad, and those who were seized escape their tormentors and return to the village.
11:05It's been a moving performance to watch, but Tatiana remains a realist.
11:10It's a beautiful happening. In life it's not always like this.
11:14No.
11:40Through Tatiana I meet Olga Maxim, who at 16 left Moldova to study as an actress in Romania.
11:47Though she now has a partner and child there, she comes home regularly to visit her mother
11:52and suggests I might like to go with her and see a quieter side of Moldovan life.
11:56Her mother lives in a farming village, an hour south of Chisinau.
12:26Olga's father died seven years ago, and her mother, Helena, lives alone in the family house.
12:52Mum's working.
12:56Hello!
12:58What are you doing, mum?
12:59What am I doing? I'm working.
13:02She wants you to do the work, yes, exactly.
13:04Hello, hello. I should say hello. What should I say, really?
13:08Hello.
13:09Hello.
13:10Hello, hello, hello.
13:11Very nice to meet you. She's been very helpful to me.
13:14She said I was helpful. Very helpful.
13:17I brought her to see you. She wants to see this side of Moldova.
13:20But she is a crazy driver.
13:22Let her see, let her see.
13:25Like many who've grown up in a world of communist collectives,
13:29Helena has learned the importance of having something of your own.
13:33Does she have to buy any food at all, or is she quite self-sufficient?
13:37No, she doesn't buy anything.
13:39She's growing everything in her garden.
13:41Or she buys sugar, or probably rice.
13:45Right.
13:46I mean, for sure.
13:47But everything that she grows in the garden, she has in there.
13:52What are her luxuries?
13:53I mean, what are things that she would like to spend her money on,
13:56apart from a new pair of garden gloves?
14:10Sweet things that she cannot grow in the garden.
14:13Oh, that's good.
14:14That she buys from the city.
14:16Yeah, I remember that.
14:18The rest, she has everything.
14:28She has everything.
14:29She's grown chickens and ducks and all these kinds.
14:33Helena gets up at four every morning.
14:35When I look at her garden, I can see why.
14:38Mum wants to show you her garden.
14:48Fast.
14:51Tomatoes.
14:52She grows tomatoes in here.
14:55And she grows all this herself and picks them and all that?
14:58Yeah, yeah.
14:59Everything that she grows in here is for herself.
15:03Your family have lived here for generations, on both sides.
15:06Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
15:10What did your father do?
15:12Well, my father was...
15:15He had kind of ruling jobs, you know.
15:18First, he was...
15:20In politics?
15:21He was a communist, actually.
15:23He was the...
15:25How they calling...
15:27In the party, in the...
15:31Communist party.
15:32So, he was kind of...
15:33Most people were at that time, weren't they?
15:35Most, all of them.
15:36All the men in the village.
15:38Speaking like a maniac here.
15:40She's speaking.
15:42I love it, really.
15:43We natter on.
15:44She's just really concerned about getting the raspberries in.
15:48They're lovely.
15:50What does she think about Moldova now?
15:52I mean, does she think things are going to get better or worse?
16:11Uh-huh.
16:16I think that...
16:18She thinks that things might go worse because of the economic situation.
16:24The salaries are very small and the prices are growing.
16:28For her, it's enough.
16:29She says, for me, it's enough.
16:30I have everything.
16:31Yes, yes, yes.
16:32For the other people from the cities, especially.
16:35The things might go worse because of the economy, the level.
16:39Is she nostalgic for the communist time?
16:48No.
16:49No?
16:52Despite this, I suspect it'll be a long time
16:54before New Europe changes the way of life in the Moldovan countryside.
17:00Certainly, the meal Helena treats us to owes more to the old days.
17:06It's very nice.
17:10And she's made the wine as well.
17:12But it must mean that...
17:13She wants to toast with you.
17:15Toast, oh, yes. Yes, well, thank you.
17:18OK, cheers.
17:19Here's to Moldovan way of life, Moldovan food,
17:24to the best cook in Moldova.
17:26Very good.
17:29Are people more inclined now towards Romania
17:32and, obviously, then to the West and Europe?
17:36After the separation, they just remain alone, totally alone.
17:41And Moldova has no industry, has nothing to live from, just land.
17:46There you see, they are growing vegetables and they are having this.
17:50Actually, the Soviet Union was calling Moldova the sunny country
17:54because everything was here very natural.
17:56The vegetables and the chicken and everything was growing naturally from the land.
18:01There was nothing chemical, so stuff like this.
18:04Would you come back to live here?
18:06In Moldova? Maybe when I'm very old. Maybe.
18:10No, maybe. See, there you are, you see.
18:12Qualified person like yourself.
18:14Yeah.
18:15You can't really work here.
18:21Here in the south of Moldova,
18:23old and new worlds meet in quite surreal circumstances.
18:35The country's top group, Zhdob Zhdob, much influenced by folk music,
18:40has come here especially to reunite with a gypsy lady,
18:44known and loved by all as Grandma.
19:04Grandma won international fame, banging the drum for Moldova
19:22in the 2005 Eurovision Song Contest.
19:27They came sixth.
19:35Well, we've now left Moldova and we're in Moldavia.
19:40Moldova's a separate country, as you know.
19:42Moldavia is a part of Romania.
19:45It's confusing, I know, but it's very, very beautiful.
19:54In the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains,
19:56largely protected from marauding armies and political commissars,
20:00are some of the least changed communities in Europe.
20:05Religion remains the focus of local life,
20:08and the churches are works of art.
20:12The walls of this one, the monastery at Moldovita,
20:15are covered inside and out with frescoes painted 500 years ago.
20:20These ones here are a graphic account of the siege of Constantinople,
20:24with Christian armies desperately fighting off the Turks.
20:27It's like medieval news footage.
20:30Every single wall is covered.
20:32Yes, every square inch, we can say, is covered with paintings, yeah?
20:36What we see around here, this is the Last Judgement scene,
20:39always at the entrance to remind people about
20:42how important it is to take care of their next lives.
20:46Karolina is my guide to this extraordinary Byzantine masterpiece.
20:50That's where the altar would be.
20:52Behind that wall would be the altar,
20:54where no men of other religion and no women are ever allowed to go in,
20:57except nuns sometimes.
20:59And the wall here is called the Icon Wall, or the Iconostasis,
21:03which is one of the most marvellous parts of this church, basically.
21:07Is that gold leaf or gold?
21:09Yes, it's gold, yeah.
21:11It's carved in wood and it's covered with gold.
21:16And they're still working?
21:18And they're still working on it, yes.
21:20Gosh, that is such detail.
21:22Yeah, so much detail, so much time-consuming.
21:25How long have they been working?
21:27Just over 15 years now.
21:29It seems it's about 700 Euro per square metre to clean it.
21:33For centuries, this has been a hidden gem,
21:36but in the new Europe, it could be tourist gold.
21:45In the mountains of the Maramures region, it's All Souls' Day.
21:50And if evidence were needed as to why communist atheism
21:53made so little headway here,
21:55look no further than this churchyard.
22:09The graveyard in the village of Aiud
22:11is packed with families here to remember their loved ones.
22:19The priest blesses each grave in turn.
22:26CHANTING
22:35Candles are lit and bread specially baked.
22:38Jonat, a local student, tells me why.
22:41This is one of the most important days of the year.
22:45Yeah.
22:47Because this is the day when we celebrate death.
22:52Right. Remember the dead.
22:54Yes, just like we celebrate the birth, the wedding.
23:00And this is the day when we remember the dead.
23:16It's not just relatives of the living who are remembered.
23:20Any member of a family who has died in the past 200 years
23:23can have their name read out.
23:31It's a touching image of the power of remembrance and continuity
23:35and surely helps to make the work of the Grim Reaper
23:37seem a little less grim.
23:45After the Mass, I walk through the village
23:47with Jonat and his father Philemon,
23:49who have invited me back to their house
23:51to carry on the celebrations.
23:54Meanwhile, with the dead remembered, the living go back to work.
24:17Despite the beauty of the countryside,
24:19life here is hard, and the way to find relief from the daily grind
24:23is usually with a strong drink and a good knees-up.
24:27I fear that Jonat and Philemon are no exceptions.
24:34With Jonat's mother keeping a beady eye out in the background,
24:37the first of several toasts is raised.
24:40Cheese and sausage is on the table,
24:42and in the glass, palinka,
24:44a fiery eau de vie made from apples and pears.
24:50And with an awful inevitability, one thing leads to another.
25:04And another.
25:20And another.
25:41Why can't they just have afternoon tea like anyone else?
25:50THE END
25:56Next morning, I find myself and my hangover
25:59aboard a horse and cart, along with Clara,
26:02whom I'd met last night at the party.
26:05We're in the town of Sapanta,
26:07and perhaps appropriately, in view of how I feel,
26:10on our way to another cemetery.
26:12Are we here?
26:13Yeah, we are here. We're going to stop here.
26:15But one, as they say, with a difference.
26:18Most of the graves are decorated by local artist Stan Patras.
26:23It's nice that all... I mean, the usual symbols of death,
26:26the skulls and the grim reapers,
26:28it's life.
26:30I mean, this one here.
26:32Yeah, this one, it's very... What's that?
26:34This one is not so sad, actually.
26:36Here it's about a very happy man who lived a very happy life.
26:40He liked to drink wine and palinka and to entertain women, you know.
26:45Yeah, so he's had a happy life.
26:47When did he die? Did he die when he was...?
26:49He died when he was... No, they don't say the age exactly,
26:53but he lived a very happy life,
26:55so he also, I think, he died very happily.
26:57Yeah.
26:58So...
26:59I quite like that.
27:00I like that in my grave, actually.
27:02Here lies so-and-so, so-and-so.
27:04You can have a little sort of picture of me.
27:07Yeah, it's an idea to...
27:09Wouldn't you? Just sort of some bit of your life celebrated,
27:12rather than, you know, sort of rather...
27:15How you...
27:16Just the word died here and all the rather grim stuff.
27:19Celebrate life.
27:20Yeah, yeah, I think it's very nice, yeah.
27:22And the people are much more enjoyable when they read that about you
27:27and what you've done.
27:28I think that's what you want to remember.
27:30Of course.
27:32Some of them, they are, let's say, happy, cheery,
27:35but some of them, they are quite, I think, sad, let's say.
27:39Yes, accidents, this one here.
27:41So it's a bittersweet combination.
27:43What's that? What does that say?
27:45It says it's a little kid and it's about a cab driver who drove a cab
27:51and the girl wondered,
27:54why that cab should stop near the house and kill me?
27:58From all this country, he couldn't find another place
28:01but next to our house where I was living and stayed by, nearby,
28:06and the cab killed her.
28:08So then she's also...
28:10That describes what happened.
28:12Yeah, that describes over there, yeah, how it happened,
28:15how the cab drove into the fence and killed the little girl.
28:19It's an odd combination, isn't it?
28:21Because you feel, you know, an awful accident and a little dead girl there
28:25and yet somehow that makes it kind of...
28:27takes the curse off it somehow, you know, celebrates a very short life.
28:30Yeah, that's true, yeah, yeah.
28:33They call this the Merry Cemetery, and I can see why.
28:37There's no better place than this to learn about the pain,
28:40pleasure and the preoccupations of life in Maramoresh.
29:02It's a region that's not overflowing with job opportunities,
29:06but the forest, high above one of its most remote valleys,
29:09has for many years provided local men with work.
29:15It's Monday morning and I'm joining the train
29:18which takes about 80 lumberjacks up into the forest.
29:21No comment.
29:31Morning.
29:32Morning.
29:33I...
29:35Well...
29:36Don't have a ticket. Do I need a ticket? No?
29:39Just need an interest in trees.
29:42Ah.
30:06Morning.
30:24The more beautiful it gets, the colder it gets.
30:27The only heating's in the engine.
30:36MUSIC
30:54This isn't luxury travel, but they're lumberjacks. They're OK.
31:06MUSIC
31:27It may not look like it,
31:29but things have changed for the Romanian lumberjack.
31:32The chainsaw has replaced the axe
31:34and environmental concerns have limited how much they can cut,
31:37reducing the workforce by a fifth.
31:53At lunch, I'm introduced to a local delicacy,
31:56very useful, I'm told, for soaking up palinka.
31:59What's this, by the way? This is slanina.
32:02Slanina. What's that? Slanina, it's like a lard.
32:05It's a fat. It's a fat, yes.
32:07It's what pig make. It's a pig.
32:10And usually take a bit of this and you must chill with...
32:14Yes, of course, let's do it.
32:16Let's do it.
32:18You must trust in me.
32:20Very sort of typical of MaramureÈ™?
32:23Typical of MaramureÈ™, yes.
32:25OK, what do you do? You dip it in there?
32:27No, no, no, no. Just dipping.
32:31Slanina.
32:33Cheers, Noroc?
32:35Noroc, Noroc, Noroc.
32:37Yeah, quite salty and...
32:40It's not spicy. It's good.
32:42Well, it's like fat, but I like it.
32:45But with slanina, it's going to...
32:47No, no, it's fine, it's fine.
32:49We used to have dripping when I was young.
32:51Yes.
32:52In Sheffield, we'd have dripping on bread, we'd have that.
32:55But now, nobody has it, you know, it's kind of shocking.
32:58Far too much sort of bad, you know, sort of bad things for you.
33:02But I think it's a little bit every now and then.
33:05The people are healthy now.
33:10Having probably shortened my life by a good few years,
33:13it's time to leave this otherwise delightfully clean
33:16and healthy mountain air and head south with the timber.
33:29BELLS CHIMING
33:34Well, I've come south from Maramures,
33:36with its merry preoccupation with the dead,
33:38to Transylvania, with its rather more sinister preoccupation
33:41with the undead.
33:47This is Sigisoara, in the very heart of Romania,
33:50and the word heart reminds me this is Dracula Land.
33:59The town was fortified by Saxons from South Germany,
34:02hence the brothers' grim, fairytale-like appearance.
34:05It was intended as a bulwark against invaders
34:08coming through the Carpathians, Europe's last line of defence.
34:14Joanna, my guide, tells me the Germans lived here happily for centuries,
34:18but the Communists made them unwelcome, and now they've all left.
34:24One of the most legendary figures in history was born here,
34:27and is still remembered.
34:29Joanna has mixed feelings about his legacy.
34:37They've really got Dracula...
34:40Look at all these.
34:42Dracula has taken over your town.
34:44Yes, this was the house of Vlad Dracula,
34:47the father of Vlad the Impaler.
34:49Yeah.
34:50And maybe he was born right here.
34:53But who was he?
34:55He was a great voivode, you know?
34:57Voivode? No, what's a voivode?
34:59A prince. A prince, yeah, yeah, yeah.
35:02And a great leader.
35:04So he was quite a hero for the Romanian people as he fought the Turks.
35:07A big hero.
35:09He defended very well his people and he beat the Turks.
35:15Yeah.
35:16He did a bit of impaling, though, didn't he?
35:18It wasn't very nice, was it?
35:20It was a good thing because he loved justice
35:23and it was a habit, you know, all around.
35:26Was it? Everybody was impaling everybody else?
35:28Yes.
35:29We think the medieval times are charming, don't we?
35:32This is all Bram Stoker's work, isn't it?
35:34Yes, it is.
35:35He's the one responsible for this.
35:37What do you think of all this?
35:39These are pretty kitsch, eh?
35:41That's what I like.
35:42Yes, it's funny.
35:44I like these especially.
35:45OK, then buy them.
35:46Would you mind? Turn your back.
35:47No.
35:48If I just, you know...
35:49I'll be your witness.
35:50Keep the Dracula business going.
35:52Can I?
35:53OK.
35:54Maybe I can have these two here.
35:55Whoops.
35:56There we are.
35:57A coffee for me and the wife.
35:59That would be very nice in the morning.
36:01A cup of tea.
36:02Before impalings.
36:05Can we have those two?
36:06Thank you very much.
36:07How much are they?
36:08300.
36:09OK.
36:10300?
36:11Yeah.
36:12It's good, this.
36:13There you are.
36:14OK, fine.
36:15And if you want, I have a colleague
36:17who is performing Count Dracula,
36:20the character of Bram Stoker.
36:22Is he scary, your friend?
36:24Very.
36:25Very scary.
36:26If you want to be scared.
36:27Yeah.
36:29Combining history and local superstitions,
36:31the Irish writer Bram Stoker created a character
36:34who's now responsible for a tourist industry
36:37that has brought wealth and car parks
36:39to the gentle Transylvanian countryside.
36:43MUSIC PLAYS
36:49Dracula's most blood-curdling deeds
36:52were set here at Bran Castle.
36:54It certainly looks the part
36:56and still attracts some pretty strange people.
36:59Welcome to my castle.
37:01Ah, thank you.
37:02Come with me.
37:04Be my guest.
37:05Come on.
37:06Joanna's friend Peter has to be one of them.
37:09It doesn't look well.
37:13Come into me.
37:14Be my friend.
37:18You first.
37:19No, you first.
37:22Oh, dear.
37:23Into the little passageway syndrome.
37:25Bring the garlic.
37:32It's Jane.
37:34LAUGHTER
37:37It's dead.
37:44These rooms were actually done up in the 1920s
37:47by Queen Marie, wife of King Carol,
37:50when Romania still had a royal family.
37:52Sorry, sorry, back to the story.
37:54Oh, vampire.
37:56Girls.
37:57The family of Queen Marie,
37:59the Queen of England,
38:02Ah!
38:14Ah!
38:16LAUGHTER
38:18Ah!
38:20Ah!
38:22Ah!
38:24Ah!
38:26Ah!
38:28Ah!
38:31Transylvania.
38:33Oh, Transylvania.
38:35In Transylvania you can see very strange things.
38:39Tell me.
38:40LAUGHTER
38:43But I have more.
38:47My revenge has begun.
38:49I've strived it over the century
38:52and time is on my side.
39:01HORN HONKS
39:03I've seen a lot of Romania's unchanged rural byways.
39:07Now it's time to head for the capital, Bucharest,
39:10to find out how modern Romania has been shaped.
39:13And, as happens on trains,
39:15they end up learning a thing or two on the way.
39:18I couldn't help noticing your book you're reading
39:21is by Choran, is it? Choran.
39:23Yeah.
39:24Yeah, Choran.
39:25Because I've just read in my guidebook
39:27about Emil Choran, a philosopher,
39:30published on the Heights of Despair,
39:32setting out the nihilist anti-philosophy,
39:35that the only valid thing to do with one's life is to end it.
39:39But continued to expound this view until he was 84.
39:43Yeah. Yeah, quite so, yeah.
39:45So is he well-known?
39:47It is. Actually, it is.
39:49It's one of the Romanian biggest philosophers.
39:53He is part of the golden generation
39:55of the Romanian spirituality built up between the wars.
40:00Europeans seem to be able to sort of respect and admire philosophy
40:04more than they do in England. Is that so?
40:07Really?
40:08We don't really have great philosophers.
40:10People aren't interested.
40:11We have Shakespeare. Shakespeare explains everything.
40:14Maybe that's it.
40:15Yeah, yeah.
40:16Because we have this sort of conceit in the West
40:19that we are Europe.
40:21And, of course, what I've discovered certainly from this journey
40:24is that it's not like that.
40:25The culture, the history is all entwined
40:27and that Romania must have felt itself to be part of Europe.
40:31Romania has, in one way, in one time in its history,
40:37elected to be in eternity,
40:39to have no connection with historical time
40:41because it's a terror of history.
40:43We are here in the middle of the crossroads of all nations,
40:47invaders and empires and everything else.
40:50And to survive, the Romanian people choose to be suspended in eternity.
40:58I'm not entirely sure what that means.
41:01When I set out to see Bucharest next morning,
41:04I'm not entirely sure where I am.
41:16Have I been flown back to London overnight?
41:20No.
41:34Perhaps I never left Maramures.
41:42Ah, now I understand, of course.
41:45I'm in the American West.
41:47Hello.
41:48You're Bogdan.
41:49Hi, welcome.
41:50Very good, very good to meet you.
41:52I feel I've been all over the world in the last two minutes trying to get here.
41:56Bogdan Moncea runs the many make-believe worlds here at Castel Film Studios.
42:01It's a Romanian success story,
42:03with international hits like Cold Mountain shot here
42:07and another American movie currently in production.
42:10Action!
42:12But how did it come to be?
42:14Post-communism was very chaotic.
42:17Most of the industry is trying to find pace, trying to find directions.
42:21Markets were collapsing.
42:23Systems were collapsing and changing.
42:26So it seems to be crazy for a young DOP at that time called Vlad Bonescu
42:30to start a business like that.
42:34You know, it seems crazy.
42:36But in the end, now it seems to be a very successful business
42:40and it is a very successful business.
42:48Bucharest, a sprawl of some two million people,
42:52has been a capital for 350 years.
42:57But it's the traumatic recent history,
42:59shaped by the communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu,
43:02who ran the place for 25 years,
43:05that is stamped all over it.
43:08That building in front of us there, the white building,
43:11was the central committee of the Communist Party.
43:14This is where the revolution in 1989 started in Bucharest.
43:20This is where a big crowd of people was gathered in December 1989
43:26by Ceaușescu, strangely enough,
43:29in a big rally to support communism, actually.
43:36And people started to boo him
43:39and to, in a way, attack him verbally
43:42and then gradually, literally attack this building.
43:47And from the top of the building is a very famous shot
43:50of his helicopter taking off from the palace.
43:54Within days, he was executed.
43:57The communist system in Romania was probably, if not the toughest,
44:01definitely one of the toughest in Eastern Europe.
44:04It was very similar and he actually had models from those areas
44:09in North Korea, in Vietnam at that time, in Iraq.
44:16He became a very good friend with all these dictators.
44:21And this was the result.
44:23Ceaușescu's Palace of the People,
44:25after the Pentagon, the second largest building in the world.
44:30It now houses, amongst other things, the Romanian Parliament.
44:34And I'm shown round by another Bogdan,
44:36MP and current President of the Chamber of Deputies, Bogdan Malteanu.
44:45Frankly speaking, everybody hated it because of its history,
44:48because of the people which were brought here by force.
44:51Some of them were killed.
44:53Some of them were executed.
44:55Because of its history, because of the people which were brought here by force,
44:59some of them died.
45:01Thousands of houses have been demolished in this area
45:04and people were forcefully removed.
45:06So basically, the Romanians hated it.
45:10There was a long debate in the early 90s about what to do with it
45:14and one of the ideas was to bomb it.
45:17To bomb it?
45:18To demolish it, OK.
45:20But it wasn't the idea to bomb it from the place.
45:26In the end, it was easier to keep it.
45:29The headache for Bogdan and his colleagues now is how to fill the space.
45:46The statistics are staggering.
45:49Begun in 1984, 20,000 labourers and 700 architects
45:55worked 24 hours a day to build over 1,000 rooms,
46:00hang 4,500 chandeliers,
46:03lay a million cubic feet of marble.
46:06And it's still not finished.
46:13One carpet alone weighed 14 tonnes
46:16as a nuclear bunker dug 70 feet below ground
46:20and 26 churches and 7,000 homes were demolished
46:24for this and the civic centre that surrounds it.
46:30You can see the grand scheme here, this balcony.
46:35Yeah, here you can address the people
46:37and they will never know who's addressing them
46:39because they can hardly see you from there.
46:41Yes, that's a bit of a mistake.
46:43It was sort of illuminated.
46:44Minor mistake.
46:45Minor mistake.
46:46If he had the time, probably he would have built a second building.
46:50Was that based on the Champs-Élysées?
46:53I wouldn't say it's based on the looks,
46:56but it's certainly based on the size.
46:58He wanted to have a boulevard longer and wider
47:01and he managed to have it longer and wider.
47:03It's a little bit wider and a little bit longer.
47:06No other comparison, I would say.
47:11Fragments of the old city can still be seen,
47:14but in truth there's precious little left
47:16of the golden days of the 1920s and 30s
47:19when Bucharest was known as Little Paris.
47:27Of course, there have been golden days for Romania since then,
47:31many of which involved their world number one tennis player
47:34of the 1970s, Ilia Nastase.
47:39Oh, well, I say.
47:43I've never been in a tennis superstar's home before,
47:47so show me these.
47:48I'm not in your house.
47:49Well, no.
47:50I have a house, but I'm no superstar.
47:52Well, there you are.
47:53That was the superstar days, superstar days.
47:55There's one with the ugly cheerio there also.
47:57Oh, my God.
47:58How long have you been in this house, then?
47:5933 years.
48:00Right.
48:01You ever wanted to live in another city?
48:02Yeah, New York.
48:03Yeah?
48:04And also Rome, but I was in New York first time
48:07and I don't have time for Rome after.
48:09Yeah.
48:10I feel I know you.
48:11OK.
48:12Because I've seen you so often and followed your great adventures.
48:15I think I saw you too.
48:16Oh, really?
48:17Seriously, seriously.
48:18Not playing tennis?
48:19No, no.
48:20Not playing tennis.
48:21No, no.
48:22So when you decided...
48:23I know your face, but I don't know from where, but I saw you.
48:26It's all way back, way back.
48:28Way back?
48:29Yeah.
48:30Me too.
48:31When you were a tennis superstar in the 70s,
48:33what was it like here in Ceaușescu's communist Romania
48:38and yet being able to leave the country
48:41Did you feel a bit of two worlds?
48:43Well, it was difficult for me because I was living mostly in the West
48:49and I play in the West all the time
48:51and when I have to play Davis Cup I have to come back
48:54and I know the situation not very good
48:57because my parents told me what's happening.
49:01They have a good life, but the other people not.
49:03We're looking at New Europe and how it's changing.
49:06How much has Romania changed since the fall of communism?
49:09Unfortunately, I think that people have more freedom,
49:13but they have less money, unfortunately.
49:15I'm talking about general people, not the few of them who are very rich
49:21and they have not millions, but billions, some of them.
49:25But unfortunately, like I said, now freedom is there,
49:29but they cannot travel.
49:31Before they have the money to travel, they don't have the passport.
49:34Sorry, this is a slightly different tactic, maybe rather personal,
49:38but I did read a quote where you said you slept with 250,000...
49:42Sorry, no, 250,000 women.
49:45No, 2,500.
49:462,500 women.
49:47It was not exactly like that, but I just said that.
49:51Well, I cannot tell you the story because then the autobiography
49:54is not going to sell my books.
49:56No, no, no.
49:57I did with Debbie Beckham, she's English, the lady, I did a book.
50:01Right.
50:02And of course...
50:04That was a round for you.
50:06She came to me and asked me, how many girls do you think you sleep with?
50:11I said, I don't know, I never count them, but I said 30 years,
50:16I put 30 years, I didn't put more than 30 years.
50:19I said 30 years, maybe three a month, four a month, five a month,
50:24it's almost 2,000.
50:26No, no, I said 800, 900.
50:28And then she said, no, no, it cannot be like this.
50:31First of all, it doesn't look for your reputation good,
50:33it doesn't look good for my book, can't sell the book.
50:36And then I said, OK.
50:38I said 2,500, that sounds very good.
50:41So I said, that's what I said.
50:43But it's a joke, you know.
50:45I think I'll try and say that.
50:46I think you can get away with it, I probably can't.
50:48No, but it's, you know, you never count, you know.
50:51For me, the one who counts is the last one.
50:57In the villages and towns of northern Romania,
51:00he saw the legacy of the past respected.
51:03Ceausescu, the son of peasants,
51:05signally failed to do the same for Bucharest.
51:08He treated the capital as his plaything,
51:10destroying lives and history in the process.
51:19Well, the time has come for me to leave
51:21this rather oddly endearing mess of a capital,
51:26which seems to have sort of got over
51:28the indignities of the Ceausescu years
51:30and becoming well on the way
51:32to becoming little Paris again, or maybe little Milan.
51:35It's time to head on back to the Danube,
51:38my highway through Europe.
51:45At the spot where a Roman bridge
51:47once spanned this far frontier of their empire,
51:50I walk with Dan Badarau, who was born and brought up here.
51:54A national theatre actor,
51:56he's also much in demand to play baddies
51:58in American action movies.
52:00The ideal person, perhaps, to escort me out of Romania.
52:09A massive hydroelectric plant
52:11has transformed this dramatic stretch of the Danube
52:14from a turbulent gorge called the Iron Gates
52:17to a wide, windswept sea.
52:27The gorge is...
52:29There.
52:30There, yes.
52:32You'll see. It's fantastic.
52:35The whole thing narrows. Very, very tight.
52:37This is... The Danube here is like a big lake.
52:41Ahead of me and Dan, another gorge waits to be navigated.
52:45And now you'll see, one minute,
52:49a huge statue of...
52:52A huge statue of our ancient king, Decebal.
52:58Really? Yes.
53:00Where is it? Just round the inlet there?
53:03Yes.
53:09Strange place for a statue.
53:12I still can't see anything.
53:15The eyes. Oh, yes.
53:17Nose. Yes.
53:22Huge.
53:23That's very good.
53:26And what does it say?
53:28Decebalus rex.
53:30Decebalus rex.
53:32Dragan fetid.
53:34Dragan made it. Dragan made it, yes.
53:37Who's Dragan?
53:39He brought his fortune in Italy.
53:41And now...
53:43He gave a gift for the Romanian people, yes.
53:47The king Decebalus is a hero?
53:49Yes, he's a hero.
53:51He fights with the Romans.
53:54With Trajan, Emperor Trajan.
53:58Trajan, yes.
54:03As we approach the gorge,
54:05I experience a feeling that the Roman legionnaires might once have shared,
54:09of leaving a far-off outpost,
54:12as the Danube carries me onwards.