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Youth in Romania: Europeans. Untouched by Communism Youth by Dana Popa
Twenty years on after the Romanian ‘revolution’ in December 1989, the heavy grey blocks of flats - the painful communist legacy – are the only apparent element to remain unchanged. I met with Romanian youth to see what their lives are like nowadays. Connected to the world via internet, with access to the latest news and freedom to travel anywhere in Europe, with possibilities of driving convertible cars in their 20s and study abroad, they can’t imagine a reality that was the long cues for milk and a small portion of meat or petrol for hours to an end in the middle of the night, the small bread ratio one family was entitled to, people disappearing for ever with no trace, the no right to listen to any foreign radio channel or to travel abroad, the everyday censorship, etc. They live in a reality that inevitably carries on much from the communist past, moulds onto the bittersweet changes that followed, still, is more and more anchored in the imported Western European culture. Romanian girls would now wear the latest Italian fashion, boys would have the last gadgets appearing on the western market. They all freely apply to the Western Universities’ courses and often party in Ibiza or the local newly created trendiest clubs. Romania composes of the rich and the poor. Youngsters who come from very poor families fall under the need to imitate the western elements of everyday life. Traces of the past are more visible here, starting with the block of flats they live in, up to the car they don’t have and dream of. The freedom to migrate and earn a better living makes the majority of them take the chance. The rich kids already have the original everyday bits of the western dream. Relying on the financial support offered by their families they might respond to the call to truly experience the west, too.
