Radio România Internațional

Tag: accommodation

  • Romania’s Tourism Fair, the spring edition

    Romania’s Tourism Fair, the spring edition

    The spring edition of the largest tourism fair staged
    in Romania brought together generous offers for various categories of tourists,
    whether they are into cultural or treatment tourism, or whether they ‘d rather
    go for rural or business tourism offers. Visitors had the opportunity to
    discover some of Romania’s most beautiful areas. Also , they found ready-made tourism
    packages for a holiday to remember, for extremely affordable prices.


    Dana Matic, of the Visit Mureș Association, told us
    she has been taking part, for many years now, in both editions of the fair, the
    spring and the autumn edition. Dana Matic:

    Mures County has quite a few treasures
    to offer, and, as of late, because of the pandemic, we have been focusing on natural
    assets, on outdoor activities. That is why we invite
    our tourists to discover the castles. They are our strongest point. They are
    the heritage of the Hungarian nobility of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. We recommend
    a three, four-day tour, so they can visit the castles but also the mansions.


    Petru Maran works for the Sighetu-Marmatiei tourism promotion
    and information Centre. He has invited us to discover Maramures.Petru Maran:

    Ours is a very generous offer, culture-wise,
    but also in terms of adventure tourism, and my job is to present the Sighetu
    Marmatiei municipal city from a tourism perspective. When it comes to cultural tourism,
    I recommend the Maramures Museum, with its sections. I recommend the Maramures
    Village Museum, the Ethnographic Museum of Maramures, the Elie
    Wiesel Memorial House. There is a very important museum we also have in Sighetu
    Marmatiei: The Communism Victims and Resistance Memorial. You’re sure to find out
    a lot about the communist repression in Romania and about the Sighetu Marmatiei
    prison. In the historical Maramures, I recommend that you visit the Merry Cemetery
    in Sapanta and the Peri Sapanta Monastery. We cannot ignore the narrow-gauge
    train on the Vaser Valley either.


    Anca Grădinariu is a representative of the Buzau Country Association,
    which was set up with a view to promoting one of Romania’s less well-known
    regions. The Association has been submitting documentation so that UNESCO may
    recognize the Buzau Country as a geopark. The first assessment has already been
    made, or at least that’s what we’ve been told, and we also found out the region
    would most likely be granted that status in May this year. Anca Gradinariu:


    We present the offers of the
    region. We have lots of leaflets for that. And joining us is the Buzau Country ‘s
    most distinguished representative, Amelia Papazissu, a
    living human treasure who can weave using the goat hair. We’ve got wines, then
    we also have the local craft beer. There are a great many magnificent areas in
    Buzau County, still unspoiled by mass tourism, with their prose and their cons.
    The region is wild and, if we reach a certain altitude, around the Mocearu Lake,
    we have the feeling we’re in Switzerland or Iceland, the quietness there is
    impressive, what with the extraordinary guest houses, with people who are
    cooking experts. The Lopatari Mocearu Lake is my favorite region.


    A lively and colorful stall was the one of Bukovina,
    represented by Catalina Velniciuc with the Suceava County Council.


    Bukovina came to the fair with Easter and
    summer offers, many of them from business operators in the tourism sector. Representing
    Bukovina at the fair are also Tara Dornelor Eco-tourism Association, Suceava Town
    Hall and a craftsman who makes egg-painting demonstrations. A three-night accommodation
    package, breakfast, dinner and SPA access included, in a four-star facility in
    Campulung Moldovenesc costs RON 2250 per person.


    The county of Dambovita is represented at the fair by
    Georgiana Ungureanu with the Curtea Domneasca Museum Compound in Targoviste.


    Georgiana Ungureanu:

    The Dambovita County Council,
    through the Curtea Domneasca Museum Compound in Targoviste, has come to the
    fair this year to present the 16 museums in our county. Nine of them are
    located in the county capital Targoviste. Among them is Curtea Domneasca, the Princely
    Court monumental ensemble and the Chindia Tower, which also venues the Museum
    of Printing and Old Romanian Book. As a novelty, we invite tourists to visit
    the Potlogi Ensemble built in the Brancoveanu style, which has been restored. Towards
    the mountains, in Vulcana-Pandele, there is the memorial house of artist Gabriel
    Popescu that is also worth visiting. The museum has a beautiful garden where
    tourists can take some time to relax.


    Szabó Károly is the executive director of the Harghita
    Intercommunity Development Agency:


    I came here with plenty of offers, from wellness
    and gastronomy to theme parks. I have brought the best our county has to offer.
    During the pandemic we launched an initiative called Family-Friendly Harghita.
    The county is an ideal place for families and we are now licensing tourist units
    in this respect. We so far have 86 such units, that include guest houses,
    restaurants, places to visit and services that meet our criteria. All these can
    also be found the Visit Harghita application.


    Florentina Gheorghita, the head of the Botosani Tourist
    Information Centre, has also told us about her offer:


    The town of Botosani stands out due to its
    historical center, known as the Little Leipzig. Many old buildings have been
    preserved and most of them have been restored. The church where national poet
    Mihai Eminescu was baptized as well as his birthplace are located in the city center.
    We now have a project under way aimed at bringing to light the legends of the
    old center. It is said that the whole town used to be crossed by tunnels and
    underground cells which connected all houses ever since the Tartar invasion.
    People used to hide in these cells. With the help of scanners we have found
    tunnels dug six and eight meters deep.

    (Translation by EN and E. Enache)

  • The new academic year and the real estate market

    The new academic year and the real estate market

    The beginning of October traditionally marks the start of a new university year. Statistics show that Romania ranks last in the EU in terms of the number of university graduates, which is 25.6% of the people aged between 30 and 34. Moreover, in the past few years the number of people who take the bachelors degree exam has also decreased. For example, in 2009 more than 870,000 Romanian students registered for the graduation exam, but the number dropped to around 383,000 in the 2016-2017 academic year. At the same time, Romania comes 5th in the European classification of countries with the biggest number of students studying abroad.



    Romanians who choose to study in the country can opt for one of the big university centres here, such as Bucharest, Cluj, Iasi or Timisoara. The fact that most students come from outside these cities leads to another problem, related to accommodation and the limited number of rooms in campuses. Alina Simion, head of the Students Association with the Bucharest University explains:



    Alina Simion: “The Bucharest University has room for around 5,300 students in its own campuses, which are divided between faculties depending on the number of students that each of them have. The Bucharest University has more than 30,000 students, so the number of campus rooms is small and the demand quite big. Of course, the room offer does not cover the demand, and the selection is based on academic performance. There are also social and health criteria, which count in the distribution of rooms.



    Although several new university campuses have been built in the past ten years, it is still not enough to cover the demand. The Bucharest Universitys campus in Grozavesti area, for instance, one of the best known in the capital city, is located in the west, close to the Regie campus, the biggest in Romania, made up of 33 buildings, of which 26 are run by the Polytechnic University and 7 by the Medicine University. There are other campuses as well, some located close to the faculties, some towards the citys outskirts. Renting or even buying an apartment or a studio is another solution that many students opt for. The demand is so big every fall that a new phenomenon has emerged in the Romanian real estate market. Radu Zilisteanu, an expert in the real estate field, explains:



    Radu Zilisteanu: “Generally, in the cities that are also big university centres, the real estate market is marked by a new phenomenon every autumn, namely, the demand exceeds the offer, resulting in an increase in prices. This has been a regular phenomenon for years now. This year, however, it was doubled by another phenomenon, specific to this period, namely, the fact that the ROBOR index based on which interest rates on mortgage loans are calculated, has grown significantly. This has restricted Romanians access to mortgage loans. Therefore, students arrival in the great university centres and the rather more difficult access to mortgage loans, which forced those who sought to buy property to rent in the city instead, have jointly led to a rather high demand in the rental market and to an increase of rents. Because of that increase, there are students who make groups of three or four and who rent three or four-room flats together to reduce individual costs.



    Experts estimate that this year, studio rents will be almost 20% higher than in the regular real estate transaction seasons. However, this solution is only accessible to those who have above-the-average budgets, given that the monthly rent for a studio flat ranges from 75 to 200 Euros. Comparatively, in the Regie campus, the monthly rent for a room does not exceed 35 Euro in the winter and does not go below 24 Euro in the summer, for students who do not pay tuition fees. For the students who pay their own tuition fees, the summer monthly rent accounts for 49 Euros while for the winter, the monthly rent is around 64 Euros. Monthly rents in the student dorms allotted to the University of Bucharest are even smaller.



    The high rents for lodging in town, and also the fact that the number of flats available for rental is limited, make it even harder for students to have access to decent accommodation. Here is Alina Simion again, speaking about that.



    Alina Simion: “There are a few students who can afford it, but not so many. Most of the friends I know live in the campus. Rents are quite OK, for the students supported by their parents. But for those who have a job, it is quite difficult to pay the rent all by themselves, since the rent accounts for 150 Euros per month. It is a bit too much for a student to be able to afford a flat with decent living standards. I have been living in a campus room for four years now, and I cannot afford a flat or a studio. I am just wondering how I will get by, money-wise, this year, after Ive completed my Masters. It is rather hard, especially for the students who support themselves and need to attend classes as well. Problems are bound to occur, either with their studies or at their job.



    Students would like to rent lodging in town, because there is still a lot more to be done in terms of living standards and hygiene in campus dorms. Cockroaches, rats, shared bathrooms… the solutions to these problems are postponed from one year to the next.



    Alina Simion: “Unfortunately, there is no secret that the living standards are still as bad as they used to be. Throughout the years, attempts have been made and are still being made to modernise campuses. However, the bureaucracy at university administration level has prevented it. The furniture is new; new mattresses have been brought in as well. The students paint their own rooms. But these are not the real problems. Bathrooms have been refurbished in Grozavesti. But the shared bathroom facilities are in fact the main problem. “



    A new solution has recently been offered: private dorms. There, the rents and the living standards are somewhere halfway between the solutions offered by university campuses and the rented lodgings in town.


    (translated by: Elena Enache, Eugen Nasta)