Tag: heart

  • 4 May, 2019

    4 May, 2019

    European
    elections.
    The European People’s Party is projected to win 170 seats in the
    next European Parliament, followed by the Progressive Alliance of Socialists
    and Democrats with 149 seats, according to a poll of polls published by politico.eu.
    According to figures for the last 6 months concerning Romania, the ruling
    Social Democratic Party is projected to win 9 seats, the National Liberal Party
    in opposition 8 seats, the 2020 Alliance, also in opposition, 7 seats, the
    Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in the ruling coalition 4 seats and the Pro
    Romania party led by the former Social Democrat prime minister Victor Ponta 4
    seats. According to politico.eu, the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in
    Romania and the People’s Movement Party of the former president Traian Basescu
    would not make it to the next European Parliament. The European elections will
    be held between the 23rd and the 26th of May. In Romania
    they will be held on the 26th.






    EU summit. EU
    leaders will meet in a special summit in Brussels on the 28th of
    May, two days after the elections for the European Parliament, to establish who
    will succeed Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the European Commission. An
    official nomination is to be made on the 20th and the 21st
    of June. The president of the European Council Donald Tusk is expected to
    announce the agenda during next Thursday’s informal summit in Sibiu, central
    Romania. On Friday, the Romanian president Klaus Iohannis, who was a trip to
    Italy, met the Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte. Iohannis highlighted the
    importance of the upcoming meeting in Sibiu for the future of the European
    project. The priorities of the European Union for the next five years will be
    outlined and practical solutions will be identified to the problems facing the
    Union at the moment. The summit in Sibiu will bring together EU heads of state and
    government, 36 official delegations, 400 high-ranking guests, around 900
    journalists and 100 interpreters. We recall that Romania currently holds the
    presidency of the Council of the EU.




    Fire
    protection.
    EU member states spent over 31 billion euros in 2017 for
    fire-protection services and almost 300,000 persons were employed as fire
    fighters in the European Union in 2017 and 2018, according to data published by
    Eurostat. The ratio of government fire-protection expenditures to total
    expenditure was highest in Romania and Bulgaria, 0.7 and 0.8% respectively, but
    the two countries had some of the lowest rates in terms of expenditure per
    inhabitant, namely 24 euros in Romania and 21 in Bulgaria, compared with 113
    euros in Luxembourg for example.










    National
    Heart Day.
    Heart diseases are the main health problem in Romania, warns the
    health ministry on National Heart Day. The death rate caused by cardiovascular
    diseases is three times higher than that caused by cancer. In this context, a
    screening programme is to be implemented this summer to identify people at risk
    of cardiovascular disease. The programme will last for five years and is
    allocated 20 million euros accounting for non-reimbursable European funds. More
    than 170,000 people will be able to benefit. Heart diseases are the number one
    cause of death across Europe, for both women and men. Controlling the main risk
    factors, including smoking, unhealthy diet and lack of physical activity, can
    lead to a lower death rate.






    Tourism. The
    most popular tourist site in the Romanian section of the Danube gorges, a
    depiction of the Dacian king Decebalus carved in stone, will from now on be
    illuminated at night. The bas-relief, which is 55 metres high and 25 metres
    wide, can now also seen at night by the tens of thousands of tourists who pass
    through the area every year. The statue of Decebalus is Europe’s largest sculpture
    in stone. It was produced between 1994 and 2004 by 12 mountain-climbing
    sculptors working on the left bank of the Danube, where the river is the deepest,
    at 120 metres. Decebalus was the last king of Dacia, reigning between 87 and 106.
    During the 105-106 war, the Roman emperor Trajan conquered the Dacian kingdom
    and turned it into a Roman province. Decebalus committed suicide so as not to
    be captured by the Romans.

  • Tall monuments in Romania

    Tall monuments in Romania

    Romania has several tall monuments which are real attractions for visitors. Some of those monuments have a short, even very short history, others a long one, depending on what those monuments represented at the time they were built.



    The tallest stone sculpture in Europe features the Dacian king Decebalus, who ruled some of the territories making up todays Romania, between 85 and 106 AD. The sculpture is 55 m tall and 25 m wide and was carved into the rocky wall of the Danube Gorges, between the villages of Eselniţa and Dubova, near the town of Orsova, where the river carved the Mraconia Gulf. The area is dotted by small waterfalls and is called the Small Cauldrons. Off the bank, near the statue featuring Decebalus, surrounded by trees, the River Danube is 120 m deep. As regards the sculpture, Decebaluss eyes are 4 m wide and its nose is 7 m long. The monument cost over one million dollars, was ordered and paid for by the businessman Iosif Constantin Dragan, who passed away in 2008, at 91 years of age. The works lasted 10 years and were carried out between 1994 and 2004. The project was carried by sculptor Florin Cotarcea. At the bottom of the statue, there is an inscription in Latin, reading Decebalos Rex – Dragan Fecit (King Decebalus – Made by Dragan).



    In the village of Adamclisi in Dobrogea, south-eastern Romania, visitors can see the “Tropaeum Traiani monument, that is “Trajans Trophy. It is a mausoleum which was restored and inaugurated in 1977. The monument was built as a tribute to the Roman Emperor Trajan, who ruled between 98 and 117 AD, to mark the Romans victory against the Dacians in 102 AD. It was archaeologist Grigore Tocilescu who restored the blueprints of the monument in 1882. It is made up of a round-shaped pedestal, with a truncated cone-shaped roof and a hexagonal prism on top of it. A trophy made up of an armour and four shields is placed on the prism, on top of the monument. The mausoleum is 40 m tall, just like the pedestal, whose diameter measures 40 m. The names of 3,800 Roman military who died in the war against the Dacians were inscribed on the old monument.



    One of the best-known columns in the world is undoubtedly “The Endless Column by sculptor Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957). The column is approximately 30 m tall and is made up of 16 modules. Each module is made up of two truncated square pyramids joined in a common base. Its original name was “The Column of Gratitude; It was built in memory of the Romanian soldiers fallen in 1916 in battles in Gorj County, on the bank of the Jiu River. The monument was inaugurated in 1938, commissioned by Aretia Tatarescu, one of the foremost members of the National League of Gorj Women. The column inspired Spanish sculptor Santiago Calatrava when he designed the 120 meter tall obelisk, inaugurated in Madrid in 2009.



    In the Carol Park, on the Filaret Hill, in south-central Bucharest, in the late 1930s, Romanian architects built a memorial to soldiers who had fallen on all fronts in World War I. In 1923, a monument to unknown heroes had been raised there, and the Military Museum was supposed to stand there. In 1944, works ceased because of the war, and the project had to wait until 1963 to be completed. The outcome was a 48 meter tall mausoleum with a funeral wall where the remains of some communist leaders were being kept.



    The Cross of the Nations Heroes is yet another monument in memory of soldiers fallen during WWI. It was built between 1926 and 1928 on Caraiman Mountain, at an altitude of 2291 meters. It appears in the Guinness Book of Records as the tallest cross on a mountain. The monument is solemn and impressive: the cross is 29 meters tall, on a 7 and a half meters tall plinth, with 7 meters long arms. The cross, made of steel train rails on a reinforced concrete plinth, was ordered by the Romanian Railroad Company in memory of its workers who gave their lives in battle. In 1938, a lighting installation was fitted up on the cross, with 120 light bulbs of 500 watt each.



    The newest tall monument in Romania is the statue called “Jesus Christs Heart, inaugurated in 2011 on Gordon Mountain, at an altitude of 953 meters, in Harghita County, in the centre of Romania. It is considered the biggest statue of Jesus in Eastern Europe, standing at 22 meters in height. It was built of iron and stainless steel by a local foundation and the owner of a dairy company. It has a spiral staircase inside reaching all the way to the top. In the last few years, it has become the most popular tourist attraction, due to the beautiful scenery surrounding it.