Romania for Business

Present-day Romania is just slightly smaller in area than Great Britain (or about the size of New York and Pennsylvania combined), with a population of about 23 million. Separated from the Balkan Peninsula to the south by the Danube River, Romania shares borders today with Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Ukraine, and Moldova. Its southeastern frontier follows the Black Sea. The Romanian people descended from the ancient Romans and the Dacians, an ancient Thracian tribe native to the land now called Romania. The majority of Romania's citizens are ethnic Romanians, but there are also many minorities. Hungarians, Saxons, and Gypsies are the largest ethnic minority groups. Most Romanians follow the Christian Orthodox religion, even through the Communist years when religious practice was outlawed.

Romania in its present form has been in existence only since 1859, but can trace its history to the era around 2000 B.C.E. Over its four thousand years, Romania's geographical location between western Europe and the East has forced its citizens to defend their land through almost continual wars, invasions, occupations, oppressions, and massacres. For more than 50 years following World War II, Romania was ruled by a succession of Communist leaders. From 1965 to 1989, the Romanians were subjected to arguably the worst despotic regime among the Soviet Bloc countries: that of Nicolae Ceausescu who, along with his wife Elena, destroyed historical villages and buildings, confiscated essentially everything of value, and literally stole the food from his own people. The Ceausescus were overthrown during a violent revolution in December 1989, and executed shortly thereafter. Questions still linger about whether the revolution was instigated and orchestrated by forces in Moscow...or by Ceaucescu's own henchmen.

Vlad Dracula -- pronounced Drah-COO-lah -- the historical Dracula, was a Wallachian prince who ruled Romania from 1456 to 1462. He was not a vampire; tales of these mythical creatures have persisted in folklore for centuries, and they were popularized by author Bram Stoker in the late 1800s. During the fifteenth century, the Turks conquered most of what is now the Balkans and Central and Eastern Europe, spreading Byzantine culture throughout the vast Ottoman Empire that it ruled. Vlad Dracula repelled the invading armies by impaling his Turkish enemies on spikes, earning him the sobriquet Vlad Tepes -- pronounced TSEH-pesh -- or Vlad the Impaler. (Perhaps this inspired Stoker to kill his vampires in a similar manner.) Because of their fear of Vlad, the Turks did not press for sovereign control of the region and allowed Romania to function as a suzerainty. This gives some explanation why Romanians speak a Latin-based language to this day -- unlike their Slavic neighbours. It was also Vlad Dracula who founded the city of Bucuresti, now the capital of Romania.

The territory of modern Romania was settled before the 7th Century BC by the Geto-Dacian peoples. From the 7th Century BC, the Greeks established trading colonies on the Black Sea coast which, along with the rest of the Greco-Dacian territory, was occupied by the Romans until 271 AD.

Until the 10th Century, the area was populated by invading Goths, Huns, Avars, Slavs, Bulgars, and Hungarians, but the indigenous Romanians survived in village communities and by the 10th Century a feudal system had been established. From the 10th Century, Hungary occupied Transylvania which, by the 13th Century, was an autonomous Hungarian region though still containing a majority Romanian population.

The regions of Moldavia and Wallachia were also targeted for Hungarian expansion but were incorporated into the Ottoman Empire by the 15th Century. In 1812, Russia seized an area of Moldavia from the Turks, but the remainder of Moldavia and Wallachia, with French assistance, united in 1859 under Alexandru Cuza, to form a national state which bore the name Romania from 1862.



Cuza abdicated in 1866 to be succeeded by King Carol I, who in 1877 declared independence from the Ottoman Empire and expanded Romanian territory by taking Dobruja in 1878. Aiming to further extend its boundaries, Romania entered the First World War on the side of the Triple Entente (UK, France, and Russia). Immediate invasion by Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria followed; however, at the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919, Romania was awarded Transylvania and Bessarabia, bringing their ethnic Romanian populations within Romanian boundaries.

During the inter-war years, King Carol II and his Foreign Minister Titulescu formed alliances with France, UK, and the Little Entente (Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia) and signed a Balkan Pact with Turkey, Yugoslavia, and Greece. Relations were also established with the USSR. In 1938, however, King Carol II declared a personal dictatorship