I'm just interested in the "ordinary man" experiences, if there's anyone old enough to answer me. I remember waiting for coffee, detergent, black bred and gasoline. There was no bananas or any such fruits (in one period), that was a special treat. But we where living in Rijeka in that time (relatively close to the Italian border) and so we went to Italy and bought "bananas" and other things. What was it like under Ceausescu? I'm sure it was MUCH worse (not comparable). I'm just interested in personal experiences.

For masses, oranges and bananas were available only before Christmas, at least in Oradea (close to the hungarian border).

We waited hours for milk or meat which in fact was more a big bone with rests of meat.

Close to Christmas and New Year the queue for bottles of gas were huge (in cities without no gas network distribution). We even have jokes about that. Since queues were so long, at some point you had to eat, piss, shit so, thelid of the bottle was used for to keep your position in the queue.

Television. A joke. I don;t remember exactly the program, but it was short. Very fucking short. Most of the time was occupied by the "Telejurnal" (News) which presented Ceausescu at various meetings and controls. Also, big (and also false) achivements were reported in order to praise the comunist system. Now is freaking funny, but at that time.....

I have to go now. Maybe some of the colleagues will remember other things from the "great" "Gold Epoch".

This post has been edited by driverx: 15 Aug 2007, 14:45

I was 15 years old in 1989 (the year of the "revolution") so I can remember a few things about Ceausescu regime...

About ordinary commodities: from my parents memories before early 80's, it was relatively no problem in finding basic supplies.

After that the situation got ugly: gasoline was rationed (about 20 liters/month, but you had to wait huge lines, because it wasn't available all the time), sunflower oil, sugar, flour were rationed (in my town we were lucky the bread was't rationed, but it was a very "not-tasty" bread anyway). Meat and meat-products, butter were "rara avis".
For some poor quality milk you should get up at 3-4 a.m. and join the queue...

In the last years of the regime you could have a hard time in finding toilet paper, toothpaste, light bulbs (this particular ones I remember). We took advantage of our annual trip to the seaside to buy gasoline, toothpaste and so on... And, I remember clearly, PEPSI

For a shitty colour TV you could wait for a year or more, the same thing for a shitty car.

I lived (and I still do ) next to the former "big supermarket" and I remember that we were walking in and the shelves were almost empty, just some small potatoes, some bread, vienamese shrimps and a lot of jars of beans, peas, jam.

The TV programmes were 2 hours/ day, mostly "news" and songs of worship for the great leader. Saturday and Sunday there was a longer program, we had a little bit of cartoons, some movie, you got the picture.
You could ocasionally find a good book to escape censorship (and we say the only advantage of those days was that people were at least reading something...).

Some regret those years because, they say, "we were given an apartment and a job". Yes, the communists build a lot of apartment flats, but they were -mostly, over 90%- ugly, small and very poorly built...

I remember I thought we were the stupidest nation alive because when my parents or relatives went on trips to, let's say, Poland or even USSR they returned with toys, bags inscriptioned with "Coca-Cola" (woow), sweets and tons of "good stuff" we couldn't find on our market. And those were "socialist countries" also...

This post has been edited by GoGu: 15 Aug 2007, 19:59

Don't forget the monthly political meetings (UTC, PCR), ... practical training in the summer hollyday, ... six days working week, only 15 to 21 days leave (function by your length of service).

Last but not least there were frequent power outages lasting for up to few hours. Whole blocks or even cities were left in pitch dark.
The hot water was distributed scarcely, once a week for a few hours. In winter the heating system was supplying only lukewarm water in order to keep the indoor temperatures somewhere around 18 degrees Celsius but no more. We used a stove powered by diesel fuel to warm up the apartment.
Food was scarce but if you had connections you could buy meat, eggs, flour, sugar etc.
One thing I remember is there were plenty of toys and books. Of course, some books could be bought only if you would buy one or more of Ceausescu's books (they were all titled "Opere" AFAIK). 90% of my family's library was bought before December 1989.
The TV program was about 2 hours a day, ending at 22:00. After that we would tune our TVs for the Serbian/Hungarian/Bulgarian Television. You could not posses foreign currency. I know stories of men forced to become a "snitch" for the "Securitate" because they were framed with illegal possession of foreign currency (US $).
We were told (as pupils) to collect glass, scrap metal, old paper (which was not such a bad thing after all) and we were supposed to collect a certain amount of each (that was bad).
When settling in a city you would be checked by "Securitate" and often "mistaken" for a felon and interrogated. (my parents have been through this)

This post has been edited by Illusi0n: 15 Aug 2007, 15:36

Little correction to GoGu - the "long" tv programme was only on Sunday, because Saturday was a normal work day.

In the city where me and my parents lived in '89, I remember the eggs ratio was 4 eggs / month. I also remember the looooong row of empty milk bottles people placed in front of the store in the evening, to have a good "spot" early in the morning.

Hmmm, I remember the TV programme was a little bit longer on Saturdays too, it started at 1 p.m. or something, I remember we were running home from school to catch some show (either cartoons or some kids movie, I can't remeber exactly). It was a "reduced working day" and we, as kids, had fewer school hours on Saturday...
On Sundays the programme was even longer, what a feast

I also remembered the Kent cigarettes (the original ones, by Lorillard) which were the symbol of well-living (and the favourite choice for bribes, for doctors or some authorities...).
Cofee was some other rare stuff, I remember how happy my parents were when they managed to get some "ness" ( generic name for instant cofee)...

Detergent... I remember my parents bought an automatic washing machine in 1986 (a proud product of the Romanian industry, expensive as hell... but pretty sturdy though) and we could buy one or two boxes of crappy "automatic" detergent (low foaming) only if we showed the invoice of the washing machine

Bananas and oranges (and Chinese pencils and other school-stuff) were available around holidays (but you had to wait in a long, long line). Anyway, bananas dissapeared in the last years (to my despair, they were -and still are- my favourites).

This post has been edited by GoGu: 15 Aug 2007, 20:23

It was definitely much worse there, but I knew that in advance.

It was nothing like it in Yugoslavia, but I do remember waiting in line for coffee , detergent and things like that. Must say the hole thing was not even close to what you all described.

I find the television thing specially idiotic. I can't think of a reason to have only two hours of television program a day, not a single one.

It was all about saving money... Before 1980 things were much better. But after 1980, Ceausescu decided it was time to pay the debts (he had borrowed money from other countries, international banks, in order to industrialize Romania). So between 1980 and 1989 Romania started repaying it's debt by exporting EVERYTHING... every god damn thing (sugar, butter, milk, honey, electronics, clothes, every quality product). And in 1989, after 10 years of hunger, the debt was almost completely repaid. Everyone thought things would go back to normal, but Ceausescu made his biggest mistake... He said we should have a few more years of sacrifice because he never wanted Romania to be in debt ever again. More so, he wanted our country to have debtors. And that's when people decided it was time to end it once and for all.
It was indeed a very difficult time for our country.

It's true, there were some good things during the Ceausescu regime, (like all people having a place to live, less thievery, etc) but there were a heck of a lot more bad things.... But still, thinking in retrospective, I don't think he deserved being killed.

This post has been edited by bloodem: 16 Aug 2007, 12:53

In only few words we could say it was the same in Romania and Croatia too. The only difference was the name of "president".

This post has been edited by ionut16031987: 17 Aug 2007, 16:51

Man, you can talk about Croatia either before 1918 or after 1991. In between, Croatia was part of an union.

Boris, about the coffee, you have momories of waiting in line to get some, here was only a dream. It was so rare like chicken lips.

The others forgot to tell about so called "voluntary work". The authorities, especially around religious hollydays, used to kindly ask everybody (peoples, students, and employees) to come out and to help authorities to clean the streets, brush the trees and God knows what else. The request was kindly asked but they ware making tables with names and signatures, in order to punish those missing.
So, no Easter Monday, no Christmas day.

I remember that for a VCR, one could get a brand new Dacia or even an apartment, considering that for a shitty Dacia you had to wait at least 5 years in order to get one.

The price for one dollar was about 4 lei, oficial rate but we were not allowed to have such thing. On the black market was 100 lei. Dacia 1310 was between 65 and 85 thousand lei and you had to pay the downpayment and wait for at least 5 years to get one. You had no choices colour or interior. You used to be invited to a pool and left alone there, to find the car to please you. At the end of the day, none was interested in small things like colour, everyone looked to the engine to work ok.

sorry was my mistake

you forgot to mention the restriction of traffic every sunday - one sunday only odd plate-numbered cars were allowed, the next sunday - only even numbered plates were allowed.

and remember the long lines for gas stations on the seaside, at Constanta and beach resorts, in the summer

that was fun, you say that the TV broadcasted for only 2h/day but remember "Dallas" and by that I was forced to read a lot of books - far more interesting than the shitty TV

those times everyone had a "Dacia", and everyone was a mechanic, so people got to know each other much easier - I reckon that it was much less hate and haste than nowadays. Also fewer cars, a ride to the seaside was a pleasure to drive. The seaside looked better than nowadays, no ATVs and Jeeps deep in the forest - but we were forced to stay inside borders, or at maximum to pay a visit outside, but only DDR or USSR

MUCH worse is nou dude

Sorry , but WRONG! If you followed that logic (and it's wrong) you could talk about Croatia before 1102 or after 1991. But that's not the topic

Off Topic: Boris, this year I have been two times in Rijeka with my ship. Unfortnably I couldn't go out to see the city . It was lot of work on the ship and little time. But what I could see I remember it was verry beautiful.
It was a big thing when we first arrived in port of Rieka beeing the biggest ship who had ever been moored there. And then was the time when I saw the mooring man driving an Logan.

Some members of the crew told me that Rijeka looks kind of like Koper. Is it true? Because I love Koper. Is one of the most beautiful cities that I saw.

This post has been edited by TheSaiLor: 30 Aug 2007, 23:50

I like Rijeka, I was born there. I can't compare it with Kopar because I've never been there