This still happens at Romanian customs; nothing could put a stop to it

It was - for travellers from eastern bloc.   Western citizens were tracked by secret police, their hotel rooms were bugged; I mean individual travelers. Groups of tourists who came to our seaside during '70s and '80s were not harassed, as Ceausescu badly needed cash flow

But at the border, you always had to hand over money, or sometimes alcohol and cigarettes. It was the same in the USSR, for example, when my grandfather once traveled to Sochi from Poland in the 1980s and had to have alcohol and cigarettes ready for border officials.

Was Romania safe for foreign visitors under Ceausescu time?

It happened to a friend of mine in 2008, I remember it vividly.   Yes, travelling in Eastern Europe was safer during communism, as police kept a tight grip on society  

Well, maybe not until 2010, but until 2000, and it was probably safer there under the communists, than in 1990 years? I traveled to Croatia alone in 2006, via Hungary and Bosnia, but those were more peaceful times Generally, during the communist era, Poles would travel to Bulgaria in 3-4 cars for holidays- it was safer at all. And it worked the same way the other way around. If a Bulgarian/Rumunian person were traveling alone to Poland in 1995 and don`t know its realities, they might have had problems with the police or other dangerous, for example. 

This happened until 2010s, travellers were hijacked by criminals impersonating Bulgarian policemen; felt like Wild West    Tbh, if heywoody travelled through Romania, I'd pull the same stunt nowadays 

Agree; that's the key concept to depict life in Romania 1990s: insecurity. In Bucharest you couldn't go out after nightfall without risking being mugged. I never saw a police car in my neighbourhood during the '90s 

Canadian citizen murdered this afternoon at Teotihuacan archeological site, outside Mexico City, along 13 injured persons, including a minor.   Still FIFA’s mafia boss and the useless bitch in “charge” of Mexico insists there are no security concerns..

I traveled to Turkey with my parents in 1995 as a kid, and I remember driving through Bulgaria was nightmare- we purposely lined up in 2 or 3 cars because it was dangerous traveled alone. The Romanian- Bulgarian and Bulgarian- Turkish borders were a horrible remember, although the Hungarians always held their border with some problems. In the 1990s, however, Hungary was the richest country in the region- even richer than Poland and the Czech Republic, but that's changed now, but was definitely safe to drive there without fear. Overall, I have the impression that Bulgaria/Romania was more dangerous in the 1990s than in the 1980/1970. I lived in Poland in the 1990s, and it was also quite dangerous: almost 0 km of highways, mafias, street shootings, etc. 30 years ago, there were also a lot of prostitutes from Bulgaria in Poland, and there were a few cases of someone murdering them. It wasn't a very dangerous time and now I'd be afraid of such trips, but people did. My father even traveled to Bulgaria and Romania in the 1970s and '80s, as did many people in that times.