[OFF TOPIC] Politics Thread

[copravolley 656]

1 minute ago, zob79 said:

It happened to a friend of mine in 2008, I remember it vividly.

 

Was Romania safe for foreign visitors under Ceausescu time?

[copravolley 656]

4 minutes ago, zob79 said:

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

 

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.

[zob79 197]

6 minutes ago, copravolley said:

Was Romania safe for foreign visitors under Ceausescu time?

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

[zob79 197]

11 minutes ago, copravolley said:

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.

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

[Bailer 160]

On 4/20/2026 at 10:21 PM, copravolley said:

I'm afraid that some Radev-like emerge will soon in Slovakia, because Fico is probably too discredited and will take all power.

Thankfully, there isn't anyone capable of doing something like that right now. Pellegrini tried to convince people that he's not like Fico anymore, but it was all a big lie. Just a few days after the elections, he joined his old mafia cronies and populist friends to form a government.

 

On 4/20/2026 at 10:21 PM, copravolley said:

Especially since, apart from maybe Poland and the Czech Republic, in the entire post-USSR bloc, most people still simply like Russia.

Not the Baltic states.

[copravolley 656]

19 hours ago, zob79 said:

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

20- 15 years ago once said me to go to Greece via Serbia and Macedonia, not Romania and Bulgaria, so maybe that's why.

 

There are a lot of tourists at the sea in Rominia at that time, or has the near of war for 2022 made things worse?

Edited 1 hour ago by copravolley

[copravolley 656]

1 hour ago, Bailer said:

Thankfully, there isn't anyone capable of doing something like that right now. Pellegrini tried to convince people that he's not like Fico anymore, but it was all a big lie. Just a few days after the elections, he joined his old mafia cronies and populist friends to form a government.

 

Not the Baltic states.

Slovenia is probably the richest, but I find it difficult to classify it as either Eastern or Western. For me, it's always been a contact zone. Generally, all of the Yugoslavia wasn't formally part of the USSR bloc because there were no Soviet troops there.

 

Someone like that can always appear - for example, Magyar was a little known Fidesz politician just 3-4 years ago. But it should probably be someone from outside the mainstream politics, so probably not like Fico/Pellegrini. Slovakia once had a female president and she probably came from outside politics, so maybe someone like that?

Edited 1 hour ago by copravolley

[copravolley 656]

I regular travel to Croatia regularly around 2010, and I always found the country quite civilized compared to another in Balkans. For example, I never had situations like those in Bulgaria where someone was disguised as police or wanted money at the border. In Croatia, it always seemed okay to me – quite safe, border crossings control were quite fast, etc.

Edited 1 hour ago by copravolley