Download or read book Romania Explained to My Friends Abroad written by Catalin Gruia and published by Createspace Independent Pub. This book was released on 2014-01-16 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dear reader - you should know from the very beginning this is not an exhaustive, academic paper on Romania; nor is it a travel guide of Romania. I'm a simple journalist and this is just my own private Romania - a subjective puzzle of all the things I know from experience to be interesting for foreign tourists. I've learned a lot from them and from trying to answer their questions. I had to research and prepare myself each and every time, for every curiosity they had. After a while, some of these studies became the essays I've collected in this book. --introduction.
Download or read book Searching for Dracula in Romania written by Catalin Gruia and published by Createspace Independent Pub. This book was released on 2014-02-07 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vlad and the Vampire : The Double Life of DraculaRomania is best known to the world as Dracula's country. But go there and ask about Dracula and you'll be puzzled. The Count remained until very recently unknown in his own homeland. Romanian communists banned all vampire fiction until 1990. Even nowadays Romanians have a schizophrenic attitude towards Dracula. They are tempted to transform Dracula into a tourism agent to cash in Western money, but at the same time they're afraid they may be bartering away their history. Romania's problem is that Dracula lived for real. He was neither a vampire, nor a count and never reigned in Transylvania. The stories about Vlad III Dracula, a 15th century warlord prince of Wallachia, a small Romanian principality, were horror best sellers long before Bram Stoker's famous novel. According to a 1499 pamphlet published by Ambrosius Hubler at Nuremberg, “Dracula the voivode was a bloodthirsty man who impaled people and roasted them... and chopped them like cabbages.” To Romanians he is still a national hero. The Romanian national poet Mihai Eminescu called upon Vlad to bring down his wrath upon the guilty. Romania's schizophrenic dilemmaThe fact that Bram Stoker chose Transylvania as place of origin for his vampire frustrates many Romanian nationalists, some of whom even bet on Vasile Barsan's historical theory about a conspiracy against Vlad Tepes – led by king Matthias Corvinus in the 15th century, refined with a vampirical touch in the 19th century by Arminius Vambery, a Hungarian scholar and spy, allegedly Stoker's informant, and immortalized on the silver screen in the 20 century by Hungarian-born actor Bela Lugosi. “The complete fusion between the fictional Count and the historic figure of the Prince began in 1972, with the publishing of In Search of Dracula by Radu Florescu and Raymond McNally, two historians who argued that Bram Stoker based his vampire on Vlad”, says writer Elisabeth Miller. Bram Stoker's Dracula directed by Francis Ford Coppola is the most famous Dracula film in history. About the time Coppola's movie appeared in 1992, Romanians were discovering they could market the fictional Dracula. The government planned to build a Dracula Park hoping to attract a million visitors per year. The project met a huge opposition and its supporters were forced to step back. Dracula Park: the essence of Romanian's mixed feelings (opportunism and resentment) towards Dracula This book also explores other interesting issues for any Dracula fan:• Where is Transylvania and how did it become the land of vampires? • Why Romanian communists banned Dracula as representative of the “decadent” West? • How was Vlad Tepes myth built after 19th century • Behind the scenes of the Dracula Park odyssey • Dracula's three castles in Romania • What are the links between Stoker's Dracula and the Eastern European roots of the vampire myths? • What are the must-see places if you visit Romania in search of Dracula? Searching for Dracula in RomaniaThis travelogue is a very informative, brilliantly written work which will definitely be liked by those who're interested in vampires, Dracula in particular and Romania. Everything's described exactly, very knowledgeably and thoroughly – says Ekaterina Buley, President of the Russian Chapter of the Transylvanian Society of Dracula.For behind the scenes information about Gruia's books:-->http://www.catalingruia.com/ -->https://www.facebook.com/ByCatalinGruia
Download or read book The Man They Killed on Christmas Day written by Catalin Gruia and published by Createspace Independent Pub. This book was released on 2013-07-29 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essential Ceausescu The Life of Romanian Communist Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu: Road to Hell Paved with Good IntentionsA black dog licks at a puddle of blood in which two old people lie, executed on Christmas day in the Targoviste garrison, Romania. Following a kangaroo trial, a special tribunal sentenced them to death by shooting in December 1989 for “serious crimes against the people of Romania.” He died instantly. The woman died a minute later, after the execution squad's paratroop captain furiously emptied another round in her. Thus Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu's five-decade journey together ended, after they started from the bottom, seized power, and grew old while ruling the country. Who Was That Man They Killed on Christmas DayAdulated for all of his 24 years in power, during which he came to personify Romania, Romanian communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu – dethroned and replaced by some of his former barons – was turned into a scapegoat for all the evils done to Romanians. But the question remains: Between these two extremes, who was the real Nicolae Ceausescu ?During his regime, Ceausescu's image had been painted in sparkling white. Once he was killed – everything turned to pitch black. This documentary aims to paint a portrait in color, with all shades of grey included, combining the good and bad, the light and the dark extremes of the life of Nicolae Ceausescu (aka Ceaucescu).This book is a concise journalistic style account of Ceausescu's life, following his path through:• A miserable childhood• A boyhood in prisons• A rising youth in the Romanian Communist Party• The honeymoon of his beginnings as the youngest ever political leader in Europe• Times of glory and seizing absolute power• The rough years of decline• A violent deathCeausescu 101Dear reader – stop here for a second, please!You should know from the very beginning this is not an exhaustive, academic paper. Author Catalin Gruia is a veteran journalist who has written and reported for the Romanian edition of National Geographic for over 10 years. What you'll find here is a concise journalistic account of Ceausescu's life.* For behind the scenes information about Gruia's books -->www.catalingruia.com/
Download or read book Kate Mcgill Romanian Cold Hand written by Michael Chechik Sunday and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2010-08 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Katherine Harendt McGill became an athletic fashion pinup, a no-fear female defender of vulnerable beings with the strength of a trained fighter. First noticed as a teenage trick skater in Minnesota, Kate's mastery of martial arts, uncanny archery skills and bold self confidence made her a local star. As her skating routines became ever more spectacular virtually defying gravity she became a media sensation. Discovered by athletic gear designers GloryDays Kate eventually becomes their worldwide model. The company also discovers their GloryDays Girl, as Kate is known, has a darker, threatening side. She is not afraid to employ aggressive, physical punishment when confronting men who threaten innocent animals or women. Her public begins referring to Kate as the Nature Avenger and she is approached to remedy injustices. Even as she becomes a remarkable athletic model Kate also desires normalcy gradually finding companionship with a handsome boyfriend. By her late teens a family friend describes her as mysterious, unstoppable, scary, and gorgeous. But her risk taking produces constant threat of injury, numerous failures and eventually a confrontation with a brutal criminal in central America. Kate is introduced by her great grandmother, Queen Royal Elixir, to a bewildering and powerful mental technique. Passed down through the Harendt family the Romanian Cold Hand can supposedly "freeze" attackers. Kate finally realizes this legacy brings with it an upsetting gift for predicting events. Rumors generated by an accurate prediction make her a target for intelligence spooks and criminals alike. Kate's eventual mastery of the Cold Hand takes a shape no military person could imagine.
Download or read book The Hooligan s Return written by Norman Manea and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-22 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the center of The Hooligan’s Return is the author himself, always an outcast, on a bleak lifelong journey through Nazism and communism to exile in America. But while Norman Manea’s book is in many ways a memoir, it is also a deeply imaginative work, traversing time and place, life and literature, dream and reality, past and present. Autobiographical events merge with historic elements, always connecting the individual with the collective destiny. Manea speaks of the bloodiest time of the twentieth century and of the emergence afterward of a global, competitive, and sometimes cynical modern society. Both a harrowing memoir and an ambitious epic project, The Hooligan’s Return achieves a subtle internal harmony as anxiety evolves into a delicate irony and a burlesque fantasy. Beautifully written and brilliantly conceived, this is the work of a writer with an acute understanding of the vast human potential for both evil and kindness, obedience and integrity.
Download or read book The Rise and Fall of Saxon Transylvania written by Catalin Gruia and published by Createspace Independent Pub. This book was released on 2013-09-06 with total page 70 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Transylvanian Saxons The saga of a civilization in 4 parts: colonization, splendor, decline and today's touristic heritage Underdeveloped country seeking investors – this was the slogan of Eastern Europe after the fall of Communism. Like flowers competing for pollinators, its states outdid each other in advertising economic privileges and legislative facilities to attract Western investors. The different governments which took turns in the last 15 years in the Victoria Palace from Bucharest did not bothered to go beyond mere declarations of good intentions; but, while TV channels broadcast their formal speeches, the exodus was underway for the most enterprising part of the population, the only one related to the West: Transylvania's German guests.The Saxons: 800 years of history in Transylvania800 years ago, like managers looking for personnel to recruit, the first Hungarian kings invited guests from the West to develop the Transylvania they were gradually conquering. Although it lay at the edge of the known world, the Saxons let themselves be lured by this promised land, a natural fortress full of riches, with the Carpathians for walls. They came, they worked, and they built in Transylvania a civilization which reached its apogee in the sixteenth century. Pandora's Box opened wide for the Saxons after the Second World War, too. Less than 15.000 stayed in Romania. Most of them returned to the West, seeking the same thing that had brought their ancestors here: prosperity. Their heritage, however, remains and calls us to discover it.The Rise and Fall of Saxon Transylvania is a concise journalistic of the Saxon civilization, following its history through:• The Colonization: The Promised Land. Like managers with vacancies in the organizational chart, the first Hungarian kings invited guests from the West to develop a Transylvania that was in process of being conquered.• The Rise: Sibiu, Grand Square, no. 8. The Hecht House was the home of a great medieval merchant. Its metamorphoses and the series of its owners shape the story of the rise of the Transylvanian Saxons.• The Decline: Pandora's box. The star of the Saxons began to fade in the 18th century, when they failed to obtain the 23rd validation of their privileges. In the era of nationalism, they dealt with a new kind of ruler – the nation state – who was determined to assimilate them at any cost.• The present: Romania's German heritage. The majority of the Saxons returned to the West, seeking the same thing that had brought their ancestors here: prosperity. Their heritage, however, remains and calls us to discover it.Dear Reader – stop here for a second, please!You should know from the very beginning this is not an exhaustive, academic paper. Author Catalin Gruia is a veteran journalist who has written and reported for the Romanian edition of National Geographic for over 10 years. What you'll find here is a concise journalistic account of the Saxon civilization."For almost a year and a half, I traded in Bucharest for a little country house in Mures. During that time, taking advantage of the trips in which I followed the Saxons' traces for a National Geographic documentary, I discovered in Transylvania a foreign country. And I fell in love with Siebenbürgen!"* For behind the scenes information about Gruia's books -->www.catalingruia.com
Download or read book Analogies in Physics and Life written by Richard M. Weiner and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2008 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Noncommutative geometry is a novel approach which is opening up new possibilities for geometry from a mathematical viewpoint. It is also providing new tools for the investigation of quantum space-time in physics. Recent developments in string theory have supported the idea of quantum spaces, and have strongly stimulated the research in this field. This self-contained volume contains survey lectures and research articles which address these issues and related topics. The book is accessible to both researchers and graduate students beginning to study this subject.
Download or read book Romania Culture Smart written by Debbie Stowe and published by Kuperard. This book was released on 2017-05-01 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A land of mountains, hills, and fertile plains, Romania is a tourist destination waiting to be discovered. It is a rich and complex country: a place whose cities are home to beautiful parks and vibrant cultural scenes; whose people welcome guests warmly into their homes, sharing the best of whatever they have, and party into the night, suffused by Latin joie de vivre. Buffeted over time between three great powers—the West, Russia, and Turkey—Romania betrays the cultural influences of each, and it can be a difficult place to get a handle on. Culture Smart! Romania provides an indispensable tool for the foreign visitor, digging deep behind the clichés, explaining many of the behavioral quirks of the people, smoothing your path toward better understanding, and outlining the many attractions—cultural, social, and geographical—that await you in this underexplored part of Europe.
Download or read book The Ransom of the Jews written by Radu Ioanid and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-06-23 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After 1948, the 370,000 Jews of Romania who survived the Holocaust became one of the main sources of immigration for the new state of Israel as almost all left their homeland to settle in Palestine and Israel. Romania's decision to allow its Jews to leave was baldly practical: Israel paid for them, and Romania wanted influence in the Middle East. For its part, Israel was rescuing a community threatened by economic and cultural extinction and at the same time strengthening itself with a massive infusion of new immigrants. Radu Ioanid traces the secret history of the longest and most expensive ransom arrangement in recent times, a hidden exchange that lasted until the fall of the Communist regime. Including a wealth of recently declassified documents from the archives of the Romanian secret police, this updated edition follows Israel’s long and expensive ransom arrangement with Communist Romania. Ioanid uncovers the elaborate mechanisms that made it successful for decades, the shadowy figures responsible, and the secret channels of communication and payment. As suspenseful as a Cold-War thriller, his book tells the full, startling story of an unprecedented slave trade.
Download or read book Foreign Relations of the United States written by United States. Department of State and published by Bureau of Public Affairs, Office of the Historian. This book was released on 2008-03 with total page 1328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: According to the National Notary Association, there are 4.8 million notaries working in the U.S. Depending upon state regulations, notaries can perform marriages, witness and authenticate the signing of real estate mortgage loan documents and other legal contracts, and take and certify depositions. Notaries can make an average of $10 to $200 per signing, depending on the document type.Each state has individual guidelines that one must follow when first applying to become a notary and specific restrictions that a practicing notary must abide by, including the amount a notary can charge per signing. With all of these rules, it can be quite a confusing process, and along with the frustration of opening your own business, it can quickly become a nightmare. Fortunately, with this new book, you will have a comprehensive toolkit on not only how to become a notary, but on how to open your own notary business and cash in on the booming market as well.Whether you will be a mobile signing agent or you are looking to buy or rent office space, this book can help you with a wealth of start-up information, from how to form and name your business to deciding if this will be a joint venture or if you would rather work solo. Valuable information on forming a partnership, LLC, corporation, or becoming a sole proprietor, the four types of business formations, is included, and also the legal implications of each.You will learn the ins and outs of the application process state-by-state, including which states require training sessions and exams, and also information on the appointment process and individual state laws that govern the practice of notaries. Beyond providing you with the information on becoming a notary, you will be supplied with a wealth of information about opening your own notary business, including working as a mobile signing agent, where you travel to your customers, or operating a full-scale notary business managing other notaries. A special chapter on services you can offer and average prices charged for those services will be included, and also information on charging for travel fees, appointment no-shows, emergency notarizations, and many other services that can be offered for a fee.This complete manual will arm you with everything you need, including sample business forms, leases, and contracts; worksheets and checklists for planning, opening, and running day-to-day operations; plans and layouts; and dozens of other valuable, time-saving tools of the trade that no business owner should be without. A special section on the importance of keeping your notary journal up-to-date is included, and also information on your notary stamp.You will learn how to draw up a winning business plan (the companion CD-ROM has the actual business plan you can use in Microsoft Word
Download or read book In Search of Romania written by Dennis Deletant and published by Hurst Publishers. This book was released on 2022-04-28 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The imposition of Communist ideology was a misfortune for millions in Eastern Europe, but never for Dennis Deletant. Instead, it drew him to Romania. The renowned historian’s association with the country and its people dates back to 1965, when he first visited. Since then, Romania has made Dennis appreciate the value of shrewd dissimulation, in the face of the state’s gross intrusion in the life of the individual. This vivid memoir charts his first-hand experience of the Communist era, coloured by the early 1970s surveillance of his future wife Andrea; his contacts with dissidents; and his articles and BBC World Service broadcasts, which led to his being declared persona non grata in 1988. In Search of Romania also considers how life went on under dictatorship, even if it was largely mapped out by the regime. How did individual citizens negotiate the challenges placed in their path? How important was the political police, the Securitate, in maintaining compliance? How did dissent towards the regime manifest? How did all this affect the moral compass of the individual? Why did utopia descend into dystopia under Ceaușescu? And how has his legacy influenced the difficult transition to democracy since the collapse of Communism?
Download or read book Memory Humanity and Meaning written by Mihail Neamțu and published by Zeta Books. This book was released on 2009 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Foreign Language Teaching in Romanian Higher Education written by Lucia-Mihaela Grosu-Rădulescu and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-08-15 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume gathers recent research findings in the field of foreign language (FL) teaching in Romanian higher education dwelling on both methodology and students’ learning outcomes. The book satisfies the need for an up-to-date overview of FL teaching in Romanian universities in the European context as well as from a global international perspective. This book confers visibility to Romanian foreign language scholars’ research and it opens new paths for debate and collaboration worldwide. The scholars included in this volume have extensive expertise in the field of foreign language teaching and research in higher education which is supported by their international recognition as specialists in their specific areas. The contributing authors approach their respective chapters relying on both qualitative and quantitative research. Their experience and conclusions will prove helpful for any foreign language professional working in tertiary education.
Download or read book Inside the Danger Zones written by Paul Moorcraft and published by Biteback Publishing. This book was released on 2011-10-31 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sometimes hilarious, sometimes tragic, Inside the Danger Zones is the story ofPaul Moorcraft'swork during the major wars of the last three decades. As a freelance war correspondent and military analyst for many of the top TV networks, Moorcraft has parachuted into countless war zones and worked at the heart of the British security establishment. Hehas the habit of being in the wrong place at the worst of times, from the siege of Sarajevo in the 1990s to the siege of the West Bank town of Jenin in 2002. This book takes him to a series of conflict zones from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe,covering coups and counter-coups across the globe. Along the way he encounters some of the most dangerous people in the world; in Afghanistan when the West was training bin Laden's Mujahedin fighters, interviewing Mugabe during the Rhodesian Bush War of the late 1970s, and travelling to meetSaddam on the eve of the 2003 allied invasion of Iraq.
Download or read book The Space of Boredom written by Bruce O'Neill and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-09 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Space of Boredom Bruce O'Neill explores how people cast aside by globalism deal with an intractable symptom of downward mobility: an unshakeable and immense boredom. Focusing on Bucharest, Romania, where the 2008 financial crisis compounded the failures of the postsocialist state to deliver on the promises of liberalism, O'Neill shows how the city's homeless are unable to fully participate in a society that is increasingly organized around practices of consumption. Without a job to work, a home to make, or money to spend, the homeless—who include pensioners abandoned by their families and the state—struggle daily with the slow deterioration of their lives. O'Neill moves between homeless shelters and squatter camps, black labor markets and transit stations, detailing the lives of men and women who manage boredom by seeking stimulation, from conversation and coffee to sex in public restrooms or going to the mall or IKEA. Showing how boredom correlates with the downward mobility of Bucharest's homeless, O'Neill theorizes boredom as an enduring affect of globalization in order to provide a foundation from which to rethink the politics of alienation and displacement.
Download or read book British Clandestine Activities in Romania during the Second World War written by Dennis Deletant and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-04-08 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: British Clandestine Activities in Romania during the Second World War is the first monograph to examine the activity throughout the entire war of SOE and MI6. It was generally believed in Britain's War Office, after Hitler's occupation of Austria in March 1938, that Germany would seek to impose its will on South-East Europe before turning its attention towards Western Europe. Given Romania's geographical position, there was little Britain could offer her. The brutal fact of British-Romanian relations was that Germany was inconveniently in the way: opportunity, proximity of manufacture and the logistics of supply all told in favour of the Third Reich. This held, of course, for military as well as economic matters. In these circumstances the British concluded that their only weapon against German ambitions in countries which fell into Hitler's orbit were military subversive operations and a concomitant attempt to draw Romania out of her alliance with Germany.
Download or read book Everyday Europe written by Recchi, Ettore and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2019-02-13 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on unique research and rich data on cross-border practices, this book offers an empirically-based view on Europeans’ interconnections in everyday life. It looks at the ways in which EU residents have been getting closer across national frontiers: in their everyday experiences of foreign countries – work, travel, personal networks – but also their knowledge, consumption of foreign products, and attitudes towards foreign culture. These evolving European dimensions have been enabled by the EU-backed legal opening to transnational economic and cultural transactions, while also differing according to national contexts. The book considers how people reconcile their increasing cross-border interconnections and a politically separating Europe of nation states and national interests.
