Romania in the early seventies Photos of long rambles

John van der Woude, Holland www.jvanderw.nl

In the summers of 1972 and 1974 I made long rambles in the Romanian countryside, as a student, with my rucksack, sleeping bag and camera. For me, these were very pleasant and cheap times, as I was invited by so many local people to stay at their house or barn. The hospitality was overwhelming, and often I was their only Western contact. Being in touch with local people was still amply allowed for a foreigner - it was a sort of enlightened period, relatively speaking of course, and a very short one only. Already in 1974 this changed a bit, and from 1975 or so onwards Westerners were not allowed to stay uncontrolled at people's houses, so I've heard.

I never saw anybody taking pictures, and I think that was partly due to the control by the Securitate. So maybe there aren't that many pictures available for that period.

I've divided the pictures into themes rather than periods or places. The colour pictures are scanned from slides, the black-and-white ones (Winter visit) from negatives.

Town life

Transport

Village life and farms

More people

Markets and music

Mountains and valleys

Tourism and churches

Winter visit

My LP records of Romanian folk music from the early seventies

Later addition:

Photos from a short winter break in 1980, mainly Braşov and Sighişoara