[madaxe_again]

This is so bubble-written it's not funny.

Romania is a country where a large chunk of the populace get around by cart and donkey, where post-communist corruption is rife, where decades on they still can't decide what to do with the half built palace that occupies half of Bucharest, where gangsters run most of the hospitality industry and god knows what else.

It's a chicken and egg problem, of course, as enterprise will bring wealth (in theory) which in turn will solve some of Romania's more immediate woes, but it's still a tiny tiny niche in a very poor country.

Their only saving psychological grace is that Moldova are next door, and they make anyone look rich.

Edit: on a Re-read, this comes across as horribly negative. I'm a big fan of Romania and its prospects - what I failed to mention is that I met a lot of intelligent, interesting and passionate younger people - and they will be the ones that drag Romania solidly into a functioning state - but the reality is that there's a lot of work to do.

[marinabercea]

I live in Romania.

For potential readers: this comment's content is a gross overstatement and does not reflect reality.

For example, over 50% of the population lives in an urban environment (see the CIA Romania Factbook which is very up to date). Even so, it would be wrong to assume that just because some of the country's citizens live in the countryside, they 'get around by cart and donkey'. Also, for the sake of accuracy, where such transportation is used, horses would be much more common as opposed to donkeys.

As for the 'half built palace that occupies half of Bucharest', I presume you're referring to the Palace of the Parliament, with an area of 365000 m2. The urban area of Bucharest occupies 228 km2, or 228000000 m2, significantly more than the area of the building you mentioned.

Edit: I double checked some data in regards to the Palace of the Parliament, the FLOOR AREA is indeed 365000 m2, but since the building has multiple floors, the actual occupied area is smaller. Check the Technical Details on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_the_Parliament

[madaxe_again]

To be fair, I was last there six years ago, spent most of my time travelling through the the countryside, a few weeks in Cluj, visited friends in Sibiu, and got robbed when I went through Bucharest on my way to Moldova.

So yes, my view is far less accurate than yours, as it's from about six weeks six years ago - but the only place I saw comparable levels of overt corruption was Kyrgyzstan, and I've visited most of the ex-ussr and associated states. This is no judgment on the Romanian or Kyrgyz peoples - this is a sad fact of life after economic oppression - corruption becomes a way of life.

[oblio]

I'm sorry for your personal experience, but you should be able to realize that traumatic personal experiences can cloud your opinion about a very complex topic such as a whole country.

I visited the US and I wasn't really impressed, for example. But I wouldn't judge the US based on just what I saw in a couple of weeks, considering what I've read and seen about it.

Oh, and regarding corruption: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Anticorruption_Dire...

[madaxe_again]

Oh, I don't have a dim view of Romania though, I loved my time there, I fell in love with Sibiu - actually, a big chunk of what I said/think comes from a buddy from Cluj who I've known 25 years or so - and I hadn't heard about the anticorruption initiative, that's good news.

I had a knife stuck in my back at a cafe and had my camera stolen, and the police officer I found then took my passport and wanted (and got) a bribe to return it. Not a unique experience, I've been held up and hijacked variously around the planet, but it did go to reinforce the Cluj guy's "don't bother with Bucharest, you'll get mugged" anecdotes!

Oh, and driving around rural Romania on single track roads, I guess the donkey carts kinda stick out, as you get a nice long view of the back of them! Selection bias...

Anyway, cheers for the education.

[oblio]

Sorry for that :(

Romania actually has a lower crime rate than the US, so you were unlucky.

The cop part is what they're working on with the whole anti corruption initiative.

[adventured]

That would heavily depend on what type of crime you're talking about.

For example, corruption is a very serious form of crime. Romania ranks #58 (below Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Croatia, and Greece) on Transparency International's corruption index, compared to the US at #16.

With Romania having such extreme corruption, how can you be certain its crime stats are worth taking seriously? How under-reported is crime - rape, theft, violent crime etc - likely to be in a nation with corruption problems that are that bad? From other countries with even worse corruption (eg Venezuela or Brazil), what we do know is that there tends to be a direct correlation - for extremely obvious reasons - between high levels of corruption and poor crime reporting.

[bogomipz]

You visited the US and "weren't impressed"? Where did you visit exactlY? Its a very large country with over 200 milion people. What weren't you impressed with? What was lacking? Also where are you from thats more impressive?

[oblio]

> You visited the US and "weren't impressed"?

Yes.

> Where did you visit exactly?

San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle. I plan on visiting New York this year or maybe next year.

> Its a very large country with over 200 million people.

I think it's over 300 million now :)

> What weren't you impressed with?

Well... homeless people. The fact that cities don't seem to be very "walkable" (and from what I've read SF is one of the best US cities in this regard). Food in supermarkets. Various other minor aspects.

> What was lacking?

I wouldn't say "lacking". Instead I'd say that I like other things more.

> Also where are you from that's more impressive?

I'm from Romania (not hard to guess, considering the topic). It's not "impressive" either.

What I find "impressive" instead is Germany.

And you seem to be bothered by a part of my previous comment. So I'll repost another part which you might have missed:

> But I wouldn't judge the US based on just what I saw in a couple of weeks, considering what I've read and seen about it.

[bogomipz]

Ha, yeah that was a typo : ) I think its closer to 330 million these days.

The homeless problem in SF is really terrible and particularly glaring. Homelessness in general is a problem in many major cities in US however the intensity of it in SF is not not at all representative of the rest of the US.

I'm not impressed by either SF or San Jose either, but I wouldn't say the US doesn't impress me. The North East Corridor of the US is very different from the places you visited as is the South, the Midwest etc.

[ddalex]

It is unbelivable how much the society changed in the last 6 years; ouvert corruption is still visible in Romania, but now there is a growing social stigma associated with it, as it should be in a western-type civilization. The gap in mentality is still there, because it isn't easy to eradicate 50 years of bad influence (communism, I'm looking at you!). But the gap is closing, and now it is common to see cabinet-level people ending up in prison, sending strong messages throughout the society.

[nnq]

Can you give some examples of corruption that actually hindered you? I consider corruption to be a minor-to-non-existent problem for areas like IT/tech here.

The main problem to me is the lack of entrepreneurship and the fact that there are lots of "stealth-startups" in Romania that will probably not even be incorporated in Romania ever, so they'll never show up on the radar as "Romanian startups", they will simply "pack up the whole team and move" abroad after the first big foreign investor spots them and invests/acquires with a "relocation requirement".

There are also entrepreneurs that run their companies disguised as outsourcing-shops while the real startup is actually the outsourcing-shop's client registered somewhere like USA-Delaware/Hongkong/whatever because it leads to better perspective from the customers. Of course, this is also a short term arrangement before the team of the company is swallowed by a bigger fish.

There is a lot going on, but int this part of the world very few of what's happening actually shows up on the radar as what it is.

Also... coming back to corruption, imho the greatest problem is lack of entrepreneurial spirit because the society and education actively discourages smart people from becoming entrepreneurs... so they end up engineers, doctors etc. ...or emigrate. Corruption really makes little difference because real innovation doesn't happen while working on projects for the state anyway. I think that a certain level of corruption can even help economic growth if used selectively - ie a bribe that sabotages a bigger international corporation from getting a contract for a state-financed development project in favor of a local startup (where, for example, one of the investors happens to be a local senator or whatever... probably not the best example but to get the point across) can actually result in more money funneling back into the local economy and fueling its growth... Everything can be a double edged sword in the bigger economic game.

The American obsession with corruption in other countries is imho more out of fear of being out-maneuvered by foreign local businessmen in the international economic game when it comes to uderhanded tactics :) (see http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins/... for context)

[marinabercea]

It's easy to acquire a skewed impression of any country as a foreign visitor, so I completely empathize with you. Unfortunately getting mugged/robbed would be possible anywhere in the world, even in the poshest of places. As for the status on corruption, there's active progress being made, as an example, see an older article on the subject http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/05/opinion/romanias-anti-corr...

[paterati]

Romania I think is a good case study in a country that has a oppressive regime that gets removed, suddenly gets given loads of money to improve itself (EU in this case) and then corruption sets in. Loads of examples, in both Eastern Europe, Russia itself and Africa.

It has shown in the last couple of years that the people might be trying to change that with the way that it got rid of its previous president but it is a long process to change peoples mindsets.

[davidiach]

This is an exaggeration.

1. Only a tiny chunk of the population "get around by cart and donkey" and that's mostly in rural areas. Romania has around 314 cars per 1000 inhabitants. For comparison the UK has 519, Sweden 520, Mexico 275, Brazil 249, Ukraine 220, Moldova 156 and China 128. [1]

2. Corruption is one of the most discussed topics in Romania, but in my opinion it is over-rated. There is virtually no violent corruption, most of the existing corruption has to do government contracts or bribing of government officials.

3. Yeah, the Palace of the Parliament sucks. But it's one of the biggest tourist attractions right now in Bucharest.

4. "gangsters run most of the hospitality industry" - actually most of it is run by large foreign companies or small "mom and pop" entrepreneurs.

No, Romania is not building the next "Silicon Valley", but it does have a vibrant IT community that is increasingly involved in creating technology startups and is developing in the right direction.

----------------------------------------------------

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_...

[aorth]

There are two sides to every coin. I think both Techcrunch and your assessments are valid. It would not be hard to paint the USA as a totalitarian state run by organized crime and where half of the people live under some acceptable standard of living.

[joesmo]

How else would you paint it?

[oblio]

Man, so much angst. Did you read the whole article?

> Still, as many have noted, Romania has some big hurdles to overcome to truly become a tech hub.

> Access to capital is slim. The risk-taking culture is nascent.

> The government bureaucracy is strong and legislation that supports startups is lacking.

> Yet every shift has to begin somewhere, and from what we see, there’s one afoot in Romania.

They admit that not everything is perfect in the friendly article.

[_fizz_buzz_]

I think you are right that the article is a bit "bubble-written". But I think your comment is a lot further from the truth than the article. The biggest asset that Romania has is its talent pool. I am fairly convinced that Romania will follow Estonia's economic trajectory. The starting conditions are quite similar.

[sndean]

> very poor country.

One upside, from an outsider point-of-view, is that an apartment in Bucharest goes for about the same amount as a downpayment for an apartment in London.

For that reason alone, I can imagine some Europeans (especially Londoners) would seriously consider giving up their 400 sqft place and going to Romania to own three large apartments.

Or at least I would.

[prodmerc]

Yeah renting good apartments and houses is really cheap. But imho try to avoid Bucharest, which is the London of Romania, that is, a bit of an overcrowded shithole. Any other major city is better (except maybe Iasi :D)...

[mariusmg]

Dude, are you from Hungary ? :)

[mnyary]

Please, don't do this!

[XCSme]

When have you last been in Romania?