The Iron Gates

Iron Gate Two at Sunrise

The Iron Gates are two dams that were built in 1960 and 1971, between Yugoslavia and Romania, raising the level of the water 108 feet to make navigation of the river possible year-round though the Kazan Narrows (cataracts). We went through the first lock at about 7:30 AM at sunrise and the second at 11:30 AM. Before the dams were created you could only pass through the cataracts about 220 days a year and one year they were passible for only 46 days.

Topic: Communism

In the morning, our program directors talked about their experiences under Communism. Each is a Transylvanian, so they all experienced what happened in Romania. Szabi was nine in 1989. "As a kid, life was okay. I didn't know about the struggles my parents had to get food and electricity. I remember being at my Grandfather's when the TV transmission of Ceausescu's speech suddenly ended and people started marching outside our door. That is when we heard about the shooting of the protestors and we saw the people being shot on TV, and even our neighbor was shot. I was afraid for the first time."

"I am Hungarian, and we were hoping that after the revolution, we would get our Hungarian school back again, which had been discontinued. We were protesting for our rights the new democracy. Two months after the revolution, sadly, we almost had a ethnic war between the Hungarian and Romanians. "

Elana lived in a small town. "We did have food and were religious, going to church every Sunday. We had German friends and they sent us things like chocolates. While I'm Romanian, I actually went to a German school in the town. I lived with my Grandmother in town and I would visit my parents who ran a motel outside the town. My parents had to report everyone who stayed there. For example, they had to report when an unmarried couple stayed there. I remember that one time they had a bear that was eating our pigs. My parents had to prove that they didn't slaughter the pigs and sell it to others. They had to take pictures of the bear to show the police. We were poor, but we didn't know it. We had two hours of TV a day, mostly propaganda. If you wanted to buy a car, you would wait for five years to get the car. One of our neighbors said the communists’ biggest mistake was to air Dallas on TV. We didn't even see a color TV until the 1990s."

Hunor lived longer through the Communist days (He's 50). "We were used to one pair of shoes, one grey pair of pants, you don't know what you are missing. My first protest was how rough my school uniform was. My mother put in an extra lining otherwise my legs would itch. 'There must be something wrong, if they can't supply us pants that don't itch'. I was a member of the Communist Youth Organization. We had a competition to collect scratch paper. The winning team would get to visit the theater during school hours. We won and were quite excited. But out theater performance was listening to a woman and man reciting poems about the greatness of Ceausescu. We never tried to win a competition again. We were trained not to think on our own, but just follow. It was safe and comfortable. But if you had the initiative to think on your own and express it, you would have a police visit. You tended to have two different lives: what you did inside the house - like listening to Voice of America versus what you said and did outside. I used to listen to western music through all the jamming. We had quotas for food and waited in line to get it, yet the Communist propaganda  spoke of how well the people were cared for. The transition to Democracy has been good for some and difficult for others. For me, it was a good transition, but for others life was safer under Communism. For example, they needed to compete for the jobs, when the factories began closing because the factories weren't competitive."

But we must remember that each country has a different experience. Romania For example, under Tito in Yugoslavia, life actually was very good. But after he died, there were many ethnic struggles and wars. Hungary opened up much more after their 1956 revolution. Romania suffered more than the other countries during the 1980s because Ceausescu paid off all his foreign debts in a few years at the cost of consumer goods. Our guide in Bulgaria was of the opinion that life was better under Communism. When we asked "Will people re-elect the Communists?" Not likely, because of the internet. People have a voice today, and I don't think they will give away that freedom to speak up.

 

King Decebalus

In the afternoon, we passed through the cataracts which is where the Danube passes through the Carpathian Mountains. Our first major site was Trajan's tablet, a plaque created in 106 AD to celebrate the road created along the Danube. The road was constructed by drilling holes in the cliff face and supporting a road of planks on beams sticking out of the cliff. It was roofed over to stop attacks from the cliff top. Trajan marched his legions along this road to the bridge he had built across the Danube for his war campaigning against King Decebalus. Further along we passed the Statue of the King Decebalus built in the 1990's and 130 feet high. We then passed a recently completed church. It was built based on a former river pilot station, no longer needed since the dam was built. The sheer walls of the canyons in this part of the Danube, rise 900 feet above us, and 900 feet below us. There is something about a river carving through the mountains which make for the ultimate scenery. Best of all, the sun came out shortly after we entered the canyon, lighting up the scenery and as we left the sun hid behind the cloud bank.

Cruising the Iron Gates