LIFE DURING THE COMMUNISM

Discover things you didn't know about Romania!

If you think your life is pretty comfortable right now, and it was pretty comfortable twenty years ago as well, try to imagine you were forced to live under the following circumstances:

• you had access to only one TV channel, only for 2-3 hours a day, in the evening. During these 2-3 hours, you could watch: 10 minutes cartoons, news, songs and poems about the communist party, the happiness of people living in communism and the president Ceausescu, a speech of president Ceausescu, sometimes a movie (especially on weekends)
• you had a monthly amount of bread, meat, eggs and dairy products that you could buy, for instance you could have only 5 eggs every month.
• you could buy exotic fruit, such as oranges and bananas, just several times a year, and you had to queue for it for several hours
• you had to wake up at five o'clock in the morning in order to buy milk
• you had to work or go to school on Saturday
• you could not express your opinion about the system, because you would be afraid of being heard or "told" by someone and being arrested.
• you were pressured to join the communist party (the only existing party) in order to get promoted
• you were afraid/ashamed to go to church.
• you were taught Russian in school
  

These are only a few aspects of life in Romania twenty years ago, during the communist period.
Unbelievable, right?