Romania for Kids PODCAST episode plus FREE Printable PACK

Welcome to Romania for Kids, with Karyn from CASE OF ADVENTURE. Romania for Kids Romania is a country in Europe and is actually halfway between the North Pole and the equator. The name, ‘Romania’ comes from the Latin word, ‘Romanus’, which means “citizen of Rome”. Long ago, Romans conquered and colonized the area which is modern day Romania. There is even a city called Roman in inside Romania. So a person could live in Roman, Romania! It is a very green and beautiful landscape with mountains, hills and plains, forests, waterfalls and rivers. There are many farms and old cities with fancy old-fashioned buildings and stunning architecture. The capital city is called Bucharest. Nearly 2 million people live in Bucharest which is the 7th largest city in the European Union, after Vienna and Paris. Romania is a fascinating country because it was one of the last countries in the world to move away from communism. Communism is when the government controls everything and takes away many of the people’s freedoms and possessions! There are still a few communist countries left in the world, but thankfully not many. In the 1800s, a prince from Germany, became Romania’s first King – King Carol I. He declared Romania an independent and sovereign state. Romania went through many changes in the early 1900s and then after the second world war, It’s 23 million citizens lived under the rule of one of the 20th century’s most controlling dictators. His name was Nicolae Ceauşescu. Learning about Romania is very sad because there has been so much suffering there. But then that is true in so many countries. We should always be grateful to those who have gone before us to fight for freedom from oppression. Things in Romania are much better these days than they used to be and Romanians are working hard to recover from Communism, with the help of other countries in Europe. Besides the large forests which cover a quarter of the country, there are many areas with flat plains for farming and rich soil for crops. There are stunning mountain slopes with ski resorts and in some places, Glaciers have formed beautiful lakes and caves. There are also salt mines, coal mines and iron mines. In Romania you can explore bat-caves with torch lights, go for a swim in a volcano crater lake or drive out into the hills on a horse-drawn cart. You can follow the tracks of wild animals in the winter snow – the bear, the wolf, lynx, the boar or you can help milk cows in the village and even help the blacksmith in his forge! You may find that the blacksmith is also the dentist and doctor for that village! Transylvania is a region the middle of Romania, with Bukovina in the north, Moldavia in the northeast, Dobrogea in the southeast near the Black Sea, Walachia along the southern border, and Banat in the southwest. Transylvania includes the Carpathia Mountains and the Transylvanian Alps. Have you heard of the story of Dracula, which is set in Transylvania? THE LANGUAGE The Romanian language is 1,700 years old. It continues to change and as all languages do, it borrows many words from other languages, especially French. For example, the Romanians, say Mersi (for thank you, just like the French). They just spell it with a S instead of a C. Romanians are also greatly influenced now by American English via the Internet and television. Hello – Bună Good afternoon – Bună ziua Yes – Da (just like in Russian) No – nu Please – Vă rog (formal) Bon appetit or Have a nice meal – Poftă bună! THE FLAG, CURRENCY AND NATIONAL ANTHEM You can listen to the Romanian national anthem here on this video from youtube and see the English words as you listen to it sung in Romanian. The Romanian flag is divided into three equal vertical stripes – dark blue, yellow and red. It is modeled after the flag of France. The colors are those of Walachia (red and yellow) and Moldavia (red and blue), which united to form Romania united in 1862. Romanian money is called the Leu. Even though they are an EU country, they don’t use the Euro at all. The currency symbol for the leu is RON. For 1 US dollar you could buy almost 4 Romanian Leu or 4 RON. An interesting fact is that in 2005, the leu, which is the Romanian currency, dropped four zeros. What used to be 10,000 lei (the old name) was now only 1 leu. So, before 2005, you could get 4000 Romanian Lei for 1 dollar, now it’s only 4 leu! This is because Romania’s economy was so affected by communism and international debt and poverty that their money dropped so much in value. FROM COMMUNISM TO CAPITALISM In the 1960’s. Romania was ruled by the USSR. Romanians did not like their lives under Soviet rule, and they wanted to be independent. One of the leaders fighting for Romania’s own interests was a man named Nicolae Ceaușescu. When he began to rule Romania as head of the communist party, he was admired by many as a leader who they thought wanted what was best for his country. But after a brief period of ruling fairly, Ceaușescu became increasingly brutal and started to oppress the people and take away their freedoms. He controlled what people were allowed to speak of, and publish in newspapers. Anyone who disagreed with him was not tolerated. His secret police, the Securitate, was one of the most brutal secret police forces in the world. If anyone got in the governments way, they would be put in prison or killed. In 1982, Ceaușescu ordered that most of the country’s farm crops as well as goods made in factories should be exported. This meant they were sold to other countries. He did this because he wanted to pay off the debt that Romania owed to other countries but the problem with doing it in this way, meant that there were extreme shortages of food for the Romanian people as well as fuel, medicine and other basic necessities. Living standards were very low and the people were unhappy. But Ceaușescu and his wife Elena lived a lavish lifestyle. They spent lots of the countries money on themselves. This was resented by the Romanians, who did not have enough to live on and were very very poor. Ceaușescu also destroyed many people’s homes and made them move to apartment blocks without running water, or even glass in the windows sometimes. Historic buildings and churches were bulldozed to make way for new government buildings. Then in 1989, the uprising began. Romanians would not follow Ceausescu any longer. The trouble started when a Reformed church pastor refused to leave his church in Timisoara. Crowds grew as more people protested with the pastor against Ceausescu and against communism in Romania. Ceausescu ordered his troops to kill the protesters, which they did. He then warned that any other protesters would be shot. He organized a great rally, to force citizens to show their support for his leadership. But the citizens were angry, and their feelings were caught on television. All over the country, people started demonstrating. Ceausescu and his wife tried to flee from Romania, but they were caught, convicted of crimes against their country, and executed. This was a new beginning for Romania. Today, Romania has a democratic form of government and is trying to make progress in recovering from Ceausescu’s terrible control over them. The communist rulers did not manage Romania’s economy well, and many citizens are still very poor, even today. The largest of Ceaușescu’s government buildings is called the People’s Palace or the Palace of Parliament. It is gigantic! Huge vaulted rooms, marble staircases big enough for giants, and chandeliers the size of small cars. There are a lot of very sad and dark things about Romania’s past. One of the saddest was the state of the orphanages where many of the children had lived during Caucescu’s rule. These orphanages had been kept very secret and even the Romanian people were shocked to discover how awful the conditions were for the children. When the revolution was over, the newspapers published photos of the awful conditions that the children lived in and the world was shocked. The new government ordered that these terrible places were closed. The problem was that many of the children had nowhere to go. Many children who were once part of the awful orphanages of Romania’s past now had nowhere to live except the hot and damp smelly sewer tunnels underneath the streets of Romania. Today, you can find many people living down there. MISSIONARIES IN ROMANIA A man named Pastor Wurmbrand and his wife grew up in Romania and became missionaries there druing the time of the communist government. He was imprisoned for 14 years for his faith and his wife for many years as well. They underwent terrible suffering for Christ After Pastor Wurmbrand was freed, he started an organization called Voice of the Martyrs (VOM) to support missionaries in persecuted countries. I’m going to tell you a story which is written about his son trying to visit his parents while they were in prison. This story is taken from Voice of the Martyrs, Kids of Courage – Bold Believers, in Romania. Voice of the Martyrs has many excellent resources to learn about believers in many countries of the world. Thirteen-year-old Mihai boarded the train in the middle of the night. He was on his way to visit his mother at a Romanian prison. At 6 a.m. after a long, cold, five-hour ride, he and the family members of other prisoners came to a train station. They got off the train and walked for an hour in the snow to the prison. Then they stood in the snow for a very long time. Nothing happened. Finally they saw a long line of prisoners trudge by. A guard yelled, “Go home! No visit today! The prisoners did not obey orders well enough to have visitors.” Sadly Mihai and the others got back on the train and went home. Another time, Mihai visited his father in prison. This time, the guards let him inside the huge wooden doors of the prison. He was taken past more doors to a room with a long table in it. Policemen sat on both sides of the table....