Romania <http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061230/lf_afp/euenlargeromania_061230202947> to show EU what culture can really do
by Gillian HandysideSat Dec 30, 3:29 PM ET Romania has two reasons to be cheerful on January 1. On the very day the country joins the European Union, the medieval town of Sibiu, in the heart of Dracula country, becomes European cultural capital for 2007. Created by Saxons from Luxembourg as an eastern bulwark against marauding hordes entering Europe, Sibiu has restored its historic city centre and teamed up with Luxembourg to offer up a year's worth of cultural events. The mayor of Sibiu, a member of the town's now tiny German minority, is over the moon. "Sibiu 2007 is Romania's best promotion for 15 years," mayor Klaus Werner Johannes told the local media earlier this month. "It's definitely the biggest event Romania has had since the transition to democracy started in 1991," explained Constantin Chiriac, director of the town's Radu Stanca Theatre and the originator of the project. "Even Romanians don't realise what a big achievement this is," he told AFP by telephone. "It means developing democracy through culture -- showing a community its identity and giving people something to be proud of so they take care when it comes to elections who they choose to represent them." What started out as a mad-cap idea that occurred to Chiriac in 1993 will on Monday become a 12-month festival of music and dance; films and drama; art, architecture, literature, proud speeches and an awful lot of fireworks. But this is more than just a cultural spectacular. Sibiu hopes to attract tens of thousands of tourists to its newly-enlarged hotels, its restaurants and the houses of locals within a 100-kilometre (60-mile) radius. "This cultural capital project is only the start," confirmed Chiriac. The city's water, energy and building infrastructure has been renewed, there are lasting links with the university, Sibiu has a theatre school coaching a new generation of actors and writers and extraordinary countryside to show the outside world. When the regional airport is expanded and a new highway built by 2009, central Romania will have its arms wide open. For months the good people of Sibiu have been scrambling over themselves to restore the town's medieval centre after five decades of Communist neglect, and doing their best to beautify the worst of the Stalinist-inspired atrocities on its outskirts. "Ceaucescu really hated this city because it was German," confided Chiriac of the late Communist dictator, Nicolae Ceaucescu. "And because he hated cities with personality, with lots of houses. He wanted concrete blocks of flats whose electricity he could switch off at a moment's notice so he could control them. "He hated theatre too. He just wanted people to play the national anthem. So the theatre was a place of freedom. People came even when the temperature was minus 4 Centigrade. We put on Shakespeare's Richard III and the people understood. It was a kind of secondary language." Now an abandoned factory in the bleak suburbs is being converted into a theatre for the biggest ever production of Goethe's Faust, disused heating plants are being transformed into commercial centres with cinemas and the grimy backstreets will, for 12 months, become backdrops for the best of Europe's urban street theatre. It is largely thanks to help from Luxembourg, which shares joint honours as European cultural capital for 2007, that Sibiu is now able to revive some of its former glory as the cultural, political and trading hub of Transylvania. When Chiriac first came up with the idea, it seemed impossible. But Luxembourg offered in 2004 to launch a joint bid. The symbolism appealed to Brussels and the deal was clinched in a matter of months. "It would have been very difficult to do it without Luxembourg," Chiriac admitted. "But I think the biggest argument was Sibiu's existing theatre festival. By 2004 we were showcasing 312 shows from 68 countries in 10 days. I said: 'If I can do that I can do one performance per day for 365 days.' The forthcoming cultural year itself has cost 20 million euros to produce. Rebuilding the city -- the prime concern of mayor Johannes -- probably cost a lot more. Chiriac recalls the jubilation of local people, who cried and clapped when Sibiu won the award. As for Chiriac, once 2007 is over, he plans a production to rehabilitate Dracula. Coming shortly to a box office near you. Copyright C 2006 <http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/afp/SIG=122dhv7qk/**http%3A%2F%2Fwww.afp.c om%2Fenglish%2Flinks%2F%3Fpid%3Dcopyright> Agence France Presse Copyright C 2006 Yahoo! Inc. ---------------------------- Vali "Noble blood is an accident of fortune; noble actions are the chief mark of greatness." (Carlo Goldoni) "When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace." (Jimi Hendrix)
