We woke up this morning with a puffy white blanket of snow covering the town. It was the first snowfall of the 2010-11 winter, and while it didn’t cover the ground, it did manage to stay on trees and rooftops, providing a welcome change in the scenery. (It’s been ugly weather most of this week, with cold, rainy days and mud everywhere.)
Built in 1488, St. Margaret’s Church in Medias, Romania, is the town’s most recognizable landmark, thanks to its leaning clock tower, which can be seen from miles away. Its tower dates from 1460, and left its originally vertical position due to some soil shifting. The photos shown below are from the church’s interior courtyard, inside its fortified walls.
A primary school is housed in its courtyard. I attended that school as a child, and have fond memories of playing in the courtyard, underneath a chestnut tree which is still there today.
Three other landmarks are inside the courtyard:
This is the main passageway that leads into the interior courtyard.
This is Turnul Funarilor (Rope-Makers’ Tower) and S. L. Roth’s place of birth (next to the tower). Continue reading
During yesterday’s morning walk through the town, I got access to the St. Margaret’s church bell tower for a few minutes, and ran up to take a few photos of the historic district from above. I hope to be able to return to the tower at some point in the near future so I can take more photos.
Here you can see the King Ferdinand Piazza in the background.
This is the church’s interior courtyard, where I went to school as a child.
This is Str. Johannes Honterus. I’d run up the street toward the school every morning, almost late because I took too long to eat my breakfast.
I might have gone to the S. L. Roth high school, which you can see here, but instead moved to Cluj, then to the United States. And now I’m back in my old home town. Life’s little twists and turns are pretty interesting, aren’t they?
The weather was lovely this morning, so Ligia and I took a walk through the city, in its historic district, which is where we also happen to live.
Those of you familiar with US banks may be displeased to learn that in Romania, banks will charge you to deposit money and to withdraw money. It’s also customary for them to charge you monthly fees just to keep your account open, and will charge you additional fees for a bank statement, and for internet banking. Pretty much everything that can carry a fee will carry a fee.
Somehow, in a country renowned for its IT workforce, the banking systems in use are terrible. Bank clerks will often complain their systems are slow, or are out of order. If you use any Romanian internet banking system, and you’ve been used to the ones in the US, you’ll be pulling out your hair. It’s like stepping back in time to the early 1990s — there’s no thought whatsoever put into a proper user interface, into making names and options user-friendly, and the total lack of various options for managing your account is mind-boggling. One wonders if the people who coded those systems ever bothered to look over the fence to see what other, more enlightened countries were doing.
But at least the banks are good at handling things in person, right? Wrong. You’ll find long lines at pretty much any bank you visit. And if you find a bank whose personnel is friendly and happy to assist you, by golly, stick with it, because they’re few and far between.
What about ATMs? They often break down. If they don’t break down, you’ll likely find you can’t withdraw money because there’s some technical issue on the backend, blah, blah, blah. And if they’re working, you’d better make sure some thief hasn’t installed a skimmer. The banks might as well equip each ATM with a 1990-style “Under construction” animated GIF, because that’s what it feels like to use them.
On top of all that, you’ll be hard-pressed to find them offering fixed-rate mortgages. They all offer ARMs (adjustable-rate mortgages) at sinister rates, which fluctuate up and down (mostly up) as they see fit, so they can gouge and gorge from their customers’ wallets. During the recent financial crisis, it wasn’t uncommon for some people’s monthly mortgage rates to double. When you realize how low the average monthly income is in Romania, I find it unconscionable that banks will subject their customers to 100-200% increases in their mortgage payments. And yet, you’ll find some of the highest salaries in Romania paid in the banking sector. I guess it pays to be a banker…
The Romanian government recently stepped in to “encourage” banks to offer lower interest rates on refinanced mortgages, but to my understanding, they’re still ARMs, so it’s likely that down the road, customers will get gouged again.
I’d love to see some real competition in the Romanian banking sector. I’d love to see some decent banks step in and treat their customers the right way. I’d love to see less fees, and I’d love to see a bank offer a proper internet banking system, like the one my favorite US bank (USAA) offers.
Raoul Pop 