remember having the same realisation that the place was overrun with them. Then I realised I was in Brasov station, waiting for a train to The Black Sea
My wife is from Brasov, however she is very keen to point out to everyone she isn’t Romanian, something to do with the bad press they get.
I’ve been to Romania over a dozen times. It’s an interesting place, really beautiful in places and most of the country just looks like a slightly run down version of everywhere else in Europe, like they modelled the place on the East End of Glasgow, nothing out of the ordinary.
But their are pockets of the country that you feel like you have stepped back 200 years when you enter them. People living in shacks, no water, no sanitation, transportation based on the horse, fuel based on wood. This is the the land the Roma occupy.
The Roma are a huge issue in Romania, they are treated horribly. Racism and prejudice against them is almost celebrated, they really are untermensch in their own country.
Much of the rhetoric in the right wing press about Romanians is a cypher for this racism. Romananian = Roma to the Daily Mail et al and Roma = Gypsy and we all know that Gypsies are pretty much the final ethnic group in the UK that its generally okay to abuse (apart from cyclists obviously).
Roma will come to the UK and other parts of western Europe they are badly persecuted in their “home” countries so will no doubt try and find something better elsewhere.
The question is can we do a better job of allowing them to integrate into our society or will we leave them marginalised and continue the cycle?