Ten years without Ceausescu
December 21st is the same controversial date for Romania as November 7th is for our country. Exactly ten years ago, a revolution began in Bucharest. Judging by public opinion polls, half of Romanians consider today a holiday, the other half - a mourning day. ALEXEY Kommersant-ALEXEEV talks about how the country intends to celebrate the memorable date.

There was no solemn and noisy preparation for the tenth anniversary in the Romanian capital. In any case, on the streets the signs of another holiday are much more noticeable - the meeting of the year 2000. Kiosks have seen an increase in sales of the Romanians' favorite vodka, Stalinskaya (something like Royal alcohol diluted with water, with a label that from a distance resembles our Stolichnaya). The central streets are decorated with simple garlands of lights (exactly like those that hung across Gorky Street on May 1 and November 7 during the Brezhnev era). The number "2000" is illuminated on the Intercontinental Hotel, one of the tallest buildings in the city.
Advertisements invite you to celebrate the New Year in some other European capital, since in Bucharest, as representatives of the local tourism industry themselves admit, only a madman can celebrate the millennium - the quality is worse, and the prices are very high.
However, most Romanians do not have money for New Year's holidays in other places. The average salary in the country is less than 1.8 million Romanian lei (that is, $100) per month, but even for that kind of money it is not easy to find a job. That’s why, for example, young Romanian women save on nail polish and tights. That’s why on the buildings in the center you can see traces of bullets fired in December 1989—there is no money for repairs. For the same reason, the main topic of conversation among Bucharest residents is the results of the national lottery, announced on Sunday on the most popular TV channel Pro, and not the upcoming anniversary of the revolution. For Romanians, the lottery is almost the only chance to become rich. There are very few other chances.
There are numerous book stalls around the square named after December 21, 1989. Compared to Romania, Russia can hardly be called the most reading country in the world. Romanians consume huge quantities of detective stories, science fiction, women's novels, etc. in paperbacks, and still have room in their heads for newspapers and magazines.
Newspapers and magazines are, of course, discussing the anniversary of the revolution very vigorously. Romanian society is unlikely to reach a common opinion regarding what happened in the country ten years ago, what happened after that and what still lies ahead, in the near future.
The socialism of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu was one of the ugliest socialisms in existence, the Romanian revolution was the bloodiest of the anti-communist revolutions of 1989, and the transition to a democratic society in the following decade followed the most tortuous and difficult path.
Many in Romania believe that the revolution took place not in December 1989, but in November 1996, with the victory of Emil Constantinescu in the presidential elections. It was with the beginning of the reign of the first non-communist president that the country began its transition to democracy. It began, as expected, with hyperinflation and shock therapy. That is why Romania lags behind the rest of Eastern European countries by these same seven years.
And ten years ago there was not a revolution, say anti-communist Romanian newspapers, but a successful feint of the Romanian communists, who managed to stay in power by slightly changing the rhetoric and sacrificing the most odious figures (primarily Ceausescu and his wife). As you know, all the people who were part of the leadership of the National Salvation Front, which took power after the revolution, were communist functionaries. Not excluding front leader Ion Iliescu, who became the first president of post-Ceausesque Romania - a former candidate member of the Politburo, demoted to the district committee level for internal party intrigues.
The Romanian press also often states that Ion Iliescu carried out the coup with the strong support of his fellow institute Mikhail Gorbachev. In the first days of the revolution, in a country that had previously been on a rationing system, a huge amount of food products appeared on free sale. In Romania itself there was simply nowhere to get them. Perhaps the Soviet Union helped.
In any case, the full truth about the events of December 1989 in Romania will not become known soon, if at all. And Romanians will not soon stop arguing about who Nicolae Ceausescu was - the greatest man of the 20th century or a bloody, extravagant dictator.
Ten years ago, Ceausescu was buried in secret, fearing that angry citizens would throw his body out of the grave. Today his grave at the Genchi cemetery is decorated with an Orthodox cross with a red star on it. Pensioners bring flowers to the grave and light church candles.
And the specter of communism continues to loom over the country. According to polls, the next president of Romania is likely to be the communist Iliescu.

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 236 dated December 21, 1999, p. 10