The old Romanian culture survives most strongly in MARAMURES, Moldavia and Wallachia, where there are hardly any minority groups. Colorful traditional costumes abound in town and country, even among young people. Brightly painted houses of timber or stone have verandahs under roofs of wooden tiles or thatch. Medieval monasteries and churches exhibit strong Byzantine influence. Religion survives under Communism: some 80 per cent of the people are Christians of the Romanian Orthodox Church.
Romania's main minorities, the Hungarians with 8 per cent of the population and Germans (2 per cent), live in Transylvania and Banat. The Hungarians, having lost some degree of self-government and other privileges granted in the 1950s, claim that they are unfairly treated by the Romanians.
The country faces growing economic problems after a period of spectacular growth. Rising overseas debt has led to import restrictions, reducing Romania's debt to the West but causing serious shortages of food and consumer goods. Sugar, flour and cooking OIL are rationed; there are power shortages and queues for meat and petrol. One major setback is the drying up of the PLOIESTI oil fields, the country's most valuable resource. Having developed petrochemical and related industries in the 1960s, Romania must now import more oil each year.
For more than two decades Romania pushed through five-year development plans concentrating on investment in heavy industry at the expense of consumer goods. From 1960 to 1970 it had the world's third fastest growing industrial production, from 1970 to 1976 the third fastest growth in agricultural output. The state owns virtually everything except peasant farmland and housing.
The larger estates became state agricultural enterprises (now 17 per cent of farmland) and peasant holdings were forcibly grouped into cooperatives (75 per cent). A substantial tractor and farm machinery industry was developed, and mechanization combined with larger farms and lack of incentives resulted In a dramatic fall in the number of people employed in agriculture.
Between 1950 and 1984 the proportion of the total labour force engaged in farming fell from 75 per cent to 30 per cent. Horse-drawn carts lit by flickering oil lamps used to jingle through the dusk at harvest time, carrying farm workers home by the dozen. Today there are processions of huge, single-driver combine harvesters, with headlamps ablaze.
The area devoted to maize and wheat has fallen from 86 per cent to 64 per cent, yet output has almost trebled, mainly as a result of mechanization and wider use of fertilizers.
Industry depends on electricity generated by coal-fired power stations sod the rivers flowing from the Carpathians. The hydroelectric dams at Bicaz and CURTEA DE ARGES are impressive, but they are dwarfed by the huge Iron Gates station jointly developed by Romania and Yugoslavia. Yet overambitious planning has plunged the country into a serious energy crisis. Coal and iron ore support steel factories at Resita and HUNEDOARA; the rich mineral deposits in the APUSENI and Maramures mountains supply copper, lead, zinc, gold, silver and bauxite refining industries.
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