Society

Just like all the other peoples, when they don't hate them outright, many Romanians have less than a high opinion of their neighbors: Bulgarians are seen as coarse – but resourceful – vegetable growers, Hungarians – as bloodthirsty (but proud, hardworking, reliable)

The evolution of the traditions, cross-influences and mutual borrowings of the Romanians' centuries-old cohabitation with the 20-odd national minorities is worth looking into because it may offer spectacular surprises. Owing to the blend of very different nationalities

For the Romanian cultural psyche, the interwar period still appears, after so many decades of indefatigable exegesis, as a real, alluring and embarrassing hortus conclusus, a closed garden of paradisiacal, yet so venomous intellectual flourishing. Major cultural achievements

(not for children's use) For many years after the fall of communism, the association between Romania and children meant a hellhole: European champions of neonatal and infant mortality (16. 7 % in 2003, down from 26. 9 % in 1990), juvenile AIDS (almost 9000 cases of