Romanian post offices

I had heard stories about the Romanian postal service growing up. Though the stories I heard were of parcels and packages going in, of letters being opened, and goodies taken out of packages.

I never thought that sending items out, 22 years after Communism had fallen, would be an issue. Little did I know. I had sent some post cards to my family with no issue whatsoever, but sending a package was a whole different ballgame. You can read about my experience with sending a package visa Romanian post at Day 21.

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Communism alive and kicking in Romania

Ok, while not communism per se, there are a lot of people who don't seem to have received the memo that communism fell in 1989. Passing the buck seems to be the norm. Go to government office and it won't be open. Or it'll be open a couple hours a week. Ask someone for info and they'll tell you to go somewhere else, even if they could help you. No one seems to want to work in government offices. Basic things, like elevators, working phones, or AC don't exist in government offices. Don't expect post offices to have pens, boxes, etc either.

The younger generation is better, but there is still a lack of compassion and caring in the older generation. Especially when it comes to caring for public facilities, like not putting posters up all over building walls or graffiti all over the place. Basics like soap, water, or toilet paper can't be found in bathrooms. And more likely than not you'll have to pay to use pink toilet paper and a turkish squat toilet (unless you go to Piata Universitati's free toilets).

I realise that they haven't had it easy, but neither has Germany, yet they recovered well from two World Wars and communism. So I don't see why Romania can't either.

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Day 21 in Romania: how to mail a package in Bucharest

← Day 20 in Romania

I was supposed to meet up with two friends today, but they both cancelled and I'm really running out of things to do in Bucharest. I tried to send my mom the Gerovitals. It was a nightmare. For anyone who thinks that Communism fell in Romania, they should try to send a package overseas.

First post office: The smallest box they had could fit a computer monitor, so I left.

Second post office: Got completely lost trying to find it as everyone kept sending me the wrong way. I ended up in a parking lot at one point. Again, no boxes, but they told me to go to the supermarket and get one. Who'd have thought that post offices would actually stock boxes?!

Supermarket: Got a small box.

Back to the second post office: They don't send packages overseas, but gave me the address of a post office that did.

Third post office: Nope, they don't send packages overseas either. They sent me to another one.

Fourth post office: Went to one line, the sent me to another, which sent me to another. Yea! They send packages overseas. It cost $20 usd to send 3 dinky 50ml jars of Gerovital. I hope my mom gets them, because they took away the package to stuff newspaper in it. Once I signed everything I realised that I have absolutely no idea if the jars are in the box or not.

It only took 4 hours to send a package overseas. Must be a record or something. If you ever go to a post office in Romania, don't expect them to have: envelopes, boxes, tape, glue, scissors, or pens.

For those of you who are interested, here's the address of the post office that will send packages overseas. Good luck finding it, that's the extent of the address on the receipt, though if you ask someone, they should know since it's a big post office. The phone number (I think) is 0800806806
Posta Romana
Bucuresti, Dacia 140, sec 2
Retea Postala CRRP Bucuresti
Bucuresti 3 of Jud B

As a reward I went to McDonald's. I asked for ketchup and they wanted me to pay. Needless to say I didn't. Ketchup should be free.

My husband's passport copy and our marriage cert arrived, but it's the wrong marriage cert. It's the one from before Peru entered the Hague Agreement, so has no apostillise. I'll have to show him where the docs are when I get home. Though I'm estatic that he sent the stuff so fast. We also need him to sign a document saying that I can change my name and giving me permission to register our marriage. Why simplify things when you can make them more complicated? I was told that before Romania was giving Moldovians passports easily and the EU told them to stop. So now they're complicating everything.

→ Day 22 in Romania

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Day 12 in Romania: visiting museums in Timisoara

← Day 11 in Romania

We decided to go to the Revolutionary Museum. Supposedly the Revolution started in Timisoara with a priest called Laslo, but I've also heard it started in Iasi. I'm sure every city claims they had something to do with it.

It was a private musuem run by a man who had been shot in the leg during the Revolution. It was small, but had some good photos, drawings by children who had seen the Revolution and some videos. They also had typical museum things, such as flags, medals, and military outfits.

We went back to the hostel and talked about the museum and were told that after the Revolution many people claimed to have been injured in order to get money from the government, so you can never tell if someone had been really injured or not.

The Revolution started on December 16 1989 and lasted until the 21st of December. Ceausescu and his wife were put to death by a firing squad on Christmas Day. Although many people agreed that he should die, they also agree that the trial was unfair and only lasted a couple hours. In 1989 communism was falling all over Europe and people wanted it to happen in Romania as well, but they wanted a good income, like Germany, not like Tiananmen in China.

I went to a small flea market in Union Square and bought a yellow bracelet. The art museum was also there, so I decided to go in. My favourite part was the Baroque Room which took 30 years to complete. It was blue and purple. The walls looked like they had wallpaper, but it was really a painting. It must have taken a lot of patience to do it. They have information in English and women sitting in many of the rooms, who tried to talk to me, but I really didn't understand.

Timisoara is famous for other things besides the Revolution. They were the first city in Europe to use electric street lights and the second in the world after New York. They also had the first horse drawn trolleys. Their buses are nice as well. The bus stops have seats, timetables, route, and information about when the next bus is. Bucharest doesn't have any of that. It's a lot cleaner than Bucharest, but you can still find posters and graffiti on building walls. People also smoke a lot here. Cigarettes aren't that cheap either, about 2 euro.

I leave tonight to go back to Bucharest and promised to keep in touch with Raul and Claudia from the hostel. Maybe someday we'll end up back in Timisoara. If I had a choice, I'd like to open a business and Timisoara and Iasi are the two cities I'm looking at.

→ Day 13 in Romania

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Mom's a citizen

Updated 17 October 2015

I found out that this document just says my mom was a citizen when she left Romania.

Good news: My lawyer sent me confirmation that my mom is a citizen from the Ministry of Internal Affairs! She never had her citizenship revoked and never renounced it. Yea! So hopefully I'll be getting my passport this year! (My grandfather did renounce his citizenship. No info about my grandmother's Romanian citizenship. But none of that mattes. My mom IS a citizen, therefore I can get citizenship.)

So excited!

Things are taking longer than we think, though. We applied for confirmation of citizenship in July 2010 and were told that we'd find out 4 months later, in September 2010. However, we just found out now. So it actually took 9 months.

FYI: Romanian citizenship during the Communist regime.
I have been told that any Romanian who left during the Communist regime were considered traitors by having committed "high treason" and thus revoked of Romanian citizenship. However, since the fall of communism, laws have changed. The 1991 law basically cancels the revocation of citizenship due to its extreme political nature, therefore, my mom still has citizenship (which has been proved by the Romanian Ministry of Internal Affairs). My grandfather's is a different matter. He willingly renounced his citizenship. If we had wanted his to be restored, that would be another legal matter.

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FAQ: Why was your mom's Romanian citizenship revoked?

Question
I don't think your family's citizenship was revoked automatically by leaving. I know plenty of people who left and retained their citizenship. I also know others who had to intentionally renounce their Romanian citizenship in order to get citizenship in another country (e.g. Austria). The people I know who renounced it were either already out of the country or had an offer of citizenship before they left (e.g. from Germany or Israel). In both cases, they were able to get it back after 1990 as long as their new country of citizenship allowed dual citizenship.

Answer
My family left when Romania was communist; they basically committed "high treason" because they left permanently and have never been back.

Romanian citizenship during the Communist regime.
I have been told that any Romanian who left during the Communist regime were considered traitors by having committed "high treason" and thus revoked of Romanian citizenship. However, since the fall of Communism, laws have changed. The 1991 law basically cancels the revocation of citizenship due to its extreme political nature, therefore, my mom still has citizenship (we just have to prove it). My grandfather's is a different matter. He willingly renounced his citizenship. If we had wanted his to be restored, that would be another legal matter.

Question
Where was your grandma from? What was her original citizenship? Did she actually get Romanian citizenship? Marriage alone doesn't grant citizenship. It only helps you get a long term residence permit.

If you want your kids to have Romanian citizenship, then just give birth there. Have you tried different lawyers? Maybe a different lawyer would provide different results.

Answer
Grandma was born in the US to German parents. However, US citizenship laws at that time allowed my aunt to get US citizenship since my grandma wasn't married at the time. My mom was only Romanian since her father was Romanian and my grandmother was a couple months short of the 10 years necessary to pass on citizenship. I've asked my grandmother about this American-Romanian citizenship stuff, but she can't remember. I'm not sure if she's just getting old or has blocked it from her memory. Romania wasn't the nicest place when she lived there.

Can't just give birth in Romania. Laws have changed. That's like saying if I gave birth in Korea my kids would be Korean. It's jus sanguine (meaning citizenship is passed on by ancestry, like the majority of countries nowadays), not jus tierra (citizenship is given by the country where you give birth, like the US).

it has nothing to do with my lawyer. It's just the way things are in Romania. Everyone seems to say something different and then change their mind a day later.

Be sure to read about what has happened so far. You can find everything in the quick summary of dates.

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