The Chosen Fugue: Timisoara, the Revolution will not be televised

Out of Transylvania on to our last stop Timisoara in the Banat, another area in Romania ( like most of European History) with a succession of rulers and mix of cultures this time with a bit more Hungarian and Serbian tossed in.

What drew us to Timisoara was that this was where the 1989 Revolution began and we were curious to learn more. The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was part of a wave of change culminating in the end of communist control in Central and Eastern Europe.

The economically weakened USSR lead by the fairly tolerant Soviet leader Gorbachov combined with civil unrest and union strikes provided the catalyst for a dismantling of the soviet block. The domino effect began in Poland with Lech Walesa's Solidarity party gaining control of the government in June 1989. The success in Poland was followed by Hungary, East Germany (Berlin Wall came down November 9.1989), Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and finally, Romania. Only Romania’s overthrow was violent bloody and deadly. So, after almost a year of travel with constant reminders of our historical ignorance, we decided to seize the opportunity to learn more about the Romanian revolution in Timisoara, the city where it began.

Our education regarding the revolution began with a visit to a very heart-felt museum. Exhibits looked like a tragic 5th grade science fair with homemade posters- black & white photographs glued onto cardboard, hand written descriptions and red embossed labels.

There was such an immediacy; it was raw emotion. Family photos of dead loved ones (as young as one month old). Blood stained clothes. Clothes with bullet holes.

Along with the immensely personal exhibits, there was a 30 minute (VHS ?) documentary of the rebellion in Timisoara.

And, to place these events of 1989 in the context of world history, a timeline covered the previous 100 years-WW1, WW2, moon landing, rebellions in other Eastern Block countries, etc was presented in posters lining the hallway.

Timeline running down the hallway

Clear in these pictures is the decay and condition of the building. It was hard not to compare to museums with remarkable architecture and appropriate maintenance that did not have half of the emotional impact this museum did.

Flags used during protests refashioned with communist symbol removed

The revolution began on December 16 1989 innocently enough with a public protest in support of an outspoken Hungarian pastor, Laszlo Tokes, whom the government wanted to evict from his church. Parishioners gathered around his home to try to protect him and his family from eviction.

Passerby joined in and by evening the growing crowd started chanting anti-communist slogans including “down with Ceausecu". The next day, this organic uprising resulted in almost the entire town protesting in the main squares. The military was called in.

Word of mouth spread the unrest to other cities (all media was controlled by the government and phone lines had been blocked coming out of Timisoara) and by December 21, 1989 the protests erupted in almost every city in Romania. with unrest spreading throughout the country.

Ceausecu tried to squelch the uprising with a speech from the Palace Square in Bucharest- promising an increase in the minimum wage. But, the crowd of over 100,000 quickly turned against him chanting "Ti-mi-soa-ra", "down with Ceausecu".
(watch the very short video here where he realizes the crowd is against him, for the very first time and very last time https://deadstate.org/watch-the-exact-moment-when-a-brutal-dictator-realizes-the-crowd-has-turned-against-him/ )

Rioting disrupted his speech requiring he and his wife, Elena, to escape by helicopter. They were both caught the next day arrested, tried and shot dead by a firing squad on Christmas Day just 10 days after the initial events in Timisoara. And, communist control of Romania was over, but with a heavy toll, close to 2000 died, thousands injured during the protests and the confusion following the fall of the government.

Discussion with the museum curator (very intimate museum) who was 20 at the time of the uprising and living in Timisoara, said she didn’t believe it was really happening. Mass confusion and fear prevailed, there was no media (tv completely blocked), everyone relied on word of mouth, rumors were rampant no one was sure who to trust (with good reason). And when the end did come, no one could believe it was really Ceausecu who was killed.

Later we walked the sites to Pastor Tokes building and church, to the main squares where the riots and killings took place, now looking very different but with bullet holes remaining in the buildings.

A building in the square peppered with bullet holes, now housing a McDonald's

Walking anywhere in the city, we saw the many memorials to all the martyrs/heroes of the day

At the cemetery commemorating those who died and were buried and those whose bodies were never recovered (burned by the government in a rushed attempt to cover up the rebellion).

We looked back at our visit to Bucharest to try and recreate the events there and picture Ceaucescu on the balcony of the enormous Palace surrounded by a huge square filled with thousands of angry disillusioned citizens ready to revolt. https://thechosenfugue.blogspot.com/2019/07/bucaresti.html

Timisoara, beyond it’s role in the revolution, was great in it's own right. It checked off all the boxes expected of a historic-Ottomon-Habsburg-Austo-Hungarian European mid-sized city.

Churches with plaster sculptures above the door

Squares with gardens, fountains anchored by a church

park lined River (Bega)

Beautiful buildings

Empty synagogues

But there was a different vibe here. Like most European cities- history was celebrated and on display but in Timisoara it was with a slightly different more non-traditional approach, it felt like it was moving on and looking to recreate itself, like it probably has done many times before.

A Cheers bar-gotta start somewhere

Church with an attached cafe, Our Lady of Perpetual Mimosas (?)

Empty synagogue looking for it's restaurant

Thoughtful graffiti

Luring travelers with the iconic shot for every travel photo blog or an homage to winter in Eugene

We toasted Timisoara, Romania and the revolution with local craft beers at a Bar with the Museum of the Communist Consumer in it's basement, kind of a History within a Hipster Bar/ DIY museum. (much better than the Cheers bar)