I now considered a return to Romania in order to fulfill the need for a new lecture subject. It would be an initial solo visit of six or seven weeks. My two recent journeys through that country followed by some study had aroused my interest in a country then little visited by western travellers. That it had a rural and colourful peasant culture I already knew and that its people were open and easy to approach I had recently experienced. Its political system, offensive to western travellers, may have deterred many and indeed in the earlier years of communist rule the Party discouraged international fraternisation. A law had been brought in which required every Romanian to report to the appropriate State authority any contact with a foreigner from a non-socialist country.
In spite of the ever watchful eye of the Securitate this ruling seemed to have been largely ignored for…
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