On the beach at Vama Veche, young people dressed in street clothes sit on the sand in groups like huge flocks of birds, and look at the big waves that hit the shore cadently, waiting. Summer, evening, happiness.
“People are nicer, it’s a different vibe”
50 years ago, “on 2 Mai and Vama Veche, about 8,000-9,000 tourists came per season, according to the city hall’s statistics”, as noted in the Flacăra magazine of that time. Now, it’s several thousand in a single day.
Every May 1 brings them together, on the same seashore, the feeling of complete freedom that they say they only find in Customs. “Only here is that spirit, old school. I’m from Bucharest, but I don’t like the fun there anymore. In Vama Veche, you feel exactly like in the song: “perfect, without you”, explains Vlad, who is 18 years old and came to the sea with the tent.
Ioana (23 years old) and Alexandra (19 years old) traveled eight hours by train from Făgăraş, just to see the May 1st. “We don’t have accommodation,” says Ioana, “We’re going to stay on the beach, we also go to clubs, and tomorrow morning, at 5:30, we have a train back home. If we don’t freeze to death tonight,” she laughs. He says he comes to Vama Veche because “the world is friendlier, the people are nicer, it’s a different vibe. Compared to Costinești, for example, where the handcuffs ring.”
Customs prices don’t scare girls. “We are students in Cluj, and there they are just as big,” Alexandra confesses.
How much does an MBS cost in the mayor’s office
In the markets on the seafront, a can of beer costs from 6 lei upwards, and at self-service, a pint is 12 lei. Also there, for the cheapest vegetable soup, you pay 17 lei, and for fish borscht – 35 lei. A beef goulash is 39 lei, a small one – 6 lei, and a portion of fried potatoes – 14 lei.
On the main street, a “Kinder Bueno pancake” costs 33 lei, and a burger – between 28 and 38 lei.
On the edge of the cliff, at the place with the ford, rises the guesthouse and restaurant of the PSD mayor of Limanu, Daniel Georgescu. Here, a vegetable soup costs 22 lei, the cheapest burger (vegan) 43 lei, and a portion of MBS (meal, cheese and cream) – 32 lei.
Why isn’t that sidewalk extended
Last month, in an interview given to a local radio station, Daniel Georgescu was asked what the city hall is doing about the sidewalk between Vama Veche and 2 Mai, in order to avoid accidents like the one caused by Vlad Pascu.
Because that sidewalk ends at the edge of a field, the young people hit by the drugged driver had to walk on the side of the road.
The PSD mayor said what he declared immediately after the accident: that he has a project and that he is waiting for its funding. But, he added, “we would have a solution, the extension of the sidewalk between that pedestrian track, which leads to Vama Veche, and the interior of 2 Mai. We could divide the project into two sections and do only that part of the sidewalk, which I think we would be able to afford from the local budget.”
However, the mayor wanted to specify, “the main investments must benefit the residents, first of all. You cannot start building sidewalks between 2 Mai and Vama Veche, without having sidewalks in Limanu and 2 Mai.”
Daniel Georgescu added that the tragedy caused by Vlad Pacu “is not the first traffic accident and it is not the first accident with victims between May 2 and Vama Veche.” Then he also gave a piece of advice: “I don’t recommend anyone to travel on a national road, between towns, on foot.”
And at the end, the mayor declared himself dissatisfied with the media which, he says, created “a great tragedy, because the mayor’s office did not build a sidewalk between the localities. Ok, we’re going to build a sidewalk between the two localities and not on May 2 or in Limanu.”
On the side of the road with the flashlights on
Despite the recommendations of the mayor of Limanu, and on May 1, people walked between Vama Veche and Mai 2 still on the side of the road. Because they had nowhere to go, when the sidewalk they were coming on ended under their feet.
But, after the accident in which two young people died, pedestrians have adapted: they walk along the road holding mobile phones with their flashlights on. And from a distance, through the pitch blackness, they look like miners out of luck.
“We have nowhere to go, we have to be noticed by the cars coming in front”, explains a tourist. “The only solution is this or the reflective vest. But where do we get such news?”
Not only tourists but also people who live in the area walk on the side of that road. Two local women from May 2 return, together with a child, from Vama Veche. They stop where the sidewalk ends, and one of the women asks us, “And now what do we do? Shall we cross or take it forward? It’s very dangerous, no matter what we do. Maybe it would be safer if we went to the field, but it is full of dogs and we are afraid”. So the women cross the road at a run, baby in tow, among the cars flying in both directions.
On the road near the military unit, people walk past the accident site, where the candles lit in memory of those killed by Pascu are burning, and they shudder. “We know it was an accident and we know it’s dangerous to go like that,” admits a tourist staying on May 2 who is returning from Customs. “But we really have no choice,” she says. “Because, just like after the Collective, nothing happened after this tragedy either.”
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After the sun went down, the police filters came up
But there is a sign that something has changed: since May 1, in Vama Veche there were several patrols made up of gendarmes and policemen who walked, throughout the day, among the tourists in the resort.
And after nightfall, at the exit from May 2 towards Vama Veche, traffic police filters also appeared. Placed on either side of the road, they stopped drivers from both directions and checked their documents. And some were tested to see if they had consumed alcohol or drugs.
Checking drivers in the filter is random. “We would like to stop the troublemakers, but we don’t always succeed. We are not God,” testified a traffic policeman.
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Until midnight, two such filters were organized at different times. And the action was repeated until 6 in the morning.
Last fall, there were 12 drug test machines at IPJ Constanța. Meanwhile, their number has increased by 30.
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Tags: Customs House Vlad Pascus Accident Road Death Remained Police
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