Andrzej Stasiuk on Romania

Old Europe has lost its adventurous spirit, Andrzej Stasiuk tells Gerhard Gnauck. That is why Europe has no idea how exciting its new member countries are. Take Romania, for example: "One of the most beautiful countries of Europe. I have always said: It is like Poland, but more wonderful. A very complicated identity: a Romantic language directly inherited from classic Latin, stuck somewhere between barbaric Slavic dialects and the wild language of the Hungarian Steppe. The Eastern Romance line is also the only one to embrace the Orthodox faith. For centuries Romania was in the hands of Turkey, Hungary or Russia. Like Poland, it is an 'outpost of Christianity': that means the never-ending glow of military camp fires and the clattering of horses' hooves. At the same time, a marvellous landscape and architecture. The Carpathian villages in the Maramures are like a Sagrada Family (the Holy Family, as in the church of Antoni Gaudi in Barcelona) carved in wood, and the Danube Delta is a wonder of nature, a European tropic: Wels catfish as big as sharks, and flocks of pelicans floating like pterodactyls over an absolutely ancient landscape. Ach, Romania is worth as much as the Netherlands and Belgium together."

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