Romania then and now

Theodore Dalrymple pays a visit.

Stuck in a traffic jam from Otopeni airport, with compulsory pop music being pumped into the car like poisoned gas, I even began to long for the old days. The communists had, of course, solved the traffic problem. There was no traffic. And at least the microphones installed by the Securitate in every vehicle (or so everyone believed) were silent. Even the grinding of engines constructed under the communists was much preferable to pop music. Come to think of it, Romania was a paradise for those who valued silence. It was as if the entire country had been smothered in a thick blanket.