EU subsidies to Romania may be a blessing for the economy, but for rural life they’re a curse. Unemployment is skyrocketing and traditional architecture is disappearing at an alarming pace, writes DW’s William Blacker.

In the late 1980s, English newspapers were full of stories of how Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was laying waste to the historic villages of Romania. There followed an international outcry against such brutal, architectural vandalism.

But then in the final days of 1989, Romania’s bloody revolution brought an abrupt end to it all. Ceausescu and his wife Elena were led out into the backyard of a militia garrison in Targoviste and shot dead.

By chance, two weeks later, I was travelling through (click for the rest of the story)