--- /dev/null
+---
+postid: 000
+title: Mangalia
+date: April 30, 2019
+author: Lucian Mogoșanu
+tags: in-the-flesh
+---
+
+It was this one beautiful spring weekend when I decided to pack some
+clothes and go home[^1].
+
+Mangalia, you see, is a very very old town, dating back to the time of
+Satyrus the Peripatetic. I'm sure you've heard of him, haven't you? and
+of Pontus Euxinus, Moesia Inferior, and of... nevermind. Since we're
+here, though, let's take a look at an illustration of ancient Dacian and
+Roman settlements:
+
+TODO: mangalia-01
+
+To the left, the keen reader can notice some hanging clothes, not part
+of the illustration. Below, we go fast forward a few thousand years, to
+an illustration of post-modern art:
+
+TODO: mangalia-02
+
+This is what remains of a late 90s/early 2000s TV show, the Callatis
+Festival, sponsored by Mangalia Daewood Heavy Industries, meanwhile
+bought by I forgot what other company. Moving on to more interesting
+illustrations, here's a cat:
+
+TODO: mangalia-03
+
+TODO: mangalia-04
+
+Mangalia is full of these little animals, be they stray or owned. I'm
+guessing they must like the seaside, there were many of them in
+[Heraklion][heraklion] as well. Below, birds, swimming and flying:
+
+TODO: mangalia-05
+
+TODO: mangalia-06
+
+TODO: mangalia-07
+
+TODO: mangalia-08
+
+TODO: mangalia-09
+
+These particular swans were very user-friendly, to the point they were
+standing at two metres from me, trying to eat from the palm of my
+hand. The same can't be said about the Steven Seagulls flying about, but
+who cares about the little rascals, really.
+
+TODO: mangalia-10
+
+Above: the Genovese lighthouse. Below: more post-modern art.
+
+TODO: mangalia-11
+
+TODO: mangalia-12
+
+I've no idea who Tmok teh Smqr is, nor why his signature is larger than
+the cat, but do you happen to remember Courage the Cowardly Dog?
+
+TODO: mangalia-13
+
+Pictured above is the Romanian [shittoral][btcbase-1910112][^2] as seen
+from the port. Gotta admit, it's a pretty nice view from
+afar. Meanwhile, we travel a few kilometers to the south, to the beaches
+of Vama Veche, i.e. Ye Olde Customshouse:
+
+TODO: mangalia-14
+
+TODO: mangalia-15
+
+TODO: mangalia-16
+
+TODO: mangalia-17
+
+TODO: mangalia-18
+
+TODO: mangalia-19
+
+Back in the day when Vama Veche was hip and all that jazz, the kids used
+it as a base for the cargocultist reenactment of Saint Yasgur's
+Festival. Meanwhile it's devolved into an outlet for teen and millenial
+orclets who, as the sign above illustrates, are "anti-manele", not that
+what they're listening to is fundamentally different from that
+particular music -- you see, there was that Gypsy on the main ulitsa who
+played Dylan better than most of the Romanian derps I've heard. At least
+these particular "vamaioți" don't come with any pretenses to
+"[hashtag-resist][rezistenta]": they just lie about and smoke the
+occasional weed, making the quaint atmosphere tolerable at the very
+least. This was the 28th of April, though, I don't even want to know how
+the place looked on the 1st of May.
+
+Below: a coupla more shots of [pig's fart][pig-fart] (also see: 70MB
+[animation][dandelion.gif]).
+
+TODO: mangalia-20
+
+TODO: mangalia-21
+
+TODO: mangalia-22
+
+Above: high-resolution graphics of beach and abandoned hotels in the
+sunset. Below: modern art; and modern stray cat.
+
+TODO: mangalia-23
+
+TODO: mangalia-24
+
+Further below: the main promenade. This night shot is perhaps one of the
+few reason for carrying a heavy DSLR with me.
+
+TODO: mangalia-25
+
+TODO: mangalia-26
+
+Above: something-something about fatherlands, death and other
+non-post-modern stuff. I'll let the reader decipher it. Below:
+something-something about great achievements of high culture (notice how
+they're looking up, right?).
+
+TODO: mangalia-27
+
+Meanwhile, in [worker culture][july-theses]:
+
+TODO: mangalia-28
+
+That, I suppose, pretty much sums up Mangalia[^3].
+
+[^1]: Now's not the worst moment to tell a boring for you, yet so very
+ important to me story about my roots.
+
+ It's not at all clear to me where this Mogoșanu comes from, other
+ than its obvious connection to one-thing-or-the-other called
+ Mogoș. It's well known in the family that Mogoșanu the Old was from
+ Apoldu de Sus (i.e. the Upper Apold), or maybe it was the Lower one,
+ whatever, some backwater village in the lower Transylvania. Either
+ way, at some point (in the interbellic period?) one branch of the
+ Mogoșans migrated way southeast to lower Dobrogea, where they lived
+ among and got along with Bulgarians, Tatars and Turkish Gypsies and
+ whatnot. The village, Dobromir, was *that* close to becoming part
+ of Bulgaria, only it didn't, and here I am, North of the Danube.
+
+ So then sometime later this dude Dumitru, one of ten brothers, got
+ back from the war in one piece and took as his wife Parascheva
+ Băcioiu, whom he had three children with and with whom he moved all
+ the way to the outskirts of the capital, as the times went and as
+ the regime's needs dictated. Long story short, one of the three
+ children was my father, and another one came to be my godmother, the
+ wife of one Rădulescu, whose first name (among others) I came to
+ bear, and so on. And this is how I can call Mangalia a home about as
+ much as I do the slums of Bucharest -- I have some sort of
+ relationship with this little town, and that's that.
+
+[^2]: The process through which the Romanian littoral became a shittoral
+ wasn't much different from the one where that overgrown
+ [industry][oameni-melci] was sold for nothing to little
+ [pretend-businessmen][ticalosul] who broke it into little pieces and
+ sold it for scrap.
+
+ Overgrown, that it was, yes, but in the '70s the Romanian seaside
+ was choc-full of Germans, Finns and other foreigners looking for a
+ good time -- read: to lie on the beach and fuck Eastern European
+ girls. A problem might be that it lived only circa four months per
+ year, which didn't quite justify the upkeep costs; another problem
+ might be related to the huge hotels that would sit mostly empty even
+ in June; either way, the fact remains that Neptun and Mangalia have
+ proper beaches, while Turkey doesn't. Meanwhile, Bulgaria and Turkey
+ manage to keep their aestival tourism going, while Romania,
+ well... not really.
+
+ So, in short, that's how "shittiest most expensive" came to be: sell
+ all the real estate to the Micula brothers and drive everyone else
+ involved into a depression. A sad story, indeed.
+
+[^3]: Although it doesn't, you know. If you're ever going there,
+ consider visiting, among others, the Archaelogical Museum and the
+ Esmahan Sultan Mosque. There's more history to [this sea][citadel]
+ than meets the eye.
+
+[heraklion]: /posts/y05/07b-heraklion.html
+[btcbase-1910112]: http://btcbase.org/log/2019-04-27#1910112
+[oameni-melci]: /posts/y03/05d-despre-oameni-si-melci.html#selection-30.0-30.3
+[ticalosul]: http://trilema.com/2010/ticalosul-si-libertatea/
+[rezistenta]: http://btcbase.org/log-search?q=rezistenta+prin+cultura
+[pig-fart]: /posts/y04/070-bucharest-botanical-garden.html#selection-97.306-97.320
+[dandelion.gif]: TODO
+[july-theses]: /posts/y03/05a-july-theses.html
+[citadel]: /posts/y04/068-the-story-of-the-citadel.html
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