Totalitarian Recall: Romania's Museum Of Communist Products
- By Amos Chapple
A basement in Timisoara has become a bittersweet mecca for Romanians who lived through communism.
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A plastic dachshund, made in Romania's Aradeanca toy factory.
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A free-loving porcelain figurine, made in a factory in Alba Iulia, on the Mures River in Transylvania.
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A cast of the coat of arms of socialist Romania. These are some of the thousands of relics of the country's communist past held in a basement in western Romania.
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The Museum of the Communist Consumer is a ramshackle collection of seemingly every household product made during Romania's socialist period.
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The museum was opened by Ovidiu Mihaita in 2015 after years spent hunting through flea markets and trash cans for communist-era products.
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A Ceausescu-themed calendar with a different propaganda image for every day of the year. A year after this 1988 calendar was in use, dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown and shot, along with his wife, in the bloodiest of Europe's anticommunist uprisings.
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A sign reading "Ceausescu and the people," a common slogan of the era. Mihaita told RFE/RL that after the communist regime was overthrown, Romanians were eager to destroy relics linked to the hated ruler. "I remember in the '90s, in the schools we would throw pictures of Ceausescu out the windows. We wanted to physically get rid of the past."
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But today, the museum has become an emotional portal into the youth of many Romanians. Mihaita said one man came to confess he had stolen a rare vintage packet of cigarettes from the museum. "He couldn't stop himself.... It's like you try to get back what you have lost, and it's very hard. I don't blame him."
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Tins for sugar, rice, and flour in the "kitchen" area of the museum.
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A lampshade in a section of the museum resembling a 1980s living room. One visitor to the museum wrote in an online review, "Romanians from our parents' generation who come here are very emotional and nostalgic. It's a replica of an apartment, with all the objects of that time. Many are excited. Some even cry."
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A board game, roughly based on Monopoly, called Privatization.
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A porcelain figurine of a boy, presumably wearing his father's military boots and communist "budyonovka" cap.
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A booted rooster toy made by the famous Aradeanca toy factory in Arad.
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A box of music tapes. Krypton was a rock group founded in 1982 and warily tolerated by the communist authorities.
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A cookbook titled Honey In The Kitchen. Mihaita said he is still hunting for certain communist-era items. "We're looking in every way we can, but some things are really hard to find."
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Communist pennants in the hallway of the museum's mock apartment. The banner on the right was awarded to a band of workers who had won a "socialist contest" for productivity.
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A sign reminding workers not to leave their station "without the boss's direct approval!"
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A plastic orange tree. Mihaita told RFE/RL that it's impossible to say what his favorite object is. "It's like asking a child if they like Mum or Dad better."
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Upstairs from the museum, trendy young locals relax in a bar called Scart Loc Lejer. Mihaita said he planned to open two more museums, "but those are secret for now."
