Back to the future | 24 July 2010

Charles Moore on how to renew and maintain life in the deserted villages of rural Romania

To understand this story, one must go back nearly 25 years. As Soviet Communism moved towards collapse in the late 1980s, people were in danger of forgetting Romania. Because of Romania’s relative independence from Moscow, the West played down the insane policies of its despot, Nikolai Ceausescu.

The Spectator, I am glad to say, did not. We sent in journalists under cover, and started a scheme, paid for by kind readers, to send free copies of the magazine, much sought after by print-starved intellectuals. The world finally took notice of Ceausescu’s horrors when he began a policy of systematically destroying all villages, housing peasants in concrete blocks of flats. The Prince of Wales eloquently pleaded for a unique rural culture. Ceausescu was overthrown at Christmas 1989. He had not yet managed to complete his work of destruction.