A few weeks ago we celebrated 30 years (10x3 years, man!). A lot of documentaries and retrospectives and I hardly kept up with them. But I did watch a few and learned (or refreshed my memory with) facts I either did not know or had forgotten. I will first list, and then, time-permitting, summarize them.

I wasn’t terribly excited to see people still mourning Ceausescu for his death, on his birthday, and remembered that even though I was planning to summarize the new info I had learned, I never got around to do it.

First and foremost is, of course, the Recorder documentary, which I watched minutes after having been published, on a smart TV that featured it among my YouTube subscriptions.

I’ve had a few revelations and disappointments watching it; a summary might be useful not just to me, when I review it in a few years, but to others as well, who might want to focus on segments rather than take in a full 3h.

• sales and marketing are more important than operations – a hard lessons for communist managers
• the documentary was sponsored by USA

Not to be outdone, Stirile ProTV expands its already invaluable Youtube archive with Dupa 30 de ani or After 30 years, a playlist of 16 short webisodes and extras in politics, education and rti. This is after the earlier 100 years in 100 days.

Most are about the economy, but social and political topics are also considered.

TVR, the national television, was once the only game in town, which endowed them with a huge archive. I haven’t checked, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they still are in some areas. So they’re worth mentioning even though I hardly have time to check them out.

They jumped into the fray with 30 years in 30 episodes, 4-5 minutes each and 30 years of freedom. This is on top of the older “clandestine estate”, remix, the deported, 1989, truths about the past, and I also enjoyed the older Moise Guran’s show Biziday, “the analysis of the Romanian economy in the communist era”, despite the presenter’s annoying manner.

Quite a few questionable interpretations made by MG and one fact I had forgotten. When 12.1989 events had started, Ceausescu was in Iran trying to get a Development Bank for developing countries started, which is quite significant, considering the estimate of around 8 billion dollars that Romania was supposed to receive in time from mostly African countries such as Egypt and others.

Euronews had the Brief, a look back, freedom march while France24 showed 30th. I will update this article with summaries soon, hopefully.

*(*This article is unfinished – it was scheduled to appear in the hope that it will be finished before, but since this message is here and until it is removed, the article is to be considered work in progress*)*.

Sources / More info: rec-30