Romanians going on the offensive against vampires...

[jsw]

This is hilarious. I don't know if it's serious or an April Fool's Joke - the dateline is March 31, but who knows.

The summary:

But Nobody's Named Buffy

Romanian police want to take a bite out of crime, but vampire-slaying villagers aren't taking too kindly to the investigation. Apparently, the countryside is crawling with bloodsuckers, and the locals have their own ways of dealing with the situation. Witness the post-death treatment of Toma Petre, whose relatives allegedly dug up his corpse, ripped out and burned his heart, then mixed the ashes with water and drank it, according to a wild report. "What did we do?" asked Petre's sister. "If they're right, he was already dead. If we're right, we killed a vampire.... Is that so wrong?" The problem with the undead is that they come after relatives, said one villager. "They'd be all right if you could set them after your enemies. But they only kill loved ones.... They have to be stopped."

 

[Thomas Veil]

Years ago I read a book which coincides with much of that background stuff about belief in vampires. Hard to believe that there are still people in the Balkans that still go for that stuff, but they do.

 

[Krizoitz]

Maybe thats why they canceled both Buffy and Angel, they needed their help in Romania...

 

[zimv20]

in 1993, i went w/ a group of friends through romania. we were poor, and one night slept in the car at the side of the road, somewhere in transylvania (iirc, we were north of cluj napoca).

i woke up first, just as the sun was coming up, started the car and drove through a forest. there was a thick fog, there was no around, and it was dead quiet. i shivered as i suddenly figured out where just about every spooky children's ghost story came from.

 

[iGav]

i woke up first, just as the sun was coming up, started the car and drove through a forest. there was a thick fog, there was no around, and it was dead quiet. i shivered as i suddenly figured out where just about every spooky children's ghost story came from.

heh very, very cool.... got any pic's???

 

[zimv20]

heh very, very cool.... got any pic's???

unfortunately, i had very little film left by the time we entered romania. though i did take a few pictures (including a couple of a castle built by Vlad the Impaler), i did not get a pic of the foggy forest. wish i had.

two of the more surreal situations in my life took place in romania. the first was crossing in near the ukraine at 3 am and watching the border guards smash the windshield of a confused german, the second was buying black market diesel, again at 3 am (there were massive fuel shortages) while making a run back to the Hungarian border.