Romanian Modernist Steel Town – and subsequent Serbian Welcome Back

Romanian Modernist Steel Town – and subsequent Serbian Welcome Back

I’m walking around near my home in verad
Serbia and I just noticed something a
bridge I cross every day over the Mage
it’s a German built
Canal has these uh iron railings on it
and and on these railings is a looks
like a frame where a plaque used to be
I’m going to walk around now and uh
cross a bunch of bridges until I find
one that’s still intact I’m curious what
this plaque would have said
aren’t
you okay so I’m just following along the
Mage here and we’re coming up now to
another
Bridge another railing and it looks like
again there’s a frame for a plaque here
oh wow look at this
1882 that’s back when vots was part of
Austria Hungary and uh that is Hungarian
up there at the top it says
rashit
iron now rashit is in Romania across the
border but back in 1882 Romania and
Serbia same country Austria Hungary I’ve
never been to
Rashida perhaps uh perhaps a road trip
is in
order all right fast forward a few weeks
I’m doing it driving into Romania to
check out this steel town
one of many things to love about Romania
is that as soon as you cross the STS
appear I don’t know why there’s not so
many on the serban end but the instant
you cross over I’ve already seen about
30
STS and on my right as I head east are
the hills of vatz the town I just
left so the drive today from my place in
bats is
about an hour and 20
minutes and just like that I’ve reached
RIT and check out this chesu era
communist border Monument you can find
them throughout Romania it’s another one
of my favorite things about Romania
um they often Mark the boundaries of
cities and counties they’re not going to
be around forever they’re not
maintained and from this giant gear we
can be assured that RIT is an industrial
city not too many meters down from the
Communist border marker great view of
the
city population of RIT is under 60,000
000 just checked into my Airbnb I’m here
for seven nights and this is the view
from my balcony and at some point I’m
going to hike up to the top of that Hill
there by that
sign so I’m living right near the center
and from what I’ve seen there’s a lot of
communist era buildings
check out the sports
complex metal sculpture on the other
side as well
[Music]
[Music]
yeah so this is the dead center of
town so much socialist
modernism look at this I’ll do a 360
[Music]
a plaque here naming locals who died
during the 1989 Romanian
Revolution so yeah the pedestrianized
Town Center very very socialist
modernist
I just realized the sign at the top of
that Hill it’s a giant
gear just like we
saw at the Communist border
marker my landlord said I must go to
rashit Pub that’s where I’m going
couldn’t tell me where any Romanian food
was though and I couldn’t find anything
online there’s not much about this
city online it
seems and this is their burger
okay good morning good afternoon it’s
2:30 it was a late night last
night so
yesterday took a little walk through the
city center one of the three
neighborhoods today we’re going to cross
the river the Braava River into Old RIT
which is also home to RIT works the
oldest Factory
in
Romania so this city is a very long City
it snakes along this River the Bava
River this pedestrian bridge was built
in
1937 so this used to be the Palace of
culture designed 1949
1950 post-war
reconstruction not in the best shape
apape it was converted to a theater at
some point
and here’s a statue of a man
holding
underwear in the middle of the
industrial center we have a
synagogue
1907 Google Maps says permanently closed
so this Factory to which pesit owes its
existence was founded July 3rd
1771 by the hapsburg empire under Maria
Teresa back then the hapsburg Empire
ruled the bonat bonat is a historical
and geographical region that is now
shared by Romania Serbia a little bit of
Hungary now other shots where I just
drove from that’s in bond
and this city rashit is also in
banat that’s why the bridges in vers got
it steel from this
town same country back then and here’s
the St Mary of the Snows Catholic Church
constructed from
1846 according to Google Maps this is a
former Blast Furnace former Blast
Furnace number two
during socialist Romania times RIT Works
was split into two entities RIT steel
Works which was CSR and ritza machine
building plant which was UCM now the
steel
Works was uh ultimately purchased after
the Romanian Revolution by a German
subsidiary of of a Russian company
headquartered in Moscow now it’s called
tkm
R and the Machine building plant was
purchased by a Swiss
company now the Swiss company here
employs about 2,500 people the steel
Works before the Romanian revolution had
about 10,500 employees now they have
about 800 employees
and here’s an Orthodox Church a lot of
churches in this Factory part of
town all right I’ve just done a uturn I
saw a museum down the road a Museum of
Industry if I see anything interesting
there you will
too this abandoned building was once the
Cantina
restaurant Legend has it that in the
late 1880s metal produced here in bza
was sent to
France to use in building the Eiffel
Tower
Kebab Kebab let’s do a
kebab I just walked around to the side
of the former House of culture and it is
still in use it’s the yaya
Club this is an interesting World War II
monument here
well because there’s a cross I don’t
think it was put up during socialist
Romania times but there’s a plaque here
in German on the side it says in memory
of the victims of deportation to Russia
1945 to
1950 and because it isn’t German I
presume these
victims are Germans they were German
citizens of
Romania when Russia took over land
during World War II often the Germans
were shipped out to Russia as part of
War
reparations civilians Germans who maybe
had nothing to do with the
war back in the center West rashit
Theater completed
1929 so this this is the museum and I
just took the tour going to show you a
couple of things from inside while I
talk but uh Russia does not own the
steel works anymore since the Ukraine
war it was sold to a Serbian company
which they
believe is still working with
Russia also I told you 2500 employees
for the Swiss owned machine building
plant I think I told you uh
800 for the then Russian owned steel
works now he thinks
Andre thinks it’s around 500 employees
for the Serbian company and maybe less
than a 100 for the Swiss one machine
building plant um may be going out of
business and rashit is trying to Rebrand
itself as you know an artistic City so
the factory is actually among other
things producing works of art now I
thought was
interesting so yeah while I was talking
you’re just looking at different scenes
from the
museum I especially like the posters
demonstrating what happens if you do not
adhere to safety
rules Safety
First Andre pointed to a place on a map
where he said I’d get a nice view of the
steel Works Factory so driving there now
[Music]
[Applause]
well here’s the view take it in
there’s a museum of the amateur
filmmaker um that is built into a former
projection room and you can visit it by
appointment only but I just called the
guy and he said come by he’ll meet me in
10
minutes if it’s interesting you’ll see a
bit how many cameras
160 160 we’ll say it’s the largest
collection in
Romania Romanian made
projectors the size and then Andre for
scale
yeah look at
[Music]
that who’s
that no you’re doing good no so you can
go
forward you can go faster
forward and then you can go
back tomorrow in
you should
see on the way home through what is
affectionately known as the rape tunnel
I’m
sure happy Sunday I’m finishing this
third coffee and then going to climb to
the top of that hill over
there and so it begins it’s about 2 200
stairs to the
top the trail is about 400 m long and
the total Ascent is about 110
[Applause]
M this bridge that you can see through a
lot of the city center was used to
transport Limestone to the factory
limestone is used to transform iron ore
into steel Andre of the two museums
yesterday mentioned that they might turn
this bridge
into something for the
civilians not sure what but maybe
something like Highland Park in New
York I don’t know if you can see it but
these steps are slanted downward like
back up against the way you’re climbing
and they’re also slanted to the
side to where the hill
slopes and here it is the view from the
top that’s the Civic Center the
Socialist modernist Civic
Center and if you keep following the
river all the way to the
end that patch of city is another
neighborhood the third one we haven’t
gone to there yet it’s like new
rash that was entirely uh designed under
socialist Romania as
well and then to the right you can’t
really see it well here but to the right
of the bridge that’s old where the
factory is where we went
yesterday and there’s the brand new
building my apartment is
in and the sign here that I was just
standing on says UCM rashit founded
1771 uh
UCM that’s one of the two entities that
rashit works split into so I’m guessing
the UCM entity paid for this sign so my
landlord was telling me that the rashita
stairs challenge just took place last
week and the fastest climb from bottom
to top was 3 minutes and 8 seconds I
just took about 7
minutes and you see a car up here so you
don’t have to walk up to the top you can
drive through uh the village do
and every year the custom rock festival
is held here up here at the top after
this I’m thinking I deserve some day
drinking and here again is that bridge
that carried the
Limestone to the steel works
back in the Civic
Center look a monument to an old cell
phone the monument to the cell phone is
right outside the uh the Croatian counil
it here
let’s try another
[Music]
bar heading back into Oldtown looking
for a
haircut okay so made an appointment for
a Romanian steel town on haircut
tomorrow with all this free time going
to walk about an hour here in Oldtown to
a cemetery where I’m hoping to see some
old Stones pre- Romania
days so this area has some of the oldest
houses in bit uh where I drove up to
which is where the cemetery is a couple
days ago to see the view of the
Town old Slovak houses yeah some 200
Slovak families settled here in 184
6 and the houses they built are the
oldest in the
city and it’s back in hapsburg Empire
days I’m on Beethoven
Street and here’s the entrance to the
cemetery so it took about 35 minutes of
walking not bad it is 80° out
though and I am walking uphill
oh found the first German
names right here in the front at the
entrance it has pictures Johan Fisher
born 1881 died
1935 I presume his wife Yanni Fisher
1904 to
1943 and then I guess uh their daughter
Cina fiser she died in 1964 okay I’ll
just walk around for a bit and show you
a few
Stones see what the oldest Stone is that
I can
find here’s another Johan died
1928 ysep a Hungarian Stone this guy
died 1915 born
1850 oh look at this an iron sarcophagus
H found the recordbreaker so far this
guy died in
1898 and the writing on the stone is in
German lots of German names in fact
mostly German
names I think I’m in what is called
Cemetery number
two and I haven’t seen any intricately
designed Stone everything is uh rather
austere
spoke too soon here’s a nice
sculpture let’s check out inside here
we did
it time to try to find some uh Romanian
food this area is known as the row area
and it’s formed from the workers
dwellings built during the middle of the
19th century and as you can see it’s on
the slopes behind the blast
furnace and this consists of various
Origins there’s not just slovaks there’s
Czechs and Germans and they settled here
in connection with the construction and
expansions of the steel works
it’s a salad soup CH Salata something
something something
and now for balcon
haircut haircut done what do you
think so uh now I’m going to check out
the third neighborhood I haven’t been
there yet new
RIT new RIT is also known as North ritza
or uh bava’s
Meadow this neighborhood was entirely
built after 19 65 under socialist
Romania look at that coming up communist
Mosaic I’d expect nothing less from a
neighborhood built by socialist Romania
um what’s the date there
1981 this is on the side of a high
school they also call this neighborhood
goad I think I said that
right so this is a socialist modernist
building the Museum of mountainous
bonot and see if it’s
open this building was completed in
1987 the guard just told
me here are some photos of the the blast
furnaces an operation at the end of the
1800s and
now photo from the communist
period this Romanian Heroes Monument was
erected in 2008 and it’s by the same
sculptor who built the 1984 kinetic
Fountain the Civic
Center I see a restaurant
called American
[Music]
food it was like no Burger I’ve ever had
before I’ll leave it at
that Cinema data was completed in 1963
and I just read that it has the biggest
movie screen in all of Romania outside
of in Bucharest
there’s live music going on in here
right now
[Music]
now you know what the biggest screen in
Romania outside of Bucharest looks
like you’re not allowed to take photos
in
there people
uh yelled at
me I know I know I know I know
I think we get the idea heading back to
the car moving
on Welcome to the largest open air
Railway Museum and all of
Europe the fact produced
1,491 steam
locomotives the last one they produced
was 1964 after that they moved to Diesel
and electric locomotives There are
16 in this
Museum this one’s from
1935 year of my father’s
birth so this is what was going on back
then and here it is the main attraction
of the museum the star of the show
they’re calling it
Romania’s first steam
locomotive per the sign it was built in
1872 which of course as we know um this
area was not part of Romania back then
so I guess I guess we should say this is
the first steam locomotive built on the
territory of what is today’s Romania
still pretty
cool it’s
named
theit so I was just minding my own
business driving to the center and I
noticed out my window this communist
statue you know what this is you
remember the other golden statue I
showed you in front of that abandoned
building magazine Universal um he had
men’s underwear in his right hand and a
turbine in his left hand held up high so
that statue and this statue were part of
the same sculptural Ensemble let’s call
it erected on the 200th anniversary of
rashit work so in
1971 at some point the city must have
decided to disassemble the monument and
Scatter the statues I’m going to put up
a picture now of the original Monument
everything will become clear to you
then now look at
that FYI this is the kinetic Fountain I
was referring to earlier in Nitza so
this Fountain was built by the same guy
that built the Romanian Heroes Monument
um this Fountain was put up in
1984 Fountain you might have have asked
and that’s why I brought it up again
they’re repairing
it so this morning I’m driving about a
half an hour outside the city uh toward
a national park hopefully for some
Lakeside coffee
here’s the
lake I just got to find coffee
now the rumor I heard back in the city
is that the mayor of RIT owns this
place so the village I’ve been driving
around the same one with the lake the
one that has no coffee at all whatsoever
um was called frondorf back in the day
it was founded in 1793 by some 300
austrians from the south kago region I
love that area in
Austria this church can’t find a name on
it can’t find a name on the map either
but uh I’m going to say it was built
under the hapsburg Empire days so it
would be Roman
Catholic back in the great city of
Rashida now we know if you want to leave
the city b o c
here’s a hydroelectric power plant
completed in
1909 it’s still functioning
[Music]
this is craft Burgers King burger with a
waterfall of cheddar
cheese last full day in rash that
squeaky new
building that’s where I’ve been
staying I wonder if I can get inside the
Sports Hall here
this is City Hall by the way I’ve shown
it to you I don’t think I mentioned
it and attached to City Hall is
a County
hall there’s a video game Museum not so
far from here about 9 minutes walk kind
of looks like an arcade from the
pictures I think for my last full day in
this city I’m going to play video games
after coffee and we’ll call it a
rrap this is how the entrance to an
arcade should be
the real
Sega the Romanian copy of
Sega the real
Atari the Romanian copy of
Atari so this room is where dead arcade
machines come to be
resurrected by Andre
now you’ve learned everything I’ve
learned about
Rashid interesting place visit for the
Socialist modernist architecture and the
industrial landscape don’t go for bars
there are none don’t go for Romanian
food very difficult to find for some
reason heading to Tim awada now I
understand some friends are descending
upon the city from Serbia and different
parts of armania to throw me a welcome
back from Rashida
party how about
that just entered the town of bash and
thanks to its Healing Springs this town
was once one of the most famous bathing
places in all of Hungary and then
Romania it was known as the pearl of
bonat I’m going to stop the car real
quick and just take a very fast walk see
how the town’s doing these
days they have an airport themed
restaurant
here soora around two centuries medical
tourism has been the basis of bash’s
economy let’s take a peek through the
broken windows of this
mansion and the most famous thing to see
here I guess now is this half a
kilometer long wood lace
colonade that was built by Emperor
France Joseph in
1875 for Empress CeCe to enjoy her
strolls around the
park empresses like to be shaded by wood
lace you know ooh another abandoned
hotel along the path of this colonade
check it
out okay we’ll take the colon back to
the car and uh continue onward to M
[Music]
Water this is a picturesque town I’m
driving
through it’s known as the home of the
donin the danub
swabians ethnic Germans speaking
population uh from back in the Kingdom
of hungry days
arrived Tim mwat I’m going to spare you
the details about this city because you
already know everything there is to know
about timw because you’ve seen the video
that I made a couple months ago I’ll put
a link to it in the description below in
case you want to watch it
again McDonald’s advertising their
chefs fancy what a fancy
town and if you haven’t seen my timw
video you really should this is one of
my favorite cities in all of
Europe so uh here’s home sweet home for
the weekend
that’s a nice open shower and check out
the
bathtub oh good okay there’s a
downstairs bathroom as well I was
getting
worried in a washing
machine I like it what the The Wolf of
Icarus is what you
[Music]
said this is the welcome back from
rashita party that I was telling you all
about you can just you know look at
us we better we better get going we
better get
going you
love go
say something sexy it’s for
Reds yeah get behind this car right over
here you’ll get your McDonald’s there
you go just stand in line yep oh go
forward forward
okay we
go what’s wrong what don’t they have
tell me what went on they don’t they
don’t have anything for us because we
don’t have a car you need a car to order
yeah you need a car before they no
they’ve surve me but you know they’ve
served me with a car what’s the
definition of a car maybe we can a car
wheels or maybe yes me and I can sort of
get on the ground and you guys can hop
on try to be Wheels right that’s really
weird though right if if if you go back
if you go back
andic to because in his
tours Y is
calibrating yes
from now on she will never get
disoriented in to MW she’s touched she’s
touched the bega
River you eat this what’s it
[Laughter]
called one two
3 thank
you that looks
great happy
[Music]
Easter magical I thought this was a
magical it is a
[Music]
photo
chick yesina tequila flavored beer J
Penny J to J peny J pen J
Penny little behind the
[Music]
scenes
why thank you Petra
[Applause]
y we got flare did we win we won we
won nice
[Applause]
[Music]
oh yeah
recording and there it is I I’ve told
him everything I know about uh where did
I just come
from R there it is okay bye that’s what
10 days in Romania could look like seven
of them
in just picked up my new uh Soda Stream
CO2 cylinder the real reason I came into
Romania and uh heading back home to
first shots where the show
started see you next time

19. March – 14. April 2024. Wandering around my place in Vršac, Serbia, I noticed a plaque with an inscription that the iron bridges were forged at the steelworks in Reșița, Romania late 1800s (back when this part of Serbia and that part of Romania – the Banat region – were Austria-Hungary). I’ve never been to Reșița. It’s only 1.5 hours from Vršac. Let’s go to industrial socialist modernist Reșița!

And after Reșița, let’s have a welcome back party in Timișoara, with special guest star,@TravelingAndBadDecisions!

Referenced videos:

Timișoara: https://youtu.be/3UZVBOvPitw?si=PyLX_oLH6DNhqOvv