Since the fall of Ceaușescu’s regime in 1989, Romania has experienced massive emigration, a trend it still struggles to curb. While the country claims integration into all European Union treaties, many of its citizens can already consider themselves deeply European, having lived in different countries across Europe and mastering multiple languages. In the northwest, Transylvania has always been at the crossroads of cultures. Here, one finds Romanians who wish to leave and those who, on the contrary, dream of rebuilding their lives in their homeland, as well as new immigrants from the West or the Global South, for whom Transylvania represents an unexpected opportunity.
Série de photographies réalisée lors d'une carte blanche de l'Institut français de Cluj-Napoca avec le soutien du programme Culture Moves Europe piloté par le Goethe-Institut.
This series of photographs was taken in the spring of 2024 during a carte blanche project at the French Institute of Cluj-Napoca, with the support of the Culture Moves Europe program, led by the Goethe-Institut.
In Turda, we meet visual artist Liviu Bulea, who has lived in Berlin for a long time after spending years in Vienna and Kraków. As he takes us on a tour of the industrial city where he grew up, he recalls his childhood spent wandering while his mother worked constantly to provide for the bare necessities.
The industrial city of Turda was hit hard by the economic shock of the 1990s, leaving its city center in a ghostly state for years, much like its abandoned cinema. Today, European subsidies allow the municipality to undertake renovation projects, gradually bringing the city back to life.
As both an artist and curator, Liviu now seeks to develop artist residencies in Romania to support contemporary disciplines that lack substantial funding. He takes us to see Turda’s House of Culture—an imposing building whose demolition has begun, even though it was never inaugurated. Its construction was abruptly halted with the fall of the communist regime in 1989.
Just a few steps away, we notice an unfinished residential building. The social housing units built under Ceaușescu’s government were sold at low prices to former tenants after 1989. Since then, these buildings have been managed as condominiums, leaving homeowner associations responsible for maintenance and common areas—an often unsustainable burden.
While teachers in France are on break for the April holidays, Ioana enjoys the gentle Transylvanian spring. Living and working in Paris, she is spending her vacation in Cluj, where she studied literature and ethnology in the 2000s. Ioana recalls the cultural shock of 1989 that led her to migrate westward. Younger generations are not immune to the desire to move abroad either.
At the Mihai Eminescu Romanian-French bilingual high school in Cluj-Napoca, we meet Flavia. Speaking somewhat hesitant French, the high school student shares her wish to study literature and deepen her knowledge of Italian. She was born in Italy to Romanian parents who spent several years working in a hotel in Ravenna. Given Romania's challenging economic situation, she hopes to return to Italy, where her parents also plan to settle permanently.
In the Făget Forest, we meet Laura, who speaks fluent English. When she was born, her grandparents bought a plot of land on the forest's edge for her family. Her father regularly worked abroad to save money, and after 18 years of financial effort, her parents are finally realizing their dream by starting to build their home. Yet, Laura envisions leaving Romania to live abroad after her studies. While her family emigrated before her, she notes a generational divide.
« Before, people used to say that Romania was the best country in the world, and suddenly, after communism, everything that came from the West was wonderful! »
In front of Babeș-Bolyai University, we meet two Nigerian students, Marvis and Gabriel, who are studying political science in the Transylvanian capital, where it is still rare to come across African nationals. Thanks to competitive tuition fees, they have the opportunity to study in Europe with a degree recognized at the EU level.
Romania’s partial integration into the Schengen area now allows non-EU students to travel freely across Europe, enriching their experience. But Cluj’s universities also benefit Europeans; faced with a shortage of places in French veterinary schools, Chloé failed the entrance exam twice and had to consider foreign schools to pursue her dream. She now finds herself moving to a country she previously knew only through a few stereotypes but instantly falls in love with the city.
Joining the cheerleading club helps her fully integrate into the community of French-speaking students, who are primarily enrolled in medical, dental, and veterinary programs.
« In my mind, I thought I would get in right away. But I realized that the selection process is very strict abroad as well. »
« My parents went abroad to return home for peace and quiet. But I want change, and I want to experience new things! »
Just a stone’s throw from Cluj-Napoca, the Făget Forest stretches as far as the eye can see, offering locals a space for leisure and walks—a welcome breath of fresh air amid the city’s rapid urban expansion. In the Bună Ziua district, modern housing developments stand alongside the few remaining traditional houses.
Urban growth has been accompanied by a sharp rise in real estate prices across Romania. While the average Romanian salary has surpassed 850 euros (just over 4,000 lei), inflation has also driven up the cost of basic food products, which remain highly dependent on imports. This situation fuels a sense of nostalgia among many Romanians for nature, as rural exodus was as abrupt as the mass emigration that followed the economic upheavals of the 1990s.
In the small village of Sarata, in Sibiu County, many Romanians still practice subsistence farming, often as a supplement to salaried jobs that do not provide enough to live on. There, we meet a Franco-Romanian couple in their thirties. Originally from the city of Brașov, Simina met her partner in France. The couple spent several years traveling through Western Europe, towing their caravan equipped with a built-in bread oven and staying in alternative communities.
Now, they have settled in this depopulated and aging rural area to establish a participatory woodworking workshop and develop a self-sufficient farm. They invite us to climb onto the plateau overlooking Sarata, where fertile plains stretch endlessly to the north, while to the south, the forest extends into the Carpathian mountain range. The village, deeply affected by rural exodus, feels visibly isolated.
