Halloween in Romania

A popular holiday in the West, Halloween has also been enthusiastically embraced by Romanians in recent years.

Daniel Onea, 24.10.2013, 13:01

For a few years now, Halloween has also been celebrated on October 31st in Romania. This fact has caused changes in how tourism agencies handle business, adapting to the new circumstances. They included in their offers haunted houses, bonfires, period balls, and traditional dance shows. Clubs in the big cities, such as Cluj, Brasov, Sibiu and Bucharest have already put up posters for special events, mostly involving vampires.

This year, the celebration is on a Thursday, and so the events extend to the weekend, on November 1 and 2. One excellent place to visit is Bragadiru Palace in Bucharest. This beautiful building, erected in 1905 based on the designs of the Austrian architect Anton Shuckerl, hosts a dinner with the Addams family. You are invited into the WonderUnderWorld hall, where you can party until dawn among graves, skeletons and spider webs. Outside in the palace garden there is an exhibition of costumes, where professionals stand ready to paint your face in patterns typical of this holiday.

You find the best Halloween celebrations in the heart of Transylvania, at Dracula’s castle, according to the organisers of the first edition of the Horror and Fantasy Film Festival, as Anca Gradinaru, a journalist and film critic explains: “Dracula is a hugely popular brand, of which Romanians have not managed to take advantage properly. In addition, there are very few horror and fantasy festivals in Romania, considering how dedicated and enthusiastic the audience is. We thought it would be a brilliant idea to have such a festival in Dracula’s castle, it has tremendous potential.”

Initially designed to last three days, the event now stretches over five. It is a big festival, with over 40 films, Anca Gradinaru says:

“It starts on 30 October, with Crypt animation live, animated horror, and a live band. It continues with a Halloween party and screenings of classic films as well as new productions and Romanian and foreign short films, a silent movie with a new soundtrack, and a lot of theme parties. We also hold an event in Bran castle, where we show the first Dracula film ever made, Nosferatu, followed by a Halloween party. We try to blend film, entertainment and music. We have two parties, one right on Halloween, with the Aria Urbana band, and another in the cellar of horror, a place especially created for the festival. We’ll make it really scary, but attractive at the same time. On Saturday we have another party at Bran. We have a tent set up there, which will also serve a lot of different foods. We encourage people to come in costume. We will also have competitions for best character, best vampire, and best zombie, alongside all kinds of other competitions with prizes.”

Brasov is usually teeming with tourists this time of the year. They come in all year long, but Halloween is especially popular. According to Anca Gradinaru, they come thanks to Dracula’s popularity:

“Hotels offer special packages for this festival, even though this is the first edition. We hope that more and more people will hear about this festival, banking on a well-known brand name, but also on the fact that we have a great variety of offers from the very first edition. Even a tourist who is not a horror film fan has lots of things to do. There is enough time to visit the area, which is magnificent, and is getting more and more popular. If we go abroad and mention Transylvania, it’s hard to meet someone who doesn’t wish to visit. It’s a magical land, and if people come to the festival, they can travel during the day and then catch a film at night, then join a party and get to know people. Around this time at Bran we promote tourism and socialising, which seems to me the perfect combination.”

David Jalea, a programme coordinator with a tourist agency in Brasov, has an alternative proposal:

“Around Halloween we have two special packages, two tours, one is four days, and the other is seven days. Foreign tourists especially are invited to come and discover Romania, both its cultural and historical sites, and its natural sites. Of course, during this time we offer them a lot of information about Vlad the Impaler, both history and legend. The highlight is the Halloween party. We believe that Transylvania is the ideal place to spend Halloween, especially in a medieval castle. Therefore we offer them a party in Corvinus Castle in Hunedoara, built in the 14th century. This is a private party exclusively for the members of the group. It has a medieval atmosphere, with knights, dances, light and fire shows, and a medieval dinner, just like the knights of yore used to have. Both tours include trips to Bucharest, Curtea de Arges, the castle in Poenari, the city of Sibiu, the fortifications of Sighisoara and Brasov, Bran Castle and Snagov monastery. These are the highlights of the tour.”

Wearing a Halloween costume is not obligatory, but recommended. There will be prizes for the best costumes. And, because this year’s party is in the third edition, we asked David Jalea about the feedback he got from the participants in previous years:

“Most of the people who visited us and used our services left with a great impression of Romania, were delighted with Romania’s tourist and cultural potential, and said their impression changed radically compared to what they expected before they got here. They loved the historical sites, the fact that we showed them the castles, the painted monasteries in Bukovina, cities such as Cluj, Sibiu, the Danube Delta, the Carpathian Mountains, local traditions and cuisine. During Halloween we have guests from the US, Canada, the UK, places where this holiday is traditional, but we also get tourists from Germany, Spain and South America.”