Rural Tourism in the Apuseni Mountains, Romania.

An anthropological research on using natural and cultural resources in developing tourism in a poor region

by Serban Vaetisi Faculty of European Studies Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Abstract This is an essay on prior findings of a larger research project in Albac area, Apuseni Mountains, Romania, where rural tourism dramatically developed during the last ten years. After the fall of communist bloc in Eastern Europe this region became increasingly interesting not only for investors but also for tourists. Situated in the center of Transylvania, The Apuseni (Western) Mountains, were already known because of their beautiful landscapes and their inhabitants hospitality promoted by the Romania official propaganda, as well as thanks to the Transylvanian mythical figure of Dracula, promoted by Western popular culture. Nevertheless rural tourism developed here after 1990 on different bases, linked with individual prestige and initiative, competition, social and power relations and favorable political-economic context (encouraging legislation and forest restitution to local people), and on the previous forms of alternative tourism, as secondary economy and culture in the 1970s and 1980s. Our aim is to observe how tourist entrepreneurs, guests and local people perceive and use both natural and cultural resources in participating to, developing, and being affected by rural tourism development in the region. The discussion will assess some processes, values and strategies within this phenomenon, in order to understand more deeply the way people involved in it are behaving. The research is based on an ethnographic fieldwork conducted during Spring and Winter of 2005, together with a research team I coordinated, from Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania, on the framework of Regional Seminar for Excellence in Teaching Teaching Anthropology Means and Meanings research project financed by Higher Education Support Program. Besides this fieldwork, which provided us data from participant observation and in-deep interviews, we studied archives and official and promotional documents. Keywords: rural tourism, Romania, Apuseni Mountains, using natural and cultural resources, tourism development, tourism impact, values and strategies involved in rural tourism development, ethnography, cultural anthropology.

Photo 1. Apuseni Mountains settlement.

Introduction
Apuseni Mountains is a poor region in the highland center of Transylvania, where mining and wood exploitation were, for years, the main economic activities. A homogeneous rural Romanian population, with specific traditional practices, have been living here (the Moti), and splendid natural landscapes (caves, crags, large green valleys, and lawns) are everywhere visible around. These mountains are distinctive because of highly dispersed settlement patterns (Surd&Turnock, 2000) developed along with the peoples practice of clearing the forests to allow for the expansion of family farming (Abrudan&Turnock, 1999). During the socialist period the centralized political economy developed mining and extractive industry and provided housing and facilities in the new constructed little industrial towns. As forms of secondary economy and alternative culture, a spontaneous tourism was here developed, in the sense of irregular lodgings of individual and extreme (mainly climbing or cave amateurs) tourists who were wandering around. After the fall of the communist bloc in Central Eastern Europe this region, as well as other touristicadvantaged regions, has become increasingly interesting for investors and tourists in what we label today ecotourism, rural tourism, agrotourism, cultural tourism or sustainable tourism (Hall, 2004, 2000; Ateljevic&Doorne, 2003; Holland, Burian&Dixey, 2003; Turnock, 2002; Jaakson, 1998; Ratz&Puczko, 1998; Bran, Marin&Simon, 1997).

Within the last fifteen years the population of the region is declining and is becoming older in face of limited employment opportunities, after the industry decreased, and poor services and infrastructure. The emphasis on private farming and the expansion of sustainable tourism (Hall, 2004; Abrudan&Turnock, 1999) could help the local economy and population, with their inherited cultural traditions, and could protect the affected natural environment of the region. This is expected because, although the tourisms above have specific definitions, they have the common idea of protecting natural and cultural resources and of sustainability. Herein tourism has been seen as the most appropriate to conserve Apuseni natural beauties and traditional life, in the same time with conferring an important impetus of development for a region which, after industrial restructuring, has been living a new period of uncertainties. Nevertheless, this new touristic policy of sustainability need to be assessed in how it is actually applied, and how it is actually developed at the level of common practices of both hosts and guests, and how it is received by local communities. In this, the anthropological perspective and research have been considered very important and useful, as being appropriate for observing the local community and hosts-guests interaction, as well as for its critical political approach (Burns, 2004; Stronza, 2001; Chambers, 2000; Nash, 1996; Eadington&Smith, 1992; Crick, 1991; Urry, 1990; Buck, 1982). In this paper we will focus more on using natural and cultural resources in developing this form of alternative tourism, than to assess its sustainability. Our anthropological approach, however, will be able to offer a description of a local phenomenon, to provide an understanding of some processes, strategies and meanings that this phenomenon involves, and therefore to provide an implicit comment on some important effects of this form of tourism. Even if one does not start the analysis from the viewpoint of authors such as Greenwood (1989) and Mason (1996), who argue that tourism results in the destruction or prostitution of once unique cultures (cf. Kneafsey, 1998), we have to observe how tourism is involved in a form of consumption. This indicates that tourists, in the broader framework of tourist industry and tourist practices, commodify, use and devour touristic places with their natural and cultural elements included. In some extent, however, tourism entrepreneurs and hosts adopt the same behavior regarding their own natural and cultural environment (cf. Creighton, 1997; Stronza, 2004), by benefiting from it and in order to promote it. What really means this fact for local people, and what are the patterns, actions and significances involved are to be clearly assessed. We will be able to see in this ethnographic description how these processes and practices are developing in the Albac central area of Apuseni Mountains, and how the fashionable implication of local people in tourism have impact on them. A local woman, engaged in timber industry, but willing to start her own pension said: If we destroy all the woods my children will not be able to enjoy them anymore, as we enjoy them. I would open a touristic pension to make them to understand how vital the forest is. With this we will understand not only the importance of (using) natural and cultural resources, but the strategies and values implicated in this process as well.

Photo 2. Constructing pensions in Albac.

Background: Tourism and rural tourism in Romania and in Apuseni Mountains

Experience for yourself one of Europes best kept secrets the Romanian Village. Here, the extensive natural and cultural wealth of the countryside has been combined with unsurpassable, traditional hospitality in the development of rural tourism. (Take a step back from reality, Romanian Ministry of Tourism, promoting editorials, http://www.netsoft.ro/people/mdragoi/romania/touristic/rural/index.html)

Romania is associated on a touristic mental map with some landmarks: Black Sea, Bucowina monasteries, Danube Delta, The Carpathians, Dracula, Ceausescus Palace These do not constitute however, for long time, rationally exploited brands. Only within the last years specific policies and marketing plans have been developed for including these objectives on an appropriate modern touristic map. The main impediment is infrastructure, then services and information, then the changing legislation that received, however, a noticeable improvement in the last period. Rural tourism as a more

recent phenomenon has, more or less, the same problems above. Even they are in the full process of privatization, both need important state investments, especially regarding roads of access. International fund assistance offered by Support for Pre-accession Measures for Agriculture and Rural Development (SAPARD) or International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) for constructing or modernizing houses and commune facilities are crucial as well for rural tourism. On the basis of a governmental decision of declaring poor regions as Apuseni Mountains defavorized areas (zone defavorizate) the implementation of these funds are facilitated by a specific policy of reimbursement (SAPARD, 2002). Alternative tourism in Romania has been seen as strategy not only of surpassing the old clumsy mass tourism, but of stimulating new legislation, new policies and new economic development for poor rural areas. Moreover, as in Romania tourism has prove to be difficult to manage at the country level, the private investors in rural tourism have been seen, if not as those who will professionalize the touristic personnel (often described as having communist reflexes), as those who will invest because they will be directly interested in infrastructure and information services, which will conduct finally to the economic development of the touristic regions. This is surely a simplistic, ideal scenario, because there appear new problems. On the one hand, what is the proportion that a form of tourism defined as nonintrusive could attain at the level of the country? On the other hand, consequently, in what extent this new form of tourism will succeed to manage both the protection of natural and cultural environment, and the economic development? The emergence of this alternative tourism could be interpreted either as an alternative form of tourism to the mass and centralized traditional tourism of former communist period (see for instance a presentation of the Estonian case in Jaakson, 1998) or as a structural form of response to a new socioeconomic and cultural context (see an analysis of Maramures case in Turnock, 2002). Whatever interpretation we adopt this emergence is primarily perceived in association with changing peoples mentalities and activities, and here, cultural anthropology could provide a more rigorous evaluation of this phenomenon than, for instance a developmental economic analysis or a human geographical one. The development of rural tourism in Romania supposed (i) a kind of relationship to a previous tradition; (ii) a good dosis of mimetism; (iii) full exploitation of natural and cultural elements, (v) tourists desire of participating to new forms of tourism and (vi) favorable legislation and favorable global context. We have to understand, however, the development of this phenomenon at the level of host communities and their changing options (values, interests, economic and employment opportunities, access to new resources or fund credits). In Apuseni Mountains rural tourism started its development with the institutional help of two main organization, a French-Belgian one, Opration Villages Roumanies (OVR) and a Romanian one, associated to the European federation for rural tourism, EUROGTES, named National Association of Rural, Ecologic and Cultural Tourism (ANTREC). The former was primarily interested in making known internationally the dictator Ceausescus plan of village resettlement, and then, after the end of its dictatorship, in promoting rural tourism in Romania. The latter association aimed to professionalize and implement legislation within rural tourism, as well as to conduct training sessions and conferences for popularizing rural tourism in Romania. If on early

1990 there could be notice a sort of competition between OVR and ANTREC in controlling rural tourism in Romania (Turnock, 2002:66) within the last 5-7 years the role of ANTREC has become increasingly important. Today the most rural boarding houses in Romania are affiliated to ANTREC, which is engaged in promoting them through tourist fairs, magazines, and web pages. ANTREC has also an important role in classifying the boarding houses in a system equivalent to that of common hotels, although not in stars but in corresponding daises. Among other touristic areas, ANTREC consider Albac as the center of rural tourism not only in Apuseni Mountains (ANTREC, 2004), where its central position is also geographically, but in the whole Romania as well, where its central position is symbolically assumed (the act of constitution of ANTREC was signed in Albac), even though other areas, like Bran area in Brasov region, are more developed regarding rural tourism. Despite this, local people (who are, generally, the only investors in local rural tourism there) are not very happy of being associated with ANTERC, because, as one of the host were saying they did not help us with anything they organized some courses but they taught us things that we already were doing, such as how to cook or how to receive guests We need funds to construct roads not lessons like these! Apuseni Mountains could be described as a rich touristic region covering the mountainous and valley region of three counties, of about 20,000 square km, of an almost circular shape. They possess a rich and accessible karstic system, large woods, rivers and lakes, and about 25 villages or hamlets where rural tourism is more or less practiced. Well-known objectives are Cetatile Ponorului (The Fortress of Ponor Karst) or Pestera Ursilor (Bears Cave) for climbing and cave tourism, respectively Padis area and BelisFantanele area, with its lake, for camping and caravan tourism. Just along the main Apuseni river, the Aries, where Albac commune is situated, there are three other important rural touristic sites: Garda de Sus (a more afforested area), Horea (taking the name of a national and local hero) and Arieseni (where skiing is practicable, some years from December to April). Each of these villages has many pensiuni (boarding houses), Horea the less, because of very poor access, Garda much dispersed along the river, Arieseni less traditional because of the sumptuous villas constructed here by the nouveaux riches, and Albac the most representative, with up to thirty pensiuni and most compactly disposed. Albac commune is actually situated at the confluence of Aries river with Arada, its tributary, at 620 m altitude, in a temperate mixed deciduous and coniferous vegetal environment. The population (2,246 inhabitants) is ethnically compact, relatively balanced from the point of view of age and gender, but highly unbalanced from the economic point of view (after the industrial restructuring, only 8% of population is effectively involved in a job, the rest having as main occupation family farming and wood exploitation). Starting with 1992-1994 local people opened their extra rooms or constructed new guesthouses for tourists in a regular and legal manner. Besides ANTREC, which plays also a role of travel agency, other agencies such as Apuseni Experience or Apuseni Adventure (initiated by some young intellectuals in the commune) are involving in attracting tourists. Touristic activities are mainly participation to local life, eating local natural food and chatting together with hosts, participation to periodical folkloric shows or fairs, hiking, skiing, horse riding or involving in some new special

sports such as kayaking, mountain biking or jeep touring. In supporting these activities many local peoples without regular jobs are involved. Traditional handicraft like manufacturing large ciubere (wooden tubs) is not longer an occupation (there is only one person in the commune who crafts this sort of vessel). Nevertheless our hosts mother, an old woman wearing a more traditional clothes than the young peoples, were still working at a razboi de tesut (wooden loom) some colorful presuri (mats) that decorated the rooms in the boarding house where we were lodged. In Albac rural tourism dramatically increased within the last ten years and a prediction of the local mayoralty indicate its further development.
Number of pensiuni 1 11 16 22 27 34 Years 1992-1993 1997-1998 1997-1999 2003-2004 2004-2005 2005-2007

Table 1. Evolution of (classified) guesthouses in Albac (sources: Gheres&Culda, 2000; ANTREC web site: http://www.antrec.ro; Albac mayoralty).

This development characterizes the whole rural area of Aries valley and all the populated areas of Apuseni Mountains. Albac is just the most dynamic rural touristic center. For instance, comparing to Garda de Sus, situated upper on the Aries river, its evolution is from 9 guesthouses between 1997-1999 to 13 in 2003 to 17 in 2004 much below the number and dynamics of Albac touristic evolution. In 2004, officially there were 108 rooms and 214 beds with 81 bathrooms in Albac. But, in addition to those, belonging to the 27 affiliated guesthouses, many other rooms are available during top touristic periods, like on summer or winter vacations, or even are ad hoc improvised on demand.

Photo 3. Advertising in Albac.

Pension ownership, local community, hosts, and guests in Albac: a complex relationship
The Foreigners have less pretentions than the Romanians. (host in Albac) As beautiful as my pension looks like, the same will look the whole village (political slogan of the mayor of Albac, during the 2004 local elections)

The factors that drove local people to engage in touristic affair are: (i) the existence of a financial capital, of useful social networks and political power among some people, (ii) a favorable legislation , (iii) initiative and necessity to diversify the lucrative activities among women and young people, (iv) unemployment as a result of industry restructuring and the availability of old and retired people, (v) suitable natural and cultural ambiance, (vi) the prior existence in the area of a certain flow of tourists and the prior practice of lodging tourists, (vii) available empty rooms or even whole houses as a result of investing the woods in constructing houses and cottages after 1990.

The effective preparation of a touristic pension did not imply big effort at the beginning. For the Romanian tourists the (minimal) facilities of such a pensiune already meant a progress, since they were accustomed to sleep in tents or in the same house with the host and to take their meals around an open fire. As regards the foreign (Western) tourists of these first years, because of lack of information and good access, they were exactly that type of tourists who sought poor facilities and uncomfortable conditions as opposed to the perfect standardized ones. Nevertheless this situation changed within the last years: the Romanians have become increasingly more pretentious, as they were not just young adventurers but also families, old people or snobbish people in seek of another kind of tourism, more authentic, as promised by the promotional brochures or travel agents (cf. Deutschlander&Miller, 2003; Harkin, 2003). CONTINUARE At the same time, the foreign tourists diversified as well and became more numerous. There still could be made a comparison, however, between the two groups of tourists. As many pension owners observed, the Romanians have more pretentions regarding meals and facilities and are regularly more concerned with their clothes and personal objects, meanwhile the foreigners show little interest in being regaled with copious meals or in having many clothes, and more interest in relaxing in nature. If we consider this as being a general correct observation we could explain these differences by a touristic culture still in construction. While the foreigners probably do not expect that rural tourism in Romania be perfect regarding facilities, among Romanian is visible a sort of social ostentation they are feeling to have to display as rural tourists, i.e. people that have access to a fashionable way of spending their vacation. The idea of prestige, competition and participation in a new fashionable activity is present among the local owners as well. The network of social relations constituted by relatives, neighbors and people in power positions offering reciprocities, so usually and active in the Romanian village (Kideckel, 1993), is challenged by a new phenomenon rural tourism which provide a new form of exercising prestige and competition for accessing useful resources and display. A big, beautiful, new guesthouse, regularly visited by foreigners, who sometimes are even sending greetings cards (an event rapidly made known to the neighbor owners) is a sum in terms of prestige. Being informed, being invited to participate to international touristic fairs, having economically or politically powerful relatives or friends, receiving funds and constructing new admirable cottages is the maximum, not just in terms of prestige but also in terms of competition for material and symbolic resources. With years, as the tourists diversified and their pretentions increased, the owners sought to offer more not only in attracting the more and more sophisticated rural tourist, but also in alimenting this prestige and competition. This implied also a specific use of natural and cultural resources as we will see further. The pension where we were lodged while developing our fieldwork has the following announcement hosted by ANTREC webpage:
A guesthouse located at 10m from the Arada river, in a quite area, close to the fir tree forests. The guesthouse is composed of two buildings: a traditional wooden house, with a typical local architecture, and a modern building, located close to the first one. The gorgeous view of the mountains covered with fir tree forests and the beautiful river flowing a few meters away will surely delight you.

Your host is a very dynamic and welcoming person. She is always ready to receive you as honour guests. Her daughters are the best guides to help you discover the beauties of this region, including the traditional activities of local people in this mountain area. Its for sure you will recommend to your friends to spend their holidays in this guesthouse! (http://www.ruraltourism.ro/apuseni/pensiuni%20apuseni/albac/zgaiba/html/zgaibaen.html)

Besides facilities, the activities are, however, the strong part of a rural holiday. The same web page invite us to discover farm activities (milking or collecting hay, berries and mushrooms); to ride in a horse drawn cart or sledge; to participate to festive dinners and open air parties with bon fire and musicians at a chalet in the mountains; to watch wild life and flora, accompanied by the host, and even to fish or hunt on permits that can be obtained; or to visit the crafters, the old Roman gold mines, the gorges and the karst plateau in the region. Nevertheless this rich activity which the touristic program of each pension more or less provides was not enough in terms of prestige for the local mayor who, having political power, and therefore easier access to information and funds, and holding some prior land and money capital as well, planned to construct the best pension in Apuseni. He did, and the result is more like a four star hotel (although is considered a four daises pension) with luxury interiors, but situated at a margin of a wood, with very poor road access. The target of this construction, as the owner let us to understand, is not the simple tourist, who merely seeks to spend the vacation in a rural natural zone, but the sophisticated and rich one, who wants to spend some days or to participate to a conference in a top-class hotel, but situated in the middle of an isolated forest. In fact, this affair probably managed to speculate very well the cultural references to the rural/natural life, where its worthy to return, if not to the benefits of rural tourism that people who are expected to come here are aware of. Leaving apart for a moment this rural luxury hotel it is important to notice that the pension is the place of encounter between hosts and guests, and including between guests and hosts relatives or local community members. It is a place where tourists are coming into contact with the local culture in the broader sense, of local social relations, practices and reflexivity, i.e. not only in the sense of the touristic brochures illustrating embellished folk customs. The dinning room of the pension where we were lodged was in the same time a bar where local people sometimes were meeting. A reaction in the middle of a conversation we had there with the mayors wife, who was the hosts sister-in-law, summarize very well the discussion so far, and exemplifies the competition between hosts: Look at this poor man, she reacted, while scrutining a brochure presenting some pension owners and interiors in Albac, he didnt know even what furniture to buy for his rooms!. At the same table, two days later, the hosts father, a droll old man who entertained tourists with jokes and historical stories, explained us that for the tourist is more important to take a trip to the forest than staying near the furniture. He showed us then a secret path towards and assured that we took with us the old Russian binoculars he gave in the first day, because we were smart, and we had to see the mountains around.

Photo 4. Albac mayors four daises pension during wintertime.

Environment: between touristic objective and resource for constructing new pensions
The Mot has gone throughout the country/For selling pails and wooden tubs (traditional local folklore) We do not craft large wooden tubs anymore because we have the better plastic ones, but we do make this little fancy ones because tourists like them (old man at a Sunday fair in Garda de Sus)

The local environment in Albac is much affected by wood exploitation. Wood exploitation was for long time an economic practice of households family economy (Popa, 2003), then it was a practice of centralized socialist economy, and after 1990 a practice of those who were restituted own forest properties (Lawrence&Szabo, 2005). Selling timber and constructing new houses, and then pensions, was the main utilization of wood. The pensions and the development of rural tourism would be ideally (or logically) the last moment of hard exploitation of woods, because from now on the hosts are supposedly to be aware for the importance of protecting forests in the idea that this is one of the main attraction for the tourists they had built pensions for!

Nevertheless, irrational wood cutting is still a common practice, despite laws against it. One of the last political projects is the building of a National Park of 75,784 ha (Parcul Natural Muntii Apuseni) which will aim to protect flora, fauna, soil and waters of the central and northern zone of the mountainous area. Here wood cutting will be completely forbidden, but this will provoke other economic impediments for a wooddependent population, and probably law violations. Besides wood clearances another ecological problem in Albac is the Aries river which is much polluted by the local practice of throwing garbage or timber splinters into it. Of less visibility respecting the natural environment are the relationship of traditional handicrafts with wood, and the local households relationship with their immediate plots and farmyard. All these practices are intensified and challenged with the tourism development in the region. Not only in terms of deteriorating the natural environment, but also in terms of reinventing nature (Cronon, 1996), and, finally recreating a new relationship between nature and tourism (cf. Harkin, 2003; Whelan, 1991). All these processes and attitudes are very visible within rural tourism development in Albac. Returning to the imposing pension-hotel in the middle of the woods, besides its brutal intrusiveness into a natural setting, a set of other embellishments, which the mayor told us about, is expected to illustrate this tense relationship between nature and tourism. The more shocking is the owner desire of planting English turf in front of the building, on the place destroyed by the big equipments and materials that served to its construction. Other intentions are to set an old watermill on the Arada brook flowing in front of the big pension and to build a horse reservation, near the hotel, serving for horse riding. All these, starting with the imposing construction and finishing with the new paths that were created around affected the natural environment and the way nature is treated, in a significant way. Natural environment is not perceived by local people or guesthouse owners by an ecological point of view. For them, it principally constitutes a rich economic resource for primary and secondary industry. Wood, for instance, is mainly a material for direct use in family industry (cooking and heating combustible, material for carving ladders or fences, material for constructing new houses), or secondary use in selling timber to furniture factories around the country. A tertiary economy and activity related to tourism (cf. McCall&Baker, 1988; Jaakson, 1998) is still very little perceived and practiced. Nevertheless some new attitudes and values, on which we are going to discuss further, are showing that this is an ongoing process, and handcrafting small wooden bibelot-like tubs for no other utility but for decorating the new pension is a sign of its tertialization, since wood is symbolically involved in a service activity. In fact, all the economy of the region, dominated beforehand by timber industry (focused on intensive wood exploitation and sale) and domestic agriculture (focused on individual use of products) is undergoing a challenging process. People are becoming aware that forests are good for tourists watching of wildlife and flora and their wood for touristic handicrafts, while foodstuff produced in the family garden and backyard stable is good for the tourists meals. With this, an own understanding of ecology, less ideologized or imposed from outside policies, is expected to be formed among local people and local tourist entrepreneurs.

Photo 5. Ariesului Valley cleared after wood exploitation.

Cultural resources: rural tourism between ethnonationalist references and an exterior-oriented activity
You Transylvania, we are your soldiers/And our sacred temple are the Apuseni Mountains. (Romanian nationalist song promoted during communist period)

Rural tourism culture and practice in Albac and throughout the country was much constructed on two previous references: (i) lodging practices in villagers houses before rural tourism formally constituted and became fashionable, and (ii) the nationalist discourses in which the Romanian village and the Romanian peasant was embedded (Stahl 1986; Thiesse 1999; Vaetisi 2004). Responding attitudes today are a better understanding of tourists needs in terms of accommodation and visible forms of retraditionalization or refolklorization in association with nationalist values in promoting tourism. They are continuously actualized in order to reinforce a model of interaction (host-guest) and an image of a specific form of tourism. One event where we can better understand these practices and values is The Rural Tourism Fair. This year it has been held in Albac, in March. Organized by ANTREC, it

constituted a vivid display of a mixture of official speeches, traditional dishes and handicrafts, folk dances and costumes, conferences on tourist marketing and management, international contracts, nationalist history and parties. The three national and local heroes, Horea, Closca and Crisan, represented by three naturalistic puppets in actual size, dominated the Albac stand at the fair. Here a couple of young women clothed in folk costumes (that they do not regularly wear) offered explanation and brochures to those interested. At another table everyone was invited to taste and enjoy the local food and drink. At a table behind a middle aged man signed some contracts. On an improvised scene groups of young and old folk musicians and dancers were entertaining the atmosphere. The three-day tourist fair, developed in the Albac sport hall and by visiting the most famous pensions and touristic objectives in the region, finished with a grand party, Balul vanatorilor (the Hunters Ball). Events like this, where are invited to participate not only entrepreneurs but also local people and tourists, are important. Here are not only displayed objects that many of them recognize, but are suggested values, meanings and norms regarding how a good rural tourism should be. Among these, the nationalistic ones are very important: from the Romanian folk towels, which almost every pension adopted for their decoration to the national regional heroes, like Horea and Avram Iancu (whom pictures are everywhere around from mayors office walls to the porch of our hosts father house). An argument is that the image of Romanian village and villager is very linked to nationalist values, another is that rural tourism needs a form of specificity and identity that is constructed and understood the easiest using these objects and images. There is a kind of paradox, or an ostensibly paradox, here. Tourism is allegedly a welcoming activity, oriented towards others and especially foreigners - who in Albac are rendering prestige for hosts among neighbors. In what extent this nationalistic atmosphere that rural tourism often creates is repugnant for tourists or in what extent this is accepted as a form of idenity is a topic of another discussion. Probably both are confused by what seems to assume to be authenticity and the result is a simple fake authenticity or staged tourism (Desmond, 1999; see also West&Carrier, 2004; Allerton, 2003; Creighton, 1997) A more exterior-oriented activity that stands, as well, on the way of using cultural resources in developing tourism is cultivating network relations and traditional household practices. Strong networks of social, political and economic relationships among small communitys members are very common in Romania. They were of much help during communist period (Kideckel 1993; Verdery 1996; Kligman 1998) in accessing economic resources and social position and constitute visible phenomena and cultural practices even today. In Albac area, including upper Aries villages, those who succeeded to open own pensions for tourists had relevant socio-economic and political positions (engineers, sylvicluturists, members of Communist Party and the like). They not only constituted an economic elite that hold the necessary funds, but had, after 1990, the appropriate information and relationships for starting a business in tourism. After this first step, of constructing and opening a guesthouse, the second was of decorating and placing it in an advertising discourse which meant the nationalistic appeal described above. And the third was that of benefiting from the local knowledge and practice regularly performed in ones household by women, elders and children such as housekeeping, cooking, farming, chatting and entertaining.

Two new aspects brought these process and strategy: (i) people previously accustomed to work and live in a close community and, regularly, reduced to the physical space of a household, opened and diversified their activities towards different people, from different regions or countries, and (ii) the networks of relationships continuously developed towards an international partnership. Our host, a woman in her forties not only prepared very good dishes, but was also the book-keeper of the pension expenses who stayed, chatting and smoking in the dinning room with us, the tourists. This is surely not a usual behavior for a traditional country woman. On the other side, one of her daughters participated in May 2005 to an international conference on rural tourism held in France. With that occasion she met rural pension owners, helpers or guides, like she was, from other parts of Europe. Other villages in Apuseni have strong relationships with fraternized villages throughout all European countries, whose inhabitants are regularly visiting each other. All these indicate how useful traditional objects, practices and values have been surpassed by the new ones. Not only in the sense of retraditionalization, such the folk costumes that the young girls from Albac were obliged to wear at the tourist fair, but more in the sense of speculating existing local social relations and knowledge in the idea of expanding and open them to a wider level. In fact, we speak here about an intricate, keen mixture of traditional and modern, or of reactive and prospective, or of local and global, that an anthropological eye can discern, despite the mess illustrated by the frantic atmosphere at the tourist fair above.

Photo 6. Young women in Albac, wearing national costumes, offering tourisitc brochures to visitors. Folk objects and Horea, Closca, and Crisan heroes as puppets are visible behind.

Conclusion: processes, values and impacts of rural tourism development in Albac

One of the most evident processes of tourism development in Albac area is the resource use. Wood, landscape, rivers, animal farm, local tradition, national-historical tradition, handcrafting, cooking abilities, social relationship networks, political power etc. all are involved by hosts in developing a touristic activity. It could seem that other activities use these resources as well, but speaking about tourism, and more specific about rural tourism, these are highly necessary and visible. Moreover, speaking about tourism we speak about an interaction where hosts use of resources is being interwoven, or at least reflected, by guests use of them. Those who are constructing new guesthouses are using woods in a material manner, but tourists are consuming the wooden guesthouses where they lodge in a reflexive or symbolic manner. A less visible aspect is that of access to resources. This is highly more accessible for the political-economic elite members and their relatives to construct new pensions in a good place, to obtain funds for their connection to the central sewerage or to contact active tourist agencies that to invite them to international tourist expositions. But, despite this, if they do not have a good relationship with the local nature and culture they do not have long time success. Bad positioned people in respect with resource access as women, unemployed workers and young or old people, succeeded to involve themselves too within this new business because their useful knowledge. As this knowledge, from housekeeping to entertainment, is not a politically mediated resource, as for instance wood cutting permission or the nationalist symbols, their usefulness is more direct and, finally, more open towards change and successful regular touristic activities. An even lesser visible process is that of the way tourism change local identities. We spoke about a symbolic consumption of wood, who is in fact a way of identifying with a lost natural world, once supposedly covered by wild forests, and with lost cultural practices, when wood not plastic was in the center of domestic and industrial life. When tourist entrepreneurs and activists recall these traditions they do not appeal jut a cultural heritage but also present an innovative way of promoting their business. But in doing so they reconstruct, together with their new traditional guesthouses, a new touristic identity, much influenced by what they understand by this rural tourism. In this construction, as we saw, the use of natural and cultural resources and its reflection on the tourists practices and expectation is highly relevant. It is remarkable that in Albac the number of pensiuni has continuously increased and that an important part of the young unemployed worker, dismissed with the occasion of industry restructuring in the region, the housekeepers and the retired persons found themselves new and profitable occupations, at least seasonally. In addition, along with the exhaustion of some traditional or previous forms of industry, agriculture, economy, culture and social life, they could involve in a new activity, rural tourism, which refreshed and galvanized all those activities provoking in the same time new competitions

inside the local social networks, for further access to resources and prestige, and even reshaped new socio-cultural identities.

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West, P., Carrier, J. G. (2004). Ecotourism and authenticity. Getting away from it all?. Current Anthropology, 45 (4), 483-491. Whelan, T., (Ed.). (1991). Nature Tourism: Managing for the Environment. Washington, D.C.: Island. Chapter 3. Presentation of the case study Apuseni Mountains area, Alba County describes the socio-economic aspects of the disadvantaged area in Apuseni Mountains, chosen as case study, based on a research regarding the assessment of local development needs, whose results are presented in annex 3.1. of the thesis. The objective of the research was to investigate the opinion of the citizens in the Apuseni Mountains area, regarding the level of area development, priority development objectives, and citizens involvement availability in the activity of formulation and implementation of local development plans. The analysis is mainly based on a quantitative approach developed through: - Sociological survey with a standard questionnaire1 for the population in the mining area of Apuseni Mountains, based on a representative sample; - Documents analysis, made through reviewing the statistical documents held by public institutions acting in economic and social field. The problems identified at the case study level are the following:
1

See the questionnaire at point 8/Annex 1.

REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND USE OF LABOUR FORCE IN DISADVANTAGED AREAS IN APUSENI MOUNTAINS

323 - The Apuseni Mountains area has no rail connection with the rest of the country territory, which is one of the main causes of its weak economic and social development. At the same time, the poor access to fix and mobile telephone lines in this part of the county, represents a big disadvantage. The specific geographic conditions ensure a difficult accessibility of neighbouring urban centres, or of the

main village. - The social infrastructure is maybe the weakest in the country, taking into consideration the big amount of households without electricity (Grda de Sus, Scarisoara, Avram lancu, Vidra, etc.), the reduced number of education and health units, including their equipment. - The living standard has a low level in this area, determining a high intensity of depopulation process with consequences on the aging population factor. - The surplus of agricultural animal products can not be used because of the isolation degree, reduced transport possibilities to the urban market, and lack of intermediaries to exploit these products. - The specific of industrial activities determines continuous environment degradation in the area. Related to these activities, in Zlatna area, atmosphere is extremely polluted, which generates frequent acid rains, with severe consequences on forests, and peoples health, and in the areas of Abrud, Cmpeni, and Ariesului Valley, water is the most polluted environment component, because of mining exploitation. Following the pollution processes, only in Zlatna area there are 2,000 ha of heavily polluted land, the annual loss of wood material being of 38,689 cm. The agricultural production is very low in this area, and the number of animals dropped because of lack of food, and diseases. - Apuseni area is characterised by high unemployment, due to the fact that many inhabitants live from resources obtained in their households, which can only ensure a minimal subsistence level. On the other side, the collective dismissals in mining industry, and metal industry determined an increase of unemployment.
REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND USE OF LABOUR FORCE IN DISADVANTAGED AREAS IN APUSENI MOUNTAINS

324 - Under the conditions of severe decrease of production, and continuous application

of restructuring programs, the labour force specialisation in the field of mining and metal industry, makes difficult its professional reconversion. The labour force surplus can be used, only in small amounts, in urban or rural centres service provision, and therefore, agriculture breeding, and tourism, remain the only possible alternatives. - The number of employees in the communes area represents less than 10% of the active population. At 31st December 1998, D.M.P.S. Alba registered 3,666 unemployed people, but this amount does not reflect the real figure, because a bigger number are seeking for a job, without being registered to receive unemployment allowance. In the area, the registered unemployment is 11,922 persons, which means an unemployment rate of 30.75%. The employees working in the extraction industry in Apuseni area represent 62% of the total industry employees. Related to the total employees, the labour force in extraction industry represent 39.3%, in the field of strict exploitation, and 46.4% considering the metal industry as well, as the mining activity is defined in the Law 61/1998. In the end of 1988, 650 mining employees were supposed to be dismissed under the conditions of Government Decision 22/1997, but they have not been registered yet with D.M.P.S. Alba. Chapter 4. Evaluation of sustainable development programs implemented in the case study area analyses the sustainable development programs implemented by now in the case study area, making at the same time a partial evaluation of their results. The major and unsolved problems in mining areas, and in Alba County, as well as the solutions they require are classified according to causes and effects, in the following table: Causes Effects Solutions
Dismissals - high unemployment; Professional reconversion

programs: recertification, career advising; Decrease of income - decrease of purchasing power, decrease of consumption, economic drop for other local Support programs for families in need, and assistance in solving critical situations;
REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND USE OF LABOUR FORCE IN DISADVANTAGED AREAS IN APUSENI MOUNTAINS

325

activities; - poor population; - school abandon; Polluted areas, unattractive from infrastructure and public utilities point of view; - lack of job opportunities; - migration, depopulation; - damaged environment, inadequate for agriculture activities; Programs for support/ development/ establishment of SMEs in the area, special incentives to attract sustainable investment; Financial incentives for companies to employ the target group affected by the restructuring process; Environment reconstruction programs that generate temporary employment. Isolated area; - reduced communication possibilities; - lack of information; - lack of entrepreneurial skills generated by the lack of information; Public information program, community development; Externalization/crash of services supported by mining industry; - public transport reduction; - reduction of water supply, heating and electric systems; Investment in infrastructure, which can also create temporary employment;

Abandoned assets; - degradation of abandoned assets, which may be useful for the community;

Introduction Romania is still a largely rural country. In 2007 the percentage of rural population still reached 45% of the total (Institutul Natxional de Statistica, 2008), a strikingly high level that clearly differentiates Romania from the rest of the European Union (24%) and suggests the survival of a lively system of villages and small towns that continues to play a major role in the socio-economic and cultural life of the country. Romanias rural characteristics consolidated after the end of Nicolae Ceaus?escus regime, in 1989. The difficult transition from a planned to a market economy caused the decline of the formerly dominant industrial sector, whose labour force was only partially absorbed by the services sector. As a result, many unemployed workers had to return to an agricultural life (Biertel and Turnock, 2007). This phenomenon, in combination with the deep social changes caused by the ongoing land restitution process, produced a new agrarisation of society (Benedek, 2000: 42). Hence, agriculture is a key sector in Romania, accounting for about 32% of employment (approximately 70% in rural areas), 12% of GDP and 9% of exports (Institutul Natxional de Statistic_a INS, 2006). However, in spite of the central role played by this sector in the economic life of the country, productivity is generally very low, as indicated by the labour to land ratio of 63 Annual Work Units/ 100 ha (UE average 5 AWU/100 ha), and the negative trade balance in agro-food products that continues to widen (V1.3 billion in 2005). According to Gertrud et al. (1999), the key characteristic of Romanian farming is its dual structure, with the coexistence of a small number of large entities, mostly commercial farms (18,263 averaging 269 ha, accounting for 34.5% of total utilized agricultural area UAA) and a considerable number of individual farms, mostly subsistence and semi-subsistence holdings (4,121,247, average size 2.15 ha, accounting for 65.5% of UAA). Less than 0.5% of holdings account for more than one third of UAA, with the remaining 99.5% accounting for two thirds of UAA. Around 3 million holdings, covering approximately 30% of total agricultural land, have clear subsistence features. In some types of farming, such as vegetable production, the contribution of subsistence agriculture reaches 90%. The rural areas of the country are characterized by a highly dispersed population. Romania has about 13,000 separate villages, a number that increases when considering smaller hamlets, which developed over the centuries in relation to local agricultural potential (Biertel and Turnock, 2007). A traditional socio-economic structure largely survived through the communist time, when the government strengthened and emphasised top-down central planning and introduced a new farming system through large cooperatives and state farms. During the 1980s, Ceaus?escus sistematizare plan turned into a highly controversial project aiming at radically eliminating up to 8000 villages in order to create stronger district units based on coordinating rural towns, but the fall of the regime stopped the project at its very early stages. The quality of life in rural areas is generally poor. Currently, only 33% of rural residents are connected to awater supply network, only 10% to a sewerage system and only 10% of rural roads are of adequate standard (Institutul Natxional de Statistica, 2008). Basic social infrastructure (health and education systems, finance and credit provision, etc.) is also much less developed than in urban areas. These factors hamper economic development, increase out-migration and exacerbate sanitary and environmental problems.