Article published in Faclia Cluj Sept 17 after being refused in Turda

Why has Turda Fest moved to Cluj-Napoca (25-27 September)?

By Emil Halastuan

Indrei Ratiu, Vice-President of the Turda Fest Association:

Without the use of Turda’s town center, the Turda Fest brand loses its identity. For us, Turda Fest’s organizers, our local authority’s refusal to allow Turda Fest 2009 to take place in Turda’s town center where it has been held for the last four consecutive years, means cutting Turda Fest off from its established, recognized setting. Without that setting the brand loses its identity.

Reporter:

In Cluj, the festival will not recover its traditional setting. So why didn’t you accept the alternative venue offered by Turda’s local council: Str Tineretului in Turda’s Oprisan district?

Indrei Ratiu

Following the local council’s refusal to allow us to organize Turda Fest in the town center as in the past, we took into consideration a number of factors before deciding on an alternative venue. Of particular concern to us was the fact that over the first four successive Turda Fests (2005-2008) we had always enjoyed the personal support of mayor Tudor Stefanie. But in spite of his support, and even though each year we registered our applications five and sometimes even six months in advance, we invariably received permits to operate Turda Fest with only a few days, and in one case (because then Minster of Agriculture Gheorghe Flutur's 's arrival at Turda Fest was imminent) no days to spare before the festival was due to open. We reasoned that if we had encountered difficulties such as these over the period when we enjoyed the support of mayor Tudor Stefanie, what would things be like for us as festival organizers now that Stefanie had clearly come out against Turda Fest during a meeting of the local council?

Reporter:

Opinions in town, at least those expressed on the websites of the Turda press, have tended to support mayor Tudor Stefanie’s grounds for moving the festival to Turda-Oprisan, and on learning of your decision to move the festival to Cluj, reactions have been downright hostile. Please comment on such attitudes towards members of the Ratiu family in their role as festival organizers...

Indrei Ratiu:

I am aware of some of the opinions that have been posted on certain local sites. Some even say that we decided to move Turda Fest to Cluj because in Turda we have not been making enough money out of it! To clarify this whole aspect we need to go back in time, and cover a bit of history. My family moved to Turda around 1650 after their ancestral lands in Noslac (Nagylak) were confiscated by Prince George Rakoczi I. My ancestors were entitled to take up residence in Turda by virtue of their rank of “nobilis”. They were considered part of Transilvania’s Hungarian nobility even though they were Romanian. Ever since, maybe in part because they considered themselves immigrants, each successive generation of the Ratiu family has tried to contribute something to Turda, the town that had adopted them.

It is well documented that my ancestors’ efforts were not always appreciated by their fellow citizens. For example, in 1894, the people of Turda ransacked the house of the Memorandist Dr Ioan Ratiu because he had campaigned so persistently for civil rights for the Romanians of Transilvania. And even though the statue of my illustrious forbear is today visible from the windows of Turda’s town hall, things are not so very different here today. They are just expressed in a different way.

Not unlike his ancestors before him, my father, the late member of parliament Ion Ratiu believed that he had not managed to do enough for Turda. And that was why, when I too came here in 2004, my colleagues and I established Turda Fest, The Ratiu Center for Democracy, and Turda’s Tourist Information Center. If we add to such investments as these, additional investments made by the family business, Regent House, in the Turda area, we reach an average annual expenditure by the Ratiu family of no less than Euro 500,000 each year from 2004 until the present day. The funds used in this way to promote and consolidate Turda’s reputation come from two sources: The Ratiu Family Foundation of the UK and a share of any profits arising within the family business, Regent House. Under the circumstances the rumour currently circulating in Turda that members of the Ratiu family are making money out of Turda Fest is absurd. We are here to spend money not to make it! Maybe others make money out of organizing festivals... not us!

Reporter:

Would it be fair to say that ever since you declared in a recent meeting of the local council that “20 years after the fall of communism, in parts of Romania we are still living under dictatorship” you have become “persona non grata” in the eyes of the Turda authorities?

Indrei Ratiu

We members of the Ratiu family are here to support Turda. Amongst the many activities that we organize in order to promote our town and contribute to its future development, we also organize Turda Fest. Following recent developments I think it is fair to say that we, members of the Ratiu family, do not share mayor Tudor Stefanie’s vision for the future of Turda in certain respects. Concerning festivals for example, we cannot understand why Turda’s authorities operate under a free rein when it comes to organizing a festival such as “Ziilele Turzii” costing tens of thousands of euros of taxpayers’ money, and yet oppose a festival such as “Turda Fest” that does not cost the council one penny of public money.

Our vision of public administration is that it should be democratic, pluralistic. In our view a democratic mayor has an obligation to recognize the simultaneous existence of multiple opinions and interests within his community because such democratic principles are enshrined in the laws of the European Union of which Romania is now part. In this way, a mayor, not unlike a democratic head of state, needs to maintain an equilibrium between the various ideas, opinions and interest-groups within his or her community. And the result, as between the various instruments in an orchestra, should ideally be “symphony” not “cacophony”. Personally, for example, I am among the first to congratulate mayor Stefanie for his achievements in many areas of community life that are of value to Turda’s future development, but the fact that I disagree with him in some areas does not automatically make me his enemy. In a democratic community, diversity of opinion serves as a motor driving the public life of that community forward. Should any community suffer from having a single vision of the future imposed upon it, that community’s creativity will wither, impoverishment and eventually disaster will result. After all, how can any one man be the source of the only ideas that are of any value, the source of all solutions to any problem? It is in this spirit of democracy and pluralism that our own campaign to promote Turda and all it has to offer will continue, way beyond the limits of our town, even though we are not permitted to do so in Turda itself under its present administration. In the immediate future we shall do this in in Cluj-Napoca, where Turda Fest 2009 will be held on Sept 25-27, but also in Bucharest, London and in December 2009 in Washington DC. Turda will continue to benefit from our efforts as a family, because that is what we came here for.

Emil Halastuan