Sam and Noelle LeBlanc explain shopping in Romania in a pre-capitalist economy
makin' groceries
Aug 1, 2004
New Orleans Magazine
by Sam Leblanc
Shopping in Romania is limited by a developing economy, poor transportation and lack of available goods. Previous pages: Romanians visit the pints for daily grocery shopping. This page, above: Small stores in the piata and neighborhood magazins sell a limited selection of products. Below: Most Romanians cannot afford the Dacia brand automobile, and even Dacia owners often can't afford gasoline.
Shopping in Romania is limited by a developing economy, poor transportation and lack of available goods. Previous pages: Romanians visit the pints for daily grocery shopping. This page, above: Small stores in the piata and neighborhood magazins sell a limited selection of products. Below: Most Romanians cannot afford the Dacia brand automobile, and even Dacia owners often can't afford gasoline.
Ed. note: Sam and Noelle LeBlanc are a prominent New Orleans couple. He is a former chairman of the Chamber of Commerce, stale legislator, mayoral candidate and lawyer. She is a former state secretary of culture and tourism. After nearly a year of on-site training, they are now serving two years with the Peace Corps in Romania, helping locals there rebuild their communities. In our September 2003 issue, Sam LeBlanc wrote about the couple's early experiences abroad. Now, writing again from Zalau, Romania, LeBlanc explains shopping in a pre-capitalist economy.
Milk. Five stores without it.
In a predominantly agricultural country, how can all of them be out of milk?
Want to "make groceries" in New Orleans? Hop in your SUV and run to Sav-A-Center. There you will find a cornucopia of foods. Everything you could possibly want from all parts of the United States, indeed, from all over the world.
In a Romanian town, there; is a small magasin (store) in every block, sometimes two or three in the same block. These are mom-and- pop stores a la New Orleans 50 years ago. Each has an identical, meager selection of products, mostly staples. And variety is not a staple product.
Week in and week ont, the owner of the magazin buys anything the distributor brings. Generally it's the same product. This becomes your only choice. There will be one brand of milk, but don't look for a no-fat or low-fat version. There will be a single type of bread from one baker, fresh ... and unwrapped. Meat options are limited mostly to pork and chicken (frozen chicken has a bonus: The head and feet are included). There is little beef, and, in a land whore flocks of sheep often block traffic, no lamb. You can find a few fruits and vegetables in a magazin, but it is better to shop for those at the piata.
And this from a country once known as the breadbasket of Eastern Europe.
BREAD AND EGGS
You learn to buy every available carton of "whatever" when you see it. It may not be there tomorrow or in the foreseeable future. When one of the magazine in the neighborhood is out of a particular commodity, they all are. The distributor hasn't been there yet this week. Or he may have quit.
Shopping in Romania is limited by a developing economy, poor transportation and lack of available goods. Previous pages: Romanians visit the piata for daily grocery shopping. This page, above: Small stores in the piata and neighborhood magazins sell a limited selection of products. Below: Most Romanians cannot afford the Dacia brand automobile, and even Dacia owners often can't afford gasoline.
Buying all the milk or broad or eggs on hand is problematic, howovor. That action assumes storage spaee. Most Romanians have minuscule freezer space and little overall refrigerator capacity. Loading up on available products also means you have brought enough pungas (grocery bags) to carry your purchases. You can't bring too many pungas because you have to personally lug those loaded pungas all the way home. No SUVs here.
Shopping in Romania is limited by a developing economy, poor transportation and lack of available goods. Previous pages: Romanians visit the piata for daily grocery shopping. This page, above: Small stores in the piata and neighborhood magazins sell a limited selection of products. Below: Most Romanians cannot afford the Dacia brand automobile, and even Dacia owners often can't afford gasoline.
Thus grocery shopping is a daily task. There's only so much you can buy, so much you can to to in your pungas, only so much you can accumulate at home.
Purchasing clothes is similar to buying foodstuffs. All over the world you will see folks wearing Chicago Bulls baseball caps. Gap T- shirts, and Nike shoes. In Romania it's the same. But those articles weren't found at Saks or Wal-Mart. Chances are they were obtained at the piata, the outdoor town marketplace. Open year-round. snow or sunshine, this al fresco emporium has its departments in the form of stalls. Trying on a pair of jeans can be an outdoor adventure.
RUDIMENTARY WAL-MART
The piatta is much more than a clothing store. It is a rudimentary Wal-Mart, Winn-Dixie, Office Depot and Circuit City combination. In the other "departments" you will find fresh vegetables and fruits brought in by farmers, mechanical and electrical appliances, live chickens, toys, toiletries, CDs and junk. just like at the magazin, choice is limited to what the vendors have that day. They all have the same thing: some of this and some of that.
When you finally make your selections, it's OK if you left your American Express card at home. It wouldn't be accepted at the piata. Neither would your Visa, Discover or MasterCard or any other substitute for cash.
Why don't Romanians drive their cars to the magasin? Most families don't have one. Acquiring an automobile is an exponential financial leap that few in this land can afford on the average $150 monthly salary. Those who do probably waited years to get a Dacia, the national brand of vehicle. The lucky owners of a car skimp on money to drive it. A Dacia fuel tank is seldom filled. Gasoline is so expensive that a full tank can easily cost a large portion of a month's pay. Romanian overdrive is more of a method than a gear: It is customary to turn off the ignition and glide down a hill to save fuel.
A major reason Romanians can't buy a car is that there are no car loans. It's the same with houses. In the United States, a young couple can get up on a Saturday morning, drive to a new subdivision and purchase a starter home with a 30-year loan, all in the same day. In this post-socialist nation, however, most people do not understand the concept of loans.
To have a new house, a family must save money for years to purchase land. After that, they save again until they have enough to build the first part of the house. Then the process will be repeated for the other parts. It can take five to 10 years before the family actually resides in the house. all over this country, there are houses in the process of being built. Naturally, there are no subdivisions.
Whether you're buying milk or a house, America and Romania are worlds apart economically. In the United States we have a market economy that moves us along, giving us choices, variety and the ability to live better, to buy now and pay later. Adam Smith's invisible hand guides our economy. The iron fist of the Communist system rusted and then paralyzed economies like Romania's. The West does not have a perfect economic system. It has many defects. By and large, however, it works to give more people the opportunity to live better.
Romania's economy is in transition; it is changing. Every day something happens. There are budding Wal-Mart-type stores (called metros) and even supermarkets in several major cities. There is a subdivision in Bucharest. A few banks are beginning to offer loans. The transition to a true market economy will take decades, however. In the meantime, you can't "make groceries" like you can in the Crescent City.
Copyright New Orleans Publishing Group Inc. Aug 2004
