Back to Drobeta Turnu Severin: First Impressions

A full month passed since we moved back to Drobeta Turnu Severin, my home town, where we have the apartment we bought back in 2014, but also the village house we got in 2020.

We had so many things to deal with (many still not dealt with even today) – most of them normal for properties left to rot for two years, but I will have a more detailed article about these in the future.

For now, I want to focus on sharing my thoughts about moving back to a smaller city (in case you don’t know, we moved from lively Constanta, where we spent the past two years).

I have touched on this subject in a previous article (living in a small town vs. larger city), but now I come with first-hand experience.

Plus, not so amazing feelings for coming back, since we were basically forced to move (learn why from my article here). Speaking of which…

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The biggest problem with Drobeta Turnu Severin…

our village house
Our village house today – stay tuned for an update!

Is the same most, if not all, smaller Romanian cities have: massive population decline. I talked about the alarming population decline in Romania previously – also inspired by the situation I observed here.

Drobeta (I will keep calling it so, even though us locals call it “Severin”) used to have over 100,000 inhabitants in the early 1990s. Now, it’s a bit under 80,000 people that call it home.

And you can see that on the empty streets. I truly had an eerie feeling the first day we went out for a walk and the streets were empty. Not as in “only a few people here and there”. There was nobody on the streets!

While there are some areas where people gather, the streets look, feel and are genuinely empty.

I looked at my original article about living in Drobeta Turnu Severin and the photos I took then (probably around 10 years ago): it was a lot livelier than it is today.

Even the supermarkets are the same. We went to a large supermarket in the city (one that was never too popular, it’s true) and I think that there were 10, maximum 20 people inside. And we’re talking about the large supermarkets located on the outskirts of the city, not the smaller ones…

A city frozen in time

Drobeta Turnu Severin a city frozen in time
Drobeta Turnu Severin, via Unsplash.

It’s true, only two years passed since we initially moved out, but still nothing seems to have improved since we left. No investments seem to have been made in the infrastructure, the green areas are not maintained, the buildings’ facades are starting to fall down, and no new businesses have popped up.

On the contrary – we’ve seen many, many places listed as “for rent” or simply shut down. All that seems to work well nowadays is pharmacies, second hand stores and the small gambling stores where people go and lose the little money they have…

The people here are old and obviously ones that didn’t take care of themselves and, as a result, in a bad shape. Everything seems to be so. Forgotten in time, forgotten by progress. And most of the people living here don’t even realize it.

Since, obviously, not much has changed in the past two years, it’s clear to me that most of the problems I am seeing now were present when we lived here before. But it’s probably something you get used to, something you stop realizing, which is the scarier part.

Either way, it’s clearly an adjustment to make. I don’t even want to image how a person coming from a larger, livelier city, would feel here. It would be a shock, unless they intentionally moved for the lack of people and the silence.

There’s always a light at the end of the tunnel

It’s not all terrible here! Even though there is an adjustment we have to make, just like anybody moving to Drobeta or any other small city would have to make, I have to remember that I was in a similar situation when we moved to Constanta initially. And that’s the case whenever you move to a new place.

Even here, despite the lack of investments that are obvious wherever you look, there is still hope. In pure Romanian fashion, they started renovating an important structure in the city: the city council. At least they’re improving something

They also started upgrading the entire back yard area of my apartment building, replacing the water pipes and building a brand new yard with parking spaces and hopefully some landscaping too.

view from my window
View from my apartment’s window. Muddy now, hopefully beautiful later.

Probably, in other areas of the city that I don’t travel too, there is similar work being done. Hopefully, at least.

But the most important thing is, for me, at least, the fact that my son passed the exam to start 5th grade in the most prestigious college in the city, and he did so in style, with a grade of 99 points (out of 100), tied in second place with two other students.

I was fearing this exam more than he was, probably, and I literally burst into tears when I heard about his results.

He made us all extremely proud and happy and this thing alone – knowing that he will be in a good school with equally good students (since all had to pass the same exam) – is enough to make anything worthwhile.

Plus, Drobeta is exactly what we need right now: despite some initial expenses that we had and will have to fix/replace some things around the house, it is a MUCH cheaper city to live in that Constanta, or any of the other large city.

For example, the other day, we had a burger in a really good restaurant here in Drobeta, and it only cost us 35 lei (€7). In Constanta and the larger cities, it would be at least €2 more.

A scoop of ice cream here is 6 lei (€1.2) while a scoop from the same brand, in Constanta, was 8 lei (€1.6).

Also, any scoop of ice cream here is 6 lei, while in Constanta some cost 12 lei or more (delicious, natural and home made… but still double the price of a scoop here).

You can still find apartments for rent in Drobeta for €300 per month, while similar ones in the larger cities would be at least €450.

Buying a 2-bedroom apartment here would cost around €70,000 for something good (still a scary-high price in my opinion), while in the larger cities, a similar apartment’s price starts at €90,000…

And the examples can go on forever. Drobeta – as well as all the other smaller cities and towns here – are cheaper, and the cost of living here will be greatly reduced. Which, in the end, is one of the reasons why we decided to move back.


Wrapping things up…


As far as first impressions go, things could’ve been better with our move back home.

Drobeta feels and IS an aging city, never hesitating to show its age everywhere: from the people you can see on the streets, to the state of the buildings and the infrastructure, to everything else.

But it is a beautiful city with amazing surroundings. It has the Danube nearby, it has amazing people still living here, and also amazing results in scholar competitions (including international ones).

And for me, as a parent, this matters more than having a trendy mall nearby, a one-of-its-kind restaurant or (ah, it’s difficult to say it) the Black See just one stone’s throw away.

We’re having to do a bit of adapting coming back to our old apartment (from the beautiful, modern one we had rented in Constanta), coming back to our old city and our old selves. But it’s a place that allows for better relaxation, reflection and connection with nature.

And, hopefully, a place that can offer our son the education it needs in order to be better than I was or ever will be: both from a financial standpoint, but also on a more personal level.

Calin
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2 thoughts on “Back to Drobeta Turnu Severin: First Impressions”

  1. I’m glad to hear you are getting settled in Drobeta Turnu Severin. Many congratulations on your son’s stellar performance on the school entrance exam. Truth be told, I always thought D-T-S looked and sounded like a very interesting authentic Romanian town. I was looking forward to hearing more about life in that city. Then you bought a house in the nearby countryside, and okay, I thought, that is interesting too. THEN, you picked up everything and moved to Constanta. Now I am sure Constanta is a beautiful Black Sea resort town, one that I would enjoy seeing on a vacation. But ocean resort cities would bore me in the long term. Of course, you and your family are entitled to your own tastes and expectations, so I was happy that you were happy there. Hearing after so much time that your economic situation had changed and your lives were turned upside down made me very sad. But here we are back to “square one” in D-T-S and let’s make the best of it! I am looking forward to reading about excursions in the city and its surroundings.

    Reply
    • Thank you for the nice words, Stuart! Indeed, back to square one and making the best of it. I was surprised too that we liked Constanta so much 🙂 But, since before that I was a huge supporter of Drobeta, I am sure I will quickly become one again.

      Reply

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