First Week in Galati

I've now been in Galati for a full week. It has been an eventful time. Work started Monday. This week in the office was mostly designed to allow me to become acquainted with the staff and get my bearings on SMART and what it does. My primary duties are going to involve work on the early stages of implementation of a large granted funded by the European Union to promote closer ties and policy making infrastructure in the Black Sea Region. I will also research and wrie policy papers on a few issues of interest to me. The first issue I am going tow on is the negative view many Europeans have of Romanians. Next week, SMART is going to organize a working group of interested parties in order to discuss the issue and assist me in my research. Much more on work later.

Besides starting in the office, I have been spending time familiarizing myself with Galati. The city is a mix between residential, commercial, and industrial zones. It was obviously not a master-planned city, and has no real logical organization in the streets. I am staying in one of the nicer neighborhoods by the Danube.

The last few days has been dominated by a conference on small business and entrepreneurship, a topic on which SMART works heavily. The conference began on Thursday night with a series of company presentations followed by dinner. Of course, I did not understand the presentations but my employer translated.

On Friday morning, we went to the Galati botanical gardens for the primary session of the conference. The Romanian Minister of Small and Medium Business was in attendance in order to speak and answer questions. Again, despite a lack of comprehension, I was able to see how impassioned many of the questioners seemed, in a way in which I would not expect when addressing a government official in the United States.

The Romanian Minister of Small and Medium Businesses

Following the Minister's presentation, lunch was served and then I spent time walking around the botanical garden's with my coworkers from SMART. The gardens themselves were nicer and larger than I expected and included a large section of North American flora. However, this was the wrong time of year to really enjoy the gardens as few flowers were in bloom.

SMART Coworkers - Cosmin, Simi, Madalina, Dariya, Vale, and Megan

That evening the conference assembled at Galati's musical theater (there is a separate theater for dramatic performances).

The first part of the night's program in the packed theater was a fashion show.

After the fashion show, was an orchestral performance lead by renowned Romanian singer Gheorgrie Tudor. Here's is a video of a small portion of the performance:


I enjoyed the performance a lot. When the show finally ended around 10, we went to a restaurant by the Danube for a dinner party which ended around 1 am. I was told this is typical of such events in Romania. I'll discuss this and food extensively in a future post.

The final event of the conference was a lunch cruise this morning on the Danube. This was a great way to see Galati and the surrounding area. Galati has a large industrial area which manufactures ships. The Danube's opposite bank starkly contrasts the Galati side. There is not a building to be seen.

With SMART Management.

The overall impression I got from the conference is that there is plenty of desire in Romanian for entrepreneurship. However, an uncoordinated regulatory scheme and monumental bureaucracy is preventing the the realization of its full potential.

Tomorrow, I'm going to visit local Roman ruins and a farm owned by a friend of my employer. I am looking forward to this week and really getting started with my work  at SMART.