Many foreign investors come to Romos, a village in Hunedoara County, to start up different kinds of businesses, because the workforce is inexpensive and skilled. A Dutchman has been manufacturing meerschaum ornaments in Romos for a short time and sells them as souvenirs in the Netherlands.
The inhabitants of Romos, near Orastie, are not wealthy, as many lost their jobs after the gradual de-industrialisation of the county. According to data supplied by the City Hall, the unemployment rate exceeds 40% in this village. Their only chance to get a job may be provided by foreign investors.
“They should come to our village only once, because they will certainly come back. The villagers are friendly hosts and the foreigners are actually charmed by them. After they open companies, they make a lot of donations for the community.
They have brought computers for the pupils learning in Romos and bicycles for the villagers to travel easier. They have even donated money for a church,” Mircea Patranjan, Romos mayor, said.
Johann Nicolaus Aarts came to Romos from the Dutch city of Valkenburg. He had enough courage to open a business, which seems to be successful. As he comes from a tourism area in the Netherlands, he thought to produce in Romos some souvenirs aimed at the tourists visiting his country.
These tourists will never know that the objects they buy as proof of the Dutch craftsmen’s skills are in fact made by Romanian peasants that have never visited the Netherlands.
“The meerschaum is brought in large chunks from the Netherlands and here, in the Romos-based workshop, it is cut in smaller pieces. The stone is easy to carve. We receive the models from the Netherlands, from the owner, and we use them to make the objects,” Maria Ilie, who manages the Dutchman’s business here, maintains. The meerschaum is a soft, white mineral exploited in Greece, Crimea and Asia Minor.
“We draw up some patterns for each model. The large stone pieces are used to manufacture lamps, while the small ones are used for animals. We deliver hundreds of such objects in the Netherlands every month,” Maria Ilie explains. Daniel Maniut, a 24 year-old carver working here, explains the procedure.
“It takes a quarter of an hour to make this animal, for instance. It is not a hard operation, on the opposite. I have the paper model here, I cut the stone watching the shape and I file it to smooth the margins of the product.”