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| Home > News & events > 2006 feature stories > The resurrection of a Romanian city | |||||||||
The resurrection of a Romanian city |
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Sibiu, a medieval city in Romania’s Transylvanian heartland, has everything a tourist dreaming of ‘olde’ Europe would want: enchanting courtyards, meandering cobbled streets and expansive plazas. Its beauties are such that the city has been invited by Luxembourg, with which Sibiu has many strong ties, to share the title of European Capital of Culture for 2007. But the grande dame needed a face lift ere she could celebrate her re-entrance onto the continental stage on December 31, 2006, just a stroke of the clock before the New Year ushers Romania into the European Union as one of its newest members. Founded around 1150 and named after the river Cibin which flows through it, Sibiu, with its thriving economy and cultures, has always been one of Transylvania’s leading cities. Romanians, Germans, Hungarians and Roma have long co-habitated in this city that (almost) has it all: museums, churches, an international airport, a philharmonic orchestra and a skyline of red-tiled rooftops punctuated by windows popping up like cat eyes. There was just one huge problem: infrastructure. The city needed a total makeover following years of neglect during and after the communist regime. In need of a renovation “As we celebrated the news of Sibiu becoming the 2007 European Capital of Culture, we realised that infrastructure-wise, the city was not prepared to welcome the flow of tourists,” says Sibiu’s Mayor, Klaus Johannis. “Streets, old buildings, public lighting, everything was craving restoration. Sibiu also needed to upgrade its urban transport if it was to be ready for a large influx of visitors.” But how to pay for it? The Municipality’s already-strapped budget could be squeezed to cover some expenses, with some financial help from the German government; the Ministry of Culture would help to rehabilitate facades of old buildings. That wasn’t going to be enough, though. Railway Station Square, the city’s main entrance where tourists gain their first impression of Sibiu, needed rehabilitation to make it an effective interchange for trains, buses, cars and pedestrians. About 36 city streets needed to be fitted with proper drainage, among other works. All this would have been too expensive for the municipality to bear alone. Explains the Mayor: “The EBRD saved the city with two loans of €25 million in total that are to be paid in 12 years. The municipality had no luck with local banks. They don’t give such long-term loans.” EBRD’s relationship with the city of Sibiu dates back to 2004 when it provided a €10 million loan to rehabilitate the water and wastewater system. “Those were successful investments,” says Thomas Maier, Director of the EBRD Municipal and Environmental Team, “and so helping Sibiu in its preparations to become the 2007 European Capital of Culture seemed a natural follow-on investment.” The EBRD loan helped the city to purchase 30 buses, replacing 60 per cent of the city’s fleet and improving transport for locals and for the mass of visitors expected in 2007. "Sibiu's economy and public services have developed a lot in the last three years but modernisation of the urban infrastructure was needed to support the high rate of development, “says the Mayor. The governments of Austria and the United States also provided €425,000 to support the municipality during contract tendering and to cover the cost of hiring consultants to supervise the city’s rehabilitation and commercialisation of Sibiu’s public transport company. With the EBRD loans, the makeover of a number of busy urban roads finally started in January 2006, turning Sibiu into a building site with workers buzzing in every corner of the city, every hour of the day. Ready for tourism Ten months have passed since the rehabilitation started. Streets have been paved. Public lighting in five main squares has been improved. Meanwhile, Railway Station Square may be full of mud but the works there carry on and are of particular importance. It is through this plaza that the anticipated 500,000 visitors to Sibiu in 2007 (almost three times the city’s population) will enter into the historic centre. Farther afield, roads connecting Sibiu with neighbouring cities are also being rehabilitated. At the municipality, Ioana Motoc files 36 big folders, one for each street rehabilitated. Dynamic as Sibiu itself has become, she supervises the rehabilitation. “The city needed this renovation,” says Ms Motoc. “It was getting older but it is now reborn.” More than 200 events are planned for 2007, with celebrations starting on 31 December 2006, one day before Romania joins the EU. “Thus Sibiu will become the first Romanian city to join the European Union. It is the cultural capital of Romania and thanks to the loan, it has now the capacity to truly become a European Capital of Culture in 2007,” explains the Mayor.
By Marjola Xhunga, an EBRD communications adviser
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