Prospects for Vrancea: A traditional mountain community in Romania

The privatisation of Romanian agriculture will provide new opportunities for the peasantry and even in the mountains where collectivisation remained incomplete there will be the stimulus of a free market. This article examines the physical and cultural landscapes of a small Carpathian district and shows how a traditional economy, which maintained much of its integrity under communism, now looks with guarded optimism towards an uncertain future. Agriculture remains fundamental with ecological as well as economic dimensions (for the terrain is highly unstable) but the potential for small businesses and local services, neglected in the past, must also be realised.Because of translation problems the paper was written by the editor from notes submitted by the author. Additional material was supplied by Florin Roman of the Silvicultural Inspectorate, Focsani.