Growing up Under Communism – Special Nuggets

Chocolate factory in business of trading bearings and rubber belts

At the age of 20, 1962 while studying for my university admission exam, I worked at local chocolate factory as an assistant in the purchasing department, responsible for procuring maintenance hardware, such as rubber belts, bearings, oxygen, etc. You might be surprised, but this was a full time job.

It was an old German company, appropriated by the new communist regime and it was old. Built in the early 1900s, it manufactured chocolate mostly for export under German label sold to Austria. Rubber belts and bearings would wear out and had to be replaced. The central planning of the country was supposed to allocate these parts, but very seldom did. Break downs of various machines was a daily occurrence. My manager would locate similar parts in town at other factories (just as old) and purchase them.

My job was to ride in the company’s van and pick-up these parts. This was not your typical Will-Call. My manager will equip me with two or three small bags of candy and few bars of various quality chocolate bars. He was very precise in instructing me which package should be delivered to whom. Candies were for the door gate guards, and the chocolate bars for the managers who had to approve and sign the sales paper.

Once a week, I had to go and pick up oxygen and nitrogen from a filling station, 150 miles away. This was the only filling station serving hundreds of square miles. Pickup trucks from various places in the country would line up and wait over night, sometimes for two days to be serviced. The gate guards recognized the van and my expected chocolate enabled us to get serviced within 30 minutes.

When our next door bakery would show to buy bearings from us, he always delivered wonderful hot pretzels. We loved them and he got his bearings in a flash. That is the way it worked. Remember, we were a chocolate and bakery not a bearing factory. The irony was, the largest bearing company in the country was located in my home town. We also had a large rubber factory manufacturing the exact rubber belts we were buying from each other.

Buy a Car? Pay for It. Ready to Pickup at The Factory Two Years Later

In the early sixties, the communist Romania secured a license from the French Renault car manufacturer to build a small passenger car, named Dacia. Somehow, some people managed to save enough money to buy this automobile, which was not cheap based on the average income. However, to purchase this automobile was not that simple. First, you have to deposit / pay for it in full and wait for the factory to manufacture it. It took from one to two years to be ready for pickup. Pickup, meaning you had to travel to the factory. There were no dealers and you had to carry with you at least one gallon of gas. The factory did not put enough gas to even make it to the nearest gas station.

There was however another problem. As soon as you paid for your car a government inspector stepped in and you had to prove that you actually earned the money legitimately.

Free Healthcare

I was privileged in a way, going back when I was a professional bicycle racer in the national team. The team had its own doctor. This doctor was a practitioner in a very exclusive clinic, open only to high level communist party echelon. The clinic had a pharmacy stocked with the best available medicine. This medicine was not available at the regular pharmacies. Years later I would go back to him when I had something complicated. I was lucky enough not require his services often.

It was not the same for the regular people. In order to have access to the best specialist, the bribe was not just routine, but mandatory. Typical bribe was a turkey or an unopened pack of Kent cigarettes. The money had no value. There was hardly anything worth buying, although the price control made everything affordable but nonexistent. All American cigarettes were very expensive. They were only available through the black market. Nobody smoked them. They were better than gold.

Gold possession was outlawed, except in the form of jewelry; same thing for silver coins. Also possession of foreign currency such as dollars could put someone in prison.

Personal Theft Was Nonexistent

This might sound paradoxical, but just think about it. People didn’t have money to buy anything of value, so there was no market for thieves.

There was another more important reason: The residential police inspector.

Each street of the city had a policeman on foot patrol assigned to provide security for the residents. The policeman did more than that. He would enter the residence unannounced anytime he felt like it. He knew the names of everyone in the family, what furniture you had and what everyone in the family was doing for a living. If he noticed a new TV (yes we had one), you would have to explain where you bought it. There is no way a thief would get away with anything of value.

My racing bike belonged to the club. It was an expensive French bike purchased by the club, through the bicycle federation. It cost the equivalent of one year salary for the average worker. This type of bicycle was not available through retail. I would leave it outside any building while doing errands, and nobody would even touch it. No chains. A thief would have been caught immediately. He couldn’t ride it nor sell it.

Presently, Tr Cojoc is retired in California and he is advising clients in financial matters, on how to preserve capital as well as high risk investment strategies such as trading foreign currency or FOREX.

You can find out more at     Financial Adviser