A daytrip to Timişoara – Romania

“Lets meet in Romania… Don’t you feel like visiting us?” – or similar like that, the invitation from our Romanian partner came into my mailbox.

Visiting Romania, that sounds good. When I was a child, I often visited family and friends in Romania. But what is it like to travel there for business? Is everything still as rudimentary and rather simple as I have in my childhood memories?

That could be exciting! So let’s go on the adventure and accept directly!

When I told this at home, even my wife was on fire. So 4 weeks later we just jumped into the car together, including our 1-year-old son, to get to know the country and its people for a few days on a short vacation after the meeting. So off we went to Timişoara….

On the long car ride we philosophized: How do we actually imagine Romania? Are there any fixed roads there at all? In any case, we just wanted to be surprised how the country has changed in recent years. We were (positively) surprised when we crossed the border, without big controls and with a friendly “bine ati venit”. Everything looks the same as in our country. No horse-drawn carts or only farms, as if they were dirt roads. We were met by the most modern cars, glazed skyscrapers passed our car windows and the roads were of course asphalted. The only thing that exactly matched our imagination was an ungated railroad crossing, through which a very long and very slow train passed.

 

The next day I drove my car to the given address of our partner “Iulius Mall area, Businesstower UBC3, 13th floor”. Ok. Wow. This is the building I would have expected to see in NY, or in another big western city, but somehow not in Romania. In front of me huge buildings made of glass built up, surrounded by lakes, meadows, restaurants and shopping malls. And many more construction sites, suggesting that the Romanians have a lot planned here. As I learned later, the address is not yet the final stop for our partner. They want to move to another tower, still under construction, to rent an entire floor in what will then be the tallest building in Timişoara.

I was shown around and was amazed by the huge office space with state-of-the-art desks, computers and screens. There was also a kitchen, a meeting room, and a relaxation room available to the nearly 60 employees. After a 1-hour meeting, during which I personally met the colleagues responsible for my project, I was invited to lunch. Secretly, I was already looking forward to “Sarmale” or “Ciorba de burta” typical Romanian dishes. But to my great surprise, not only cabbage rolls were on the menu, but also burgers, spaghetti and sandwiches. During the meal together we could get to know each other better. I was surprised by the warmth and hospitality that my colleagues showed me. It was the first time we saw each other, but they were not shy to talk in English about their personal lives. I learned that most of them live in the countryside and only go to the city for work. There again were so many parallels to life in Germany. I was so warmly received and welcomed among my colleagues that after half a day I already felt like a full-fledged team member. After lunch, I sat down with my “team” and we talked a lot about our daily work, how we could implement various topics in concrete terms and where there might be points of contact or future opportunities for cooperation. It was important to see how the current market in Romania is developing and which areas are strongly represented, especially in the automotive sector.