Romania at World Cup

The World Football Championship was created at the initiative of FIFA president Jules Rimet after successful football tournament at the Olympics. On May 28, 1928, the FIFA Congress in Amsterdam decided to Uruguay to conduct the first such competition. The national football team of Romania has participated at seven World Cup final tournaments.

Uruguay, 1930
The first World Football Championship, Copa del Mundo (World Cup), was hosted by Uruguay, Olympic champion in 1924 and 1928, which in 1930 celebrated one hundred years of independence. There were no preliminaries, all national football teams received invitations to participate. Romania was the first European country to announce its participation in the tournament. The 13 national teams were distributed in 4 groups, the winners of each group qualifying in semi-finals. Romania was in the 3rd group, along with Peru and Uruguay.

Peru - Romania 1-3 (for Romania scored Adalbert Deşu 1' - the fastest goal of the competition, Constantin Stanciu, Ştefan Barbu 85')
Uruguay - Romania 4-0

Uruguay won the World Cup, Romania was on the 8th place.

Jules Rimet Cup

Italy, 1934
Romania was qualified in a group with Swiss and Yugoslavia. In the eighths, Romania was defeated by Czechoslovakia, the finalist of the competition.

Czechoslovakia - Romania 2-1 (Puc, Nejedly - Ştefan Dobay)

Italy won the World Cup, Romania was on the 12th place.

Ştefan Dobay

France, 1938

Romania qualified by default for the 1938 World Cup after their qualifying playoff opponents Egypt withdrew. They suffered a shock defeat in the finals in France, losing to minnows Cuba, who, like Romania, had only qualified due to the withdrawal of their qualifying opponents, USA. The first match at the Stade Chapou in Toulouse ended 3–3 after extra time, but Cuba won the replay four days later 2–1.

Italy won the World Cup, Romania was on the 11th place.

Mexico, 1970

Romania was in Group 3 with England, Brazil and Czechoslovakia.

England - Romania 1-0 (Geoff Hurst)
Czechoslovakia - Romania 1-2 (Ladislav Petráš - Alexandru Neagu, Florea Dumitrache)
Brazil - Romania 3-2 (Pelé twice, Jairzinho - Florea Dumitrache, Emerich Dembrowski)

Brazil won the World Cup, Romania was on the 11th place.

Florea Dumitrache

Italy, 1990
Romania was in a group along with Argentina (the world champion), USSR (the vice-european champion), and Cameroon.

USSR - Romania 0-2 (Marius Lăcătuş twice)
Cameroon - Romania 2-0 (Roger Milla twice)
Argentina - Romania 1-1 (Pedro Monzón - Gavrilă Balint)

Second round
Ireland - Romania 0-0 (Ireland qualified at penalty shots)

West Germany won the World Cup.

Gheorghe Hagi

USA, 1994
Romania was in a group along with Colombia, Switzerland, and USA.

Colombia - Romania 1-3 (Adolfo Valencia - Florin Radu Răducioiu twice, Gheorghe Hagi)
Switzerland - Romania 4-1
USA - Romania 0-1 (Dan Petrescu)

Round of 8
Argentina - Romania 2-3 (Gabriel Batistuta, Abel Balbo - Ilie Dumitrescu twice, Gheorghe Hagi)

Quarter-finals
Sweden - Romania 2-2 (Brolin, Roland Nilsson - Florin Radu Răducioiu twice). Sweden qualified at penalty shots.

Brazil won the World Cup, Romania was on the 6th place.

Florin Radu Răducioiu

France, 1998
Romania was in a group along with Colombia, England, and Tunisia.

Colombia - Romania 0-1 (Adrian Ilie)
England - Romania 1-2 (Michael Owen - Viorel Moldovan, Dan Petrescu)
Tunisia - Romania 1-1 (Skander Souayah - Viorel Moldovan)

Round of 16
Croatia - Romania 2-0 (Davor Šuker twice)

France won the World Cup, Romania was on the 11th place.

Viorel Moldovan

Romania

The outline map of Romania...

... and an outstanding cloud!

Images from www.diseara.ro and Clker.com

Centaurea pugioniformis

Centaurea pugioniformis is a plant that can be found only in Romania, is endemic in several areas of the country. Centaurea is a genus of at least some 500 to 600 species of herbaceous thistle-like flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. Common names for this genus are starthistles, knapweeds, centaureas and the more ambiguous "bluets". "Cornflowers" is used for a few species, including Centaurea pugioniformis.



Images from My Nature
Taxonomy
Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Spermatophyta
Class: Dicotyledones
Division: Magnoliophyta Magnoliophytina
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Asterales
Family: Asteraceae
Genus: Centaurea
Species: pugioniformis
Scientific name: Centaurea pugioniformis E.I.Nyarady

Turks in Romania

The Turks (Romanian: Turci) are an ethnic minority in Romania, numbering 32,596 people according to the 2002 census and hence making up 0.2% of the total population. The majority of Turks live in the historical region of Northern Dobruja (Turkish: Dobruca), particularly in Constanţa County, where they number 24,246 and make up 3.4% of the population, Tulcea County with 3,334 (1.3%) and Bucharest with 2,473 (0.1%). As an officially-recognised ethnic minority, Turks have one seat reserved for them in the Romanian Chamber of Deputies.


As the entire Balkan Peninsula become an integral part of the emerging Ottoman Empire (a process which concluded with the fall of Constantinople to Sultan Mehmed II in 1453), Wallachia became engaged in frequent confrontations and, in the final years of Mircea the Elder's reign, became an Ottoman subject. In the two Danubian Principalities, Ottoman suzerainty had an overall reduced impact on the local population, and the impact of Islam was itself much reduced. Wallachia and Moldavia enjoyed a large degree of autonomy, and their history was punctuated by episodes of revolt and momentary independence. After 1417, when Ottoman domination over Wallachia first became effective, the towns of Turnu and Giurgiu were annexed as kazas, a rule enforced until the Treaty of Adrianople in 1829 (the status was briefly extended to Brăila in 1542). Alongside Dobruja, a part of present-day Romania under direct Ottoman rule in 1551-1718 was the Eyalet of Temeşvar (the Banat region of western Romania), which extended as far as Arad (1551-1699) and Oradea (1661-1699). The few thousand Muslims settled there were, however, driven out by Habsburg conquest. The presence of Muslims in the two Danubian Principalities was also attested, centering on Turkish traders and small communities of Muslim Roma. It is also attested that, during later Phanariote rules and the frequent Russo-Turkish Wars, Ottoman troops were stationed on Wallachia's territory.


Islam in Romania is followed by only 0.3 percent of population, but has 700 years of tradition in Northern Dobruja, a region on the Black Sea coast which was part of the Ottoman Empire for almost five centuries (ca. 1420-1878). According to tradition, Islam was first established locally around Sufi leader Sari Saltik during the Byzantine epoch. The Islamic presence in Northern Dobruja was expanded by Ottoman overseeing and successive immigration, but has been in steady decline since the late 19th century. After Northern Dobruja became part of Romania following the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, the community preserved its self-determining status. This changed during the communist regime, when Romanian Muslims were subject to a measure of supervision by the state, but the group again emancipated itself after the Romanian Revolution of 1989. Its interests are represented by the Muftiyat (Muftiyatul Cultului Musulman din România), which was created as the reunion of two separate such institutions. The Islamic religion is one of the 16 rites awarded state recognition.

Tatars in Romania

Tatars (Romanian: Tătari) were present on the territory of today's Romania since the 13th century. According to the 2002 census, 24,000 people declared their nationality as Tatar, most of them being Crimean Tatars living in Constanţa County. They are the main factor of Islam in Romania.


The Tatars first reached the mouths of the Danube in the mid-13th century at the height of power of the Golden Horde. In 1241, under the leadership of Kadan, the Tatars crossed the Danube, conquering and devastating the region. The region was probably not under the direct rule of the Horde, but rather, a vassal of the Bakhchisaray Khan. It is known from Arab sources that at the end of the 13th century and the beginning of the 14th century that descendants of the Nogai Horde settled in Isaccea. Another Arab scholar, Ibn Battuta, who passed through the region in 1330-1331, talks about Baba Saltuk (Babadag) as the southernmost town of the Tatars. The Golden Horde began to lose its influence after the wars of 1352-1359 and at the time, a Tatar warlord, Demetrius is noted defending the cities of the Mouths of the Danube. Toward the end of the 16th century, about 30,000 Nogai Tatars from the Budjak were brought to Dobruja. Nogai Tatars consider themselves as descended of the people of the Golden Horde and they take their name from Nogai Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan.


Crimean Tatars were brought to Dobruja by the Ottomans following the increasing power of the Russians in the region and its annexation of Crimea in 1783. After the Russian annexation of Crimea in 1783, Crimean Tatars began emigrating to the Ottoman coastal provinces of Dobruja (today divided between Romania and Bulgaria). However, after the independence of Romania in 1877-1878, between 80,000 and 100,000 Crimean Tatars moved to Anatolia, a migration which continued afterward. As such, the number of Tatars in Northern Dobruja decreased from 21% in 1880 to 5.6% in 1912. In 2002, they formed 2.4% of the population of this region. The Nogai component of the Tatar population are not separately enumerated in Romanian censuses. Most have emigrated to Turkey but it is estimated that a few thousand Nogais still live in Dobruja, notably in the town of Mihail Kogălniceanu (Karamurat) and villages of Lumina (Kocali), Valea Dacilor (Hendekkarakuyusu) and Cobadin (Kubadin).


Between 1947-1957 Tatar schools began operating in Romania and in 1955 a special alphabet was created for the Tatar community. In 1990 the Democratic Union of Muslim Tatar-Turks was established. Currently Romania respects the minority rights of Tatars and does not follow any policy of Romanianization.

Cottus transsilvaniae

Cottus is a genus of the sculpin family Cottidae. It is often referred to as the "freshwater sculpins", as the principle genus of sculpins to be found in fresh water. They are mostly small fish, rarely reaching more than 15 cm in length. A recently described sculpin is Cottus transsilvaniae (Freyhof, Kottelat & Nolte, 2005), a species endemic to Romania.



Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Scorpaeniformes
Family: Cottidae
Genus: Cottus
Species: Cottus transsilvaniae

Size / Weight / Age: Max length : 9.7 cm SL male/unsexed;
Environment: Benthopelagic; freshwater
Climate / Range: Temperate
Distribution: Europe: Danube basin in Romania. Found only in the upper river Argeş. May occur in other tributaries of lower Danube.
Short description:
Anal soft rays: 12 - 13. Can be distinguished from other species of Cottus in the Danube drainage by the combination of the following characters: dorsal head length 19-20% SL; 12-13 1/2 anal-fin rays; 18-19 1/2 rays in second dorsal fin; predorsal length 29-30% SL; distance from tip of snout to origin of second dorsal fin 47-50% SL; no distinct transverse bands on pelvic fin; no prickling on body.

La Mulţi Ani, România!

1st December, National Day of Romania

The Romanian Loach

The Romanian Loach (Sabanejewia romanica) is a species of ray-finned fish in the Cobitidae family, found only in Romania. It was originally placed in the genus Cobitis.

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Cypriniformes
Family: Cobitidae
Subfamily: Cobitinae
Genus: Sabanejewia
Species: S. romanica
Binomial name: Sabanejewia romanica(Băcescu, 1943)
Synonyms: Cobitis caspia romanica, Cobitis romanica


Max length : 10.5 cm male/unsexed; 12 cm female
Environment: Benthopelagic; freshwater
Climate / Range Temperate; 10°C - 18°C; 49°N - 43°N, 23°E - 29°E
Distribution: Europe: Upper and middle reach of some Danube tributaries in Romania. It is found only in Romania.
Resilience: High, minimum population doubling time less than 15 months (Preliminary K or Fecundity.)
Vulnerability: Low vulnerability (15 of 100)
IUCN Red List Status: Near Threatened (NT)