Beach Wednesday: Enjoy the Black Sea at Vama Veche - Bonus: a history of this former non-conformist, bohemian retreat.

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Meet Vama Veche, where liberalism meets gentrification. As a I am a tourism master's student and have researched the development of this place, I thought I should also share some extracts from my research relating to it with you. So you may have a bit of insight into the (his)story of this place.

The image I took with my old Iphone 4S.

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This beach town on the southern border of Romania's Black Sea coast used to be a small fishing village with just about 15 families living there before 1940. An important change happened that year when the Balchik area south of the village was yielded by Romania to Bulgaria. This region was a popular tourist destination for Romania's artistic and political elite in the interwar period. When the border was moved just outside the village of Vama Veche, this area started being perceived by some as potential modest replacement for the 'lost' Balchik. At the time there were no tourist facilities here and only about 15 family houses.

In the context outlined above, artists, students and members of the old elite started visiting Vama Veche in the 60s in small numbers. According to the locals and some of the older visitors to this place, tourists enjoyed the remote nature of the village, the lack of families with children, camping on the beach and in local's courtyards as well as nude sunbathing and swimming. As the communist regime did not intervene, in time, a small island of relative freedom was born. This allowed visitors to openly discuss otherwise prohibited subjects such as western music and books, Romanian politics and the world 'outside'.

With the arrival of larger numbers of tourists in the 70s, local people started selling food and drinks to them and slowly began to change the way their traditional houses were build in order to offer accommodation during the summer months. Slowly, the village grew bigger with the arrival of new residents from other parts of the country that took advantage of governmental offers of farming and residential land in Vama Veche and the surrounding area.

Vama Veche grew in popularity in the 80s especially among student circles because of the aforementioned liberties and bohemian image.

Despite this popularity surge in the 80s, the number of tourists to Vama Veche remained relatively small. During this decade Vama Veche remained a small village with dirt roads and traditional houses specific to south eastern Romania. There were still no big tourism infrastructure such as hotels, bed and breakfast facilities, bars or restaurants present here. There were no large events such as concerts or festivals either.

Following the fall of the communist regime in late 1989 Vama Veche was the scene of rapid changes and developments. Access and residence was permitted and more and more tourists started discovering this place. The lift of previous restrictions on freedom of speech, the rise in private car ownership, the increased mobility of young people and other factors brought by the radical political change can be identified as initial drivers of tourism demand in this area.

By now, big concerts and events such as Stufstock (a multi day annual rock and folk music festival) drawing in approximately 30-40.000 people started taking place. Day visits and weekend trips became more popular than long stays, littering became a major issue, the part of the beach that wasn't destined for camping has become covered with deckchairs and permanent umbrellas and the roads in town were paved.

All of these developments alienated the old regulars and to some extent even some of the newcomers that were expecting to find something else there. As by the year 2000, Vama Veche achieved an almost legendary status among the youth of the country. Conflicts started appearing between the old clientele and the new one.

Things started slowly improving from 2010 when local authorities, supported by the 'Save Vama Veche' NGO started reversing some of the chaotic developments of the past years and limiting construction (replacing plastic and metal with wood and reed among others).

The atmosphere changed over the years and a lot of the regulars began going to other more hidden locations such as the wild beaches of the Danube Delta wishing to reinvent the old Vama Veche spirit there. However, a new generation of people found their own meaning of Vama Veche and even though today the place is completely different than it used to be, there are many people that appreciate the fact the it is still different from other resorts on the Romanian coast through the music played here (mainly rock, folk and jazz). Looking at the development of the village of Vama Veche one can clearly see just how powerful of a transformation agent tourism can be.

Bibliography that I used writing this:

Mihailescu, V. (2004) Raport sociologic, in cadrul elaborarii PUG Limanu [Sociological report within the General Urbanism Plan for Limanu]. Salvati Vama Veche. [Online] Available from: http://www.salvativamaveche.ro/main.php?documentid=13. [Accessed 21st October 2014].

Tascu-Stavre, M. (2013) Tourism and local development in Vama Veche and 2 Mai. Challenges of the Knowledge Society. [Online] 28th May, p. 1249-1258. Available from: http://cks.univnt.ro/uploads/cks_2013_articles/index.php?dir=3_Administrative_and_Political_Sciences%2F&download=cks_2013_administration_012.pdf. [Accessed: 18th October 2014].

Popa, A. (2012) Development of peripheral areas trough tourism-disadvantages and benefits: case study for Romanian Coastal Area. In the 6th Conference of the International Forum on Urbanism. International Forum on Urbanism - Tourbanism, Barcelona. [Online] Available from: http://upcommons.upc.edu/revistes/bitstream/2099/12608/1/C_143_2.pdf. [Accessed: 20th October 2014].

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Hope you like the post and please let me know what you think about the shots. I really like feedback...

Also, I would want you to know that I would be humbled if you decided to use any of my images, however, please contact me about it first to discuss the matter. Thank you! :)