Since I was a child for as long as I can remember,
Astronomy was the only subject that interested me.
When I was 5 or 6, I remember asking my mother "Why
the Sky is Blue And Not of Some Other Color?" or
being obsessed with the question of "Why Objects are
Falling Down and Do Not Stay Put?" or, "What Is It
That Is Pulling Down All Objects?"
To all these and many more questions of this nature,
my mother would answer that when I go to school, I
will find out the answers to all my questions. And
since this curiosity never left me and Astronomy in
Romania was studied at the prestigious Faculty of
Mathematics and Mechanics at the University of
Bucharest (photo at left), there I was, enrolled as
a student, from 1963 to 1968.
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In 1965, when the
Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu came to power,
I was in my third year as a student pondering how
I would be able to defect after my graduation.
Everyone at that time in Romania knew that the
people from Yugoslavia could travel anywhere they
wanted to and that many Romanians who went to
visit Yugoslavia were somehow able to find their
way to the West but no one knew how they did it
since once they defected they vanished without a
trace.
Because of this
situation, Ceausescu made sure that no tourist
visa was to be issued to anybody applying for
Yugoslavia, notwithstanding the good relations
that were being cultivated between these two
countries.
In Romania the
following process was in place for those "insane"
Romanians seeking to travel outside the country.
For an exorbitant fee, to discourage application,
you had to buy an application for the purpose of
obtaining a visa for the country you intended to
visit. After completing the said application,
stating with exactness the dates of departure and
return for the visit together with the reason for
the visit, you needed to submit the application to
the local Police Station. There, you were advised
that in two (2) months you would have an
answer. Virtually there was no chance that anybody
could be approved for a tourist visa to the West
or to Yugoslavia and this existing process was
known to all Romanians as being an absolute waste
of money. (And speaking of money, I have included
at right a beautiful photo of the Bucharest's
Central Bank.)
This was the
background and the reality that I had to face at
the time of my graduation. And, as you will see in
the next section, against all odds, I was able
somehow to succeed, first by finding a "crack" and
then, by being able to open a "window" which
eventually was able to set me free.
  
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