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Vama Veche

This article is about the village of Vama Veche. Vama Veche is also the name of a Romanian rock band.

Vama Veche is a village in Romania on the Black Sea coast near the border with Bulgaria.

The name literally means "Old customs point", named after the Cadrilater was included in Romania in 1913. In 1940, however, that region was ceded to Bulgaria, and the village was once again near the border.

Even in Communist Romania, Vama Veche had a reputation as a non-mainstream tourist destination, which has only grown since the Romanian Revolution of 1989. Famous for its nude beach, as of 2004 it is experiencing development and gentrification, which has led to a "Save Vama Veche" [1] campaign and the 2004 founding of the Stufstok music festival [2], [3]. The August 2004 festival drew a crowd of about 10,000.

During the communist era, concern for border patrol sight lines spared Vama Veche the development that occurred in other Romanian Black Sea resorts. It became a hangout for intellectuals; for reasons that are not exactly clear, the generally repressive regime of Nicolae Ceauşescu chose to tolerate this countercultural oasis, as long as people had their identity papers with them. Accommodations consisted of tents or rooms rented from peasants or fishermen. [4]

Vama Veche is located at 28.3 E longitude, 43.5 N latitude.

Last updated: 05-07-2005 04:08:06
Last updated: 05-13-2005 07:56:04