A Transylvanian Silicon Valley, they say

The New York Times, that Johnny come lately competitor of mine, has quite the informative piece on world events and afflairs. Hark this new wisdom :

In Timisoara, a Transylvanian Silicon Valley about 100 miles from Bucharest, about 5,000 foreign companies, including Alcatel-Lucent, Microsoft and Oracle, have invested, drawn by the country’s talented pool of engineers, relatively low wages and a strategic location between east and west.

I'm sure my local acquaintances will be thrilled to learn all about the Transylvanian Silicon Valley which isn't a valley, isn't in Transylvania and has nothing to do with silicon. Quite literally, in fact, seeing how one couldn't exactly locate the offices of Microsoft or Oracle (who, tis true, outsource here) and more importantly seeing how Alcatel-Lucent is fried. They have maintenance contracts for what, 2013, maaaybe 2014, and then it's closing down, the whole shebang. Can't quite compete with Huawei, even if shedding French engineers and taking on Romanians. Such is life.

Did I mention Bucharest is a whopping 15 hours away by train ? That's right, not 100 miles, more like 500 miles, and not miles in the civilised-world sense of that term. Miles in cca 1850, when the average speed per capita was something in the sub-meter per second range.

Though dilapidated tenement houses and poor people hawking scrap metal remain a feature of daily life here in the capital, designer shops, hip sushi restaurants and disco clubs now compete with the stray dogs and street children that have long blighted Romania’s image abroad.

Sounds legit.

PS. This article really should go under cackling news. Categorically.