Romanian Vampires

Haunted by "strigoi" - the undead - villagers on the slopes of the Carpathian mountains exhume a corpse from the graveyard and drive a stake through its heart to banish the evil spirit.


They burn the remains of the heart, mix the ashes with water from the local well and drink it, to complete the macabre ritual.

Scenes from a shlock vampire B-movie? No; all this took place in February 2004 at a village in Dolj County, south-western Romania, according to Romanian Antena 1 TV news.

But the "Strigoi Show", as the TV dubbed it light-heartedly, has prompted such a stir about local customs and culture, the national press is questioning whether the ex-communist Balkan country will truly be ready to enter the European Union in 2007.

Under the headline "Ancestral habits at odds with modern European civilization," the independent national daily Evenimentul Zilei commented that such events were the "law of the land" in rural Romania.


BBC NEWS | Europe | Death rite unnerves Romanian EU bid