Reporter: Tony Jones

Canals and wildlife

This is one of the wildest corners of Europe.

00.24

The vital breeding grounds for many of the species that live in it’s greatest river - the Danube.

But during the decades of Romanian rule - these wetlands came perilously close to destruction.

00.47

Tony Jones and Radu Succiu climbing into boat

All transport through the delta is by boat there are no roads here. Only a network of estuaries that connect the wetlands and hundreds of lakes - and eventually flow out into the Black Sea.

01.35

Radu Succiu - a scientist with the Delta Institute volunteered to be our guide.

02.05

Trees

Radu: As you see the Danube spreads out in this area like the fingers of my hand and forms islands and lakes . This is the Delta.

Men rowing

For centuries the lives of the Delta people revolved around fishing.

But the Communist dictator Nicolae Ceacescu nearly put an end to all that.

He had big plans to drain huge areas of the delta and make it the breadbasket of Romania - to turn fisherman in to farmers.

02.48

Tony and Radu coming to shore

Radu Succiu took us to see what became of Ceacescu’s dreams.

Tony: So what is this building?

Radu: It’s an abandoned fish collecting point. It was used by fisherman to deliver the fish they caught in the 200 lakes that were all around. And now it is abandoned and completely wrecked.

Tony: This is before Ceacescu decided to change the whole area.

Radu: Of course.

Walking into building

Radu: It was supposed that fisherman turn into land workers which was an absurd thing. Almost none accepted this

Pigs

Radu: And all their traditional buildings and all their traditional way of life is lost - disappeared - it’s a tragedy - real tragedy. It’s a way of how the state should never behave with the people with the citizens.

03.40

Mud

Tony: So Radu, What’s this?

Pumping Station

Radu: This is the pumping station. The very thing they used to destroy the lakes. 200 lakes is not easy so they built all along the dykes pumping stations - this destroyed the lakes that the fisherman had no place to fish. I can show through the binoculars what they did. Look...

Tony and Radu along dyke

Ceacescu’s engineers built vast dykes around a chain of lakes and erected a grid of giant pumping stations to drain them out.

Tony: So this is where the lake used to be?

Radu: Yes - and where crops are supposed to be grown.

Tony: It’s a huge area they’ve drained. How big is this area?

04.41

Radu: It’s about 30,000 hectares. 200 lakes gone.

The further we went down the river the more perverse were the projects designed to wring economic benefit out of the delta.

05.00

Sand mine

This great sand mine lies abandoned at the end of the artery.

Tony: What was the scale of this whole factory?

Crane

Radu: You can see it was meant to be really huge. These cranes were brought in and very large barges were meant to be loaded there.

Radu: In fact they wanted to build a huge canal to transport with barges and sand. They dredged it there three times but never it was deep enough for these barges to transport it.

Instead half the nearby village was flooded and salt leached out through the soil of it’s pastures - destroying them.

05.50

Radu: Again it’s the madness of central planning very well expressed in this whole thing.

06.00

Walking over dune

Radu: Look it’s the sand coming and swallowing up all this machinery. In fact swallowing up the madness of Ceacescu we just keep it to show the people that something like this will never happen. In our reserve for sure it’s a good example ... a sort of exhibition.

06.16

Coming into Periprava

To get a more complete picture of the madness in the delta Radu took us to the river town of Periprava.

06.50

On it’s outskirts there’d been one of Romania’s worst gulags - known far and wide as the ‘Red House’.

Cows

Radu: This used to be the cultural centre of the town at the time. And look this is the place where they used to show movies. The library was there and... Look it’s full of cows.

07.17

With the demise of Ceacescu the local institutions had reverted to the barnyard.

07.31

The people here are Lippovanec... descendants of the Ukranian fisherman who came here in the 18th century to escape persecution by the Tsarist Russia. In the delta they were left in peace to follow traditions that have barely changed in 300 hundred years.

07.43

Man on horse

And despite the long communist interlude Periprava itself seemed to be frozen in time as if those past 50 years had made little impact.

08.11

Roof thatcher

But that was a false perception as we found when we started to ask questions about the ‘Red House’.

08.22

These people told us that dead from the Gulag were secretly buried at night.

08.34

Old guy calling

While we were talking a curious neighbour called to us to come over.

08.46

Tony: We understand he may have worked at the Red House.

Artium: Yes, 17 years

08.59

Tony: 17 years working there?

His name was Artium Suhov and he told us he ran a shop for the camp guards at the gulag.

09.03

Artium: I know a lot things from there. I know a lot of things that happened.

09.10

Getting into trailer

Mr Suhov agreed to take us to the Red House.

He even organised for a friend to drive us there in his old Russian tractor.

09.24

Tractor

Tony: Was this road also built by the prisoners?

09.33

Radu: It was built by the prisoners. Thousands of prisoners. It was... slavery. Probably many of them died also because of the hard work they were forced to do.

Wide of tractor

So here slave labour was used to build the dykes in order to pump out the lakes.

09.52

In an Orwellian solution enemies of the state were used to build projects that destroyed the environment.

Horses running through door

Here in what was once the officer’s club in the gulag, wild horses had taken over.

10.23

Tony, Radu and Artium walking

Radu: This was at the beginning of the political part of the prison where they killed probably 7,000 political prisoners.

10.34

Radu: So it was the securitate special troops who guarded all these political prisoners.

10.50

Artium: Here the flower of our nation were imprisoned, including teachers, priests, doctors, dentists, who treated my teeth. They had x-ray equipment and even specialists were imprisoned here.

10.57

Mural

Every Friday night the camp officers gathered to be entertained by the more talented of the inmates on this special stage.

11.30

Radu: Probably the officers ordered this and some of the prisoners were forced to paint it.

Radu: It’s a flock of sheep. There are swans in front and water lilies. Behind is a forest with migratory birds in the sky and it’s tractor and combine harvesters.

Multiple bell ringer

The people of Periprava - in their isolation - seem to have understood little of the great political movements that brought the Red House here.

12.12

They watched propaganda films in the cultural centre, worked as guards in the gulag, ran its shops, averted their eyes.

Priest reading

Woman lighting candelabra

In return they were able to maintain the religious traditions their ancestors brought from the Ukraine - escaping a much older repression.

12.41

Little boy in church

Women praying

But as they prayed for a better life in the next world the regime was busy planning it’s changes to the one they live in.

Int. Radu Succiu

Radu: Ah - the fishermen are here we can speak to them.

13.16

And now scientists like Radu Sicciu - himself the son of a blacklisted class enemy - are trying to change things back again.

Onto other boat

To restore the world so damaged by the regime.

13.32

Radu: They just brought the fish. This is research that we do normally in this area.

Fish on boat

These are the fishes which re-entered the area - look what beautiful Pikes. Catfish. Young one. Let’s see, Perch.

Radu’s colleagues from the Delta Institute are re-flooding the wetlands drained by Ceacescu’s engineers.

C/Ups of fish

All of these fishes entered now again this island and they reproduce, they feed and use the area as a feeding area and of course the fishermen are happy because it’s a new fishing ground for them.

14.10

C/Up of reporter looking

Tony: These are fish that are coming back?

14.25

Radu: Ya. They are coming back. (Bends Down) Beautiful Pikes. I like this.

Boat in reeds

Radu took us into the re-flooded wetland.

14.41

This had been levelled farmland.

Narrow canal boat

The reeds returned first. With a phenomenal growth rate as nature reclaimed the area.

Green weed in water

Then the weed came back. And acting like the kidneys of the human body, purified the water. That in turn allowed the fish to breed again.

15.05

Radu in boat

Radu: Hello Micha! How’s it going?

Using a jolt of electricity the scientists stun baby fish and net them to gauge what fish are breeding in the area.

15.27

Micha Stara is the director of the Delta Institute. He’s also a man of Lippovane descent.

Micha Stara, Director of the Delta Institute sitting in boat

Micha Stara: We are surprised that 3 or 4 years the nature proved that it has a very huge capacity for recovering.

15.47

Tony: Have you got any idea how long it might take to come back to what it was?

Micha Stara: I think the area already came back.

Tony: Really? So quickly

Micha Stara: Yes, so quickly

Boat

This is the largest wetland reconstruction ever undertaken and scientists are amazed by the results.

16.22

Now they plan to re-flood all the areas destroyed by Ceacescu.

Radu grabs sturgeon in his arms

Radu Succui has made it his life’s work to undo such damage.

16.40

To save the species that industrial development - right through Europe - have put at risk...

He’s beginning with the sturgeon

Tony: He’s still alive right?

Radu: Yah, very, very alive. We will put from time to time bit of water to keep it wet in order to release it. It has this bone which is very sharp.

Pulls out sturgeon’s mouth

It’s very interesting the way it feeds. It has a sort of mouth like a vacuum cleaner.

Tony: As a species, how old are they?

Radu: Very old. They are real living fossils. Close relative of this species in the age of the dinosaurs.

Tony: The age of the dinosaurs.

Radu: Dinosaurs. 200 million years ago. Before

Radu tips water on fish

Tony: This will keep it alive?

17.42

Radu: See. Likes it very much.

Tony: I think we should let him while he’s still alive and still fit. Before he gets too weak don’t you.

Radu: Yes I would like also very much to do that.

Tony: Let’s let him go back to sea... back to the river.

In boat

Radu Succui grew up in Ceacescu’s Romania. He watched his people wither under totalitarian rule.

Radu holding fish in river

Radu: It’s a very gentle position. Just like a child. Learning to swim.

He saw his father’s life destroyed by communism and watched in dismay as the madness spread across the land, ruining even the environment.

18.37

Radu: Ah, ah

Tony It’s almost ready to go?

Radu: Ya, ya. I almost lost it.

This is his way of trying to remake the world as it should be.

19.03

Radu standing in boat

Radu: Oh, it just went. It decided to go deeper and deeper and... this is it. It is saved. We have it. Done... good.

19.09

ENDS

19.22