ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how Romania’s opening to Western tourism in the 1960s impacted on the everyday life of ordinary citizens. It analyses how the influx of foreign tourists from capitalist countries seeking to profit from the local shortage economy created a shadow economy for scarce consumer goods. Drawing on a range of archival sources and oral history interviews, the chapter focuses on the practices of consumption between the 1960s and the 1980s and explores how the Romanian state reacted to the informal economy, which exposed the socialist state’s inability to fulfil citizens’ desires.
