Europe | Romania

Magyar blues

|TIRGU MURES

EVERY Sunday the city of Tirgu Mures, which lies in the Transylvanian province of Romania 230 kilometres (140 miles) south-east of the Hungarian border, splits in two. The town's ethnic Hungarians—just over half its inhabitants—climb uphill to a sober Calvinist church, ringed by a medieval fortress wall. The Orthodox Romanians, darker-eyed and more flamboyantly dressed, troop off to a glittering neo-Byzantine confection in the square below.

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Magyar blues”

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From the December 20th 1997 edition

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