Vlad Roșca

Economist, Ph.D., freelance journalist and independent researcher

In Pursuit of the West

There is a ceaseless notion going on about the rearwardness of Eastern European states and their inability to build lastingness. Ideas uninterruptedly flow about a retrograde existence that keeps the East away from competing with the West; that the hiatus seems to enlarge day after day. Alignment with the West is one of the biggest endeavours of the East. Many efforts are put into an attempt of modernization which gives the impression of being beyond comprehension and realization. Arraying in the same clothes as the big brother looks to have become a mantra of the East, with an ubiquitous hope of a finest hour that will come when differences will no longer exist. Odd enough, the East sets its hopes in an ideal it has never managed to obtain for centuries, but which is now seen as an end goal. More

No. 7-8, Sep.-Dec. 2017 2017

The Psychological Watchdog of Footballers

Vlad Roșca

Where is Romanian football heading towards? Well, for a beginning, literally speaking, it might head towards the back of the net, which would be wonderful piece of news for the goal scoring team. The not so bright answer would come if the question was considered as a metaphor, not as a real ball-playing skill of any given footballer. Irrespective of where a ball is really heading – in or outside the goal, in the stands, outside the stadium even, as witnessed in many small, murky stadiums of lower league competitions – one thing is certain: Romanian football fans don’t really seem to be heading towards there where one would expect them to see: to the stadiums. More

No. 7-8, Sep.-Dec. 2017 2017

Food Wars

Vlad Roșca

‘May the force be with you’, and it’s not Anakin Skywalker who possesses it, but it looks like you’d rather find it in old grandma’s cooking book. Dishes seem to have historically had the power not only to feed hungry stomachs and greedy souls, but also to beget monstrous diplomatic disharmonies. Not that it necessarily came to weapon-like conflicts, but still enough on the plate to leaven in a sourdough of cultural schisms. More

No. 5-6, May.-Aug. 2017 2017

Starting Up on the Island of Love

Vlad Roșca

Victor Kislyi would for sure have been delighted with current market conditions in Cyprus, but even so, the strong-minded, iron-forged Belorussian young entrepreneur was never short of success. In August 1998 he deployed his units in Nicosia, joined them with home-based brainiacs from Minsk and started a quest to conquer the world with turn-based and real-time strategy warship games. Crown of the jewelry: the 2010 launched World of Tanks. A five-man startup in 1998, Wargaming turned into a four thousand plus employee business with over six million euros in net income. Reason enough for Cypriot authorities to reconsider their stance upon doing international business on the island of love. More

No. 4, Mar.-Apr. 2017 2017

A Colchoneric Tragedy

Vlad Roșca

Santiago Roncagliolo did not do anything out of the usual. A young Peruvian writer, playwright, producer and journalist – a man of arts and letter, in a nutshell – emigrated to Spain at the turn of the century in search for a better life, in search of a career that he seemed to have been banned from in native Lima. This is the sort of brain-drain you get all over the world, sourced mainly underdeveloped countries. Santiago was only 27 when he settled in Madrid, aspiring to follow in the footsteps of García Márquez and Vargas Llosa, the ‘corps d’elite’ of Latin American erudite triumph on European soil. Full of ardor, he descended to Barajas ready to mesmerize with pen on paper. More

No. 3, Jan.-Feb. 2017 2017

An Entity without Identity:
The Collapse of Football Fandom in Romania

Vlad Roșca

Can it really go deeper than that? Officially, 218 people have watched the Liga 1 (Romanian National football league) game between FC Steaua Bucharest and ASU Poli Timișoara at the largest venue of the country – Arena Națională (with an all-seated capacity of 55634). That accounts for less than 0.4% of tickets sold. Say 300 people by adding to the headcount the stewards, police forces and the guests who did not have to buy a ticket. And this still comes no more than a couple of weeks after the same home side, at the same arena, gathered around 500 football lovers for the match against Pandurii Tg. Jiu, a visiting side that also had some of its own ‘records’: 34 in attendance against FC Voluntari, 50 against FC Botoșani, 200 against Astra Giurgiu (the reigning champions) at a stadium of 20054 seats. More

No. 2, Nov.-Dec. 2016 2016

From Éder to Bastille Day

Vlad Roșca

Rarely in the history of sports has there been a major sporting event under such a great threat of mayhem as the French EURO 2016. There were, of course, the Munich 72 and the Moscow 80 Olympics, the 1990s ethnic conflicts of the Yugoslav Wars (with major impact on the make-up of the representative sports teams of the belligerents), or the two World Wars which cancelled all competitions, but one could reasonably hope those days were truly over. More

No. 1, Sep.-Oct. 2016 2016

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