Adrian Rotărescu

Supporting the fight against poverty knowledge

[The Best @TheBestqueenx]

When your government tells you; "we're all in the same boat!"

[Cartoon Fun Times @funcartun]

The timeless holiday magic of Santa's Workshop (1933).

[Brave Romania @brave_romania]

🇷🇴 Despite all the obstacles, Romania’s development since joining the EU is still a miracle.

Imagine what we could achieve with a political class that truly supports the necessary reforms.

• 2.1x GDP per capita
• €100B+ EU funds
• +1.8M jobs
• 2.6x higher wages
• +1,000 km of highways
• EU convergence: from 47% to 77% of EU average

[James Lucas @JamesLucasIT]

Beethoven could not hear the music he wrote.

At the age of 28, he realized he was no longer able to listen to a flute being played in the distance, and he spent the rest of his life composing the most enduring music in Western history in almost complete silence...

He had been a working musician since childhood. His ears were everything. In 1798, in the middle of a heated argument with a singer, he noticed for the first time that something was wrong. The sound was thinning at the edges. He could hear voices, but high frequencies were beginning to disappear. He told no one for years.

By 1802, the truth was no longer deniable. On his doctor's advice he moved to Heiligenstadt, a quiet village outside Vienna, hoping the country air would help. It did not. There, alone and surrounded by farmland, he wrote a letter to his two brothers that he never sent. It was found among his papers after his death.

We now call it the Heiligenstadt Testament, and it is one of the most devastating documents ever written by an artist about himself:

"You men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the cause of my seeming so... what a humiliation, when one stood beside me and heard a flute in the distance and I heard nothing, or someone heard the shepherd singing, and again I heard nothing."

He wrote, in the same letter, that he had thought of ending his life. And then he wrote the line that explains everything that followed:

"Only my art held me back. It seemed impossible to me to leave the world before I had produced everything I felt called upon to produce."

He went back to Vienna. He went on composing. Over the next two decades his hearing continued to fade. Friends began writing their words down in small notebooks instead of speaking them aloud, and waiting while he read. Modern scholars call these the conversation books. Around four hundred of them survive.

To compose, he developed his own methods. He bit one end of a wooden rod and pressed the other against the soundboard of his piano, letting the vibrations travel through his jaw to his inner ear. He had stumbled, through trial and error, onto the principle that modern science calls bone conduction.

The cause of his deafness has never been settled. What we do know is this: he realized he was losing his hearing at twenty-eight, and he could have stopped. He wrote the letter, he held the thought of dying in his hand, and then he put down the pen and went back to work.

Most of what he is remembered for was composed after that moment: The Fifth Symphony. The Seventh. The Ninth. The Missa Solemnis. The late quartets. All of it was made by a man who could no longer hear most of what he was writing.

There are people who give the world what they receive, and there are people who give the world what they were never able to receive. The most enduring beauty in human history has almost always come from the second kind...

-- -- --

If you enjoyed this, I write a weekly newsletter read by over 50,000 people who love rediscovering the beauty of the past. You can join us here:

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[World's Amazing Things @Hana_b30]

Imperial Faberge Egg. The Memory of Azov Egg. It was made in 1891 for Tsar Alexander II, who presented it to his wife, the Tsarina Maria Feodorovna, as an Easter gift.

[House of Dracula (☥𝐃𝐁) @CountDraculaDB]

Gary Oldman decided to take the role of Dracula just so he could say...

I've crossed oceans of time to find you.

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

[CeCe @cecegkh]

Imagine the meltdown if ‘Married with Children’ was on TV in today’s societal climate. 😂

However, we loved it. Funny is funny and no one took it too seriously.

What other show from the past would trigger the woke mob of today?

[Global Statistics @Globalstats11]

🥇First in the World 🌎

1. 🇩🇪 First newspaper - Germany
2. 🇬🇧 First railway - United Kingdom
3. 🇪🇬 First postal system - Egypt
4. 🇨🇳 First paper money - China
5. 🇨🇳 First printed book - China
6. 🇱🇰 First hospital - Sri Lanka
7. 🇺🇸 First constitution - United States
8. 🇬🇷 First democracy - Greece
9. 🇬🇷 First Olympics - Greece
10. 🇨🇳 First census - China
11. 🇲🇦 First university - Morocco
12. 🇮🇹 First bank - Italy
13. 🇷🇺 First space program - USSR
14. 🇳🇱 First stock exchange - Netherlands
15. 🇬🇧 First TV broadcast - United Kingdom
16. 🇺🇸 First internet - United States
17. 🇳🇿 Women's voting rights first - New Zealand
18. 🇩🇪 First car industry - Germany
19. 🇺🇸 First atomic program - United States
20. 🇬🇧 First industrial revolution - United Kingdom
21. 🇦🇺 First feature-length film - Australia
22. 🇺🇸 First YouTube video - United States
23. 🇳🇴 First aerosol spray can - Norway
24. 🇨🇭 First LSD synthesis - Switzerland
25. 🇩🇪 First selfie (modern definition) - Germany
26. 🇫🇷 First parachute jump - France
27. 🇬🇧 First commercial jet - United Kingdom
28. 🇺🇸 First email sent - United States
29. 🇸🇪 First three-point seatbelt - Sweden
30. 🇯🇵 First digital camera - Japan
31. 🇦🇹 First slow-motion video - Austria
32. 🇭🇺 First ballpoint pen - Hungary
33. 🇨🇦 First standardized time zones - Canada
34. 🇳🇱 First Bluetooth technology - Netherlands
35. 🇮🇸 First female President (elected) - Iceland
36. 🇷🇺 First woman in space - USSR
37. 🇫🇮 First SMS (text message) - Finland
38. 🇺🇸 First artificial heart - United States
39. 🇬🇧 First test-tube baby - United Kingdom
40. 🇲🇽 First color TV system (patented) - Mexico
41. 🇮🇹 First battery - Italy
42. 🇩🇪 First MP3 player software - Germany
43. 🇰🇷 First 5G network - South Korea
44. 🇺🇸 First domain name (.com) - United States
45. 🇳🇿 First bungee jump (commercial) - New Zealand
46. 🇫🇷 First canned food - France
47. 🇺🇸 First credit card - United States
48. 🇩🇰 First magnetic sound recording - Denmark
49. 🇸🇮 First musical instrument (flute) - Slovenia
50. 🇪🇪 First country to use e-voting - Estonia

Note: “First” depends on definition. Some refer to the earliest known example, others to the first recorded system, first patent, or first large-scale commercial use. In several cases historians debate earlier versions or parallel developments in other regions. Countries listed reflect the most widely cited mainstream historical consensus, and flags represent modern nations.

[El Club del Arte 🎨📷📚🖼🕍🎼 @Arteymas_]

Los huevos Fabergé son una deslumbrante serie de joyas con forma de huevo creadas por el maestro orfebre ruso Peter Carl Fabergé entre 1885 y 1917.

Son considerados la cumbre de la joyería de lujo y el símbolo máximo del esplendor y la posterior trágica caída de la dinastía Románov en la Rusia Imperial.

La tradición comenzó en la Pascua de 1885. El zar Alejandro III quiso sorprender a su esposa, la emperatriz María Fiódorovna, con un regalo único para celebrar la festividad más importante del calendario ortodoxo ruso.

El encargo recayó en Fabergé, quien diseñó el "Huevo de la Gallina": una pieza exterior de esmalte blanco que simulaba una cáscara real, la cual se abría para revelar una yema de oro, que a su vez contenía una gallina de oro en miniatura, y dentro de esta, una réplica de la corona imperial y un colgante de rubí.

El entusiasmo de la emperatriz fue tal que el zar nombró a Fabergé "proveedor de la corte" y le ordenó hacer un huevo nuevo cada año, con una única condición: debían ser únicos y contener siempre una sorpresa oculta.

Tras la muerte de Alejandro III, su hijo Nicolás II continuó la tradición, encargando dos huevos cada año: uno para su madre y otro para su esposa, la emperatriz Alejandra Fiódorovna.

[World of Statistics @stats_feed]

🇷🇴 Romania population.

1990: 22.8 million

2000: 21.9 million

2010: 20.3 million

2023: 19.8 million

2025: 18.9 million

[Civixplorer @Civixplorer]

Flags of Italy since 1796. Which is your favorite?

[LeoDaVinciWave @LeoDaVinciWave]

The "Waterfall of the Bride" Cajamarca, Peru 🇵🇪.

[Brave Romania @brave_romania]

US Army AH-64 Apache attack helicopters have arrived at Mihail Kogălniceanu Air Base in Romania.

Mihail Kogălniceanu has evolved from a simple rotational base into a key strategic hub for U.S. and NATO operations in the Black Sea region.

🇷🇴🇺🇸

[Brave Romania @brave_romania]

A Brussels court ruled today that Romania must fulfill its 2021 EU contract and pay Pfizer approximately €600 million for around 28 million unused COVID-19 vaccine doses.

Poland received a similar ruling for €1.3 billion.

[Visegrád 24 @visegrad24]

Europe is set to welcome Dracula Land, a massive Dracula-themed resort near Bucharest, Romania. 🧛‍♂️ 🇷🇴

Announced in December 2025 as part of a €1 billion project, it will feature six themed lands and over 40 attractions, including gothic castles, dark rides, and roller coasters inspired by Transylvanian legends and Bram Stoker's novel.

The multi-day resort will also offer 1,200 themed hotel rooms, an aqua park, spa, 22,000 ft. entertainment arena, shopping district, and more, aiming to open by 2027!

[🕯️👻Jeanne Loves Horror👻🕯️ @1carolinagirl]

Dracula
released 94 years ago today ~ February 14th 1931💀🎬

[WikiVictorian @wikivictorian]

Today is Dracula Day! On this day in 1897, Irish author Bram Stoker published his famous novel Dracula 🦇🩸 Have you read it? Do you like it? I personally love it, so I'm really happy to find there is a World Dracula Day!

[Brave Romania @brave_romania]

From mayors to champions of democracy: Nicușor Dan and Rafał Trzaskowski

🇵🇱🇷🇴