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| Castle Dracula |
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| The prince of Wallachia was himself known for his time as cruel and fulfilled all the preconditions for Spontanumwandlung into a vampire: He was extremely angry, and he had a "not too late lived" life. He was born probably in 1431 in Sighisoara (Sighisoara) in Transylvania (Transylvania), the second son of the Wallachian boyars Vlad Dracul, who had just received his nickname: he was at the Nuremberg Diet in February 1431 by King Sigismund II, along with other nobles, including Oswald von Wolkenstein, included in the first class of the Dragon Order. In Sighisoara Vlad Dracul lived in exile until 1435, he succeeded in overthrowing Alexander, the voivod of Wallachia, and to climb as Vlad II Dracul the throne. Wallachia was play ball between Turks and Hungarians, with a dexterous swing Policy Vlad Dracul was 12 years to preserve the family and his country's independence. 1441 he gave his two younger sons as hostages to the court of the Sultan of Turkey, where the young Vlad the cruelty learned as a political means to know and love. 1447 Vlad Dracul and his eldest son Mircea were killed by the Turks, a ungarntreuer voivod followed. Succeeded in 1448 Vlad Dracula (Dracula = son of the dragon) as Vlad III. To conquer the Wallachian throne with Turkish support, but he was expelled after a few months. This was followed by restless years of wandering before Vlad 1456 with the support of Hungary and the Transylvanian Saxons conquered the throne. In the 6 years of his reign, he acquired a reputation as an extremely cruel prince: he had the hats nailed ambassador to the head, impaled thousands of people (on the cruel, slow Oriental way) with greased, rounded piles in the anus, drank the blood his victims, killing at least one of his wives and a mistress, "eliminating" the poverty, by burning the poor, and forced the Gypsies to military service, when he introduced them to the choice of fighting against the Turks, or to eat their own children . It was not until the spring of 1998 in St. Gallen (Switzerland more than 500 years old manuscript) is discovered, will be reporting on the forced consumption of fried people. The text, written from 1460 to 1470, two monks describe how Tepes had them arrested 300 Sinti and Roma, three of them on a spit to roast. The other would then have to eat them. Rule by terror was Tepes' motto, and he brought it in to a rare again reached perfection. Even his nickname aroused fear, "Dracul" is derived) from the Latin draco (dragon. But in Romanian is "drac" "devil" (the suffix-ul) is the definite article! 1462 Vlad was overthrown by a cabal of Saxony cities and imprisoned for nearly 15 years in Budapest and the castle situated on the Danube Bend Visegrad. He converted to Catholicism to marry a relative of Hungarian king can, and should in captivity mice and birds have impaled. 1476 he was again appointed voivod of Wallachia and the last time the bulwark against the Turks. On New Year's Eve 1476/77 Tepes was slain in his capital Tirgoviste by the Turks, either in battle or murdered from behind, without confession and the sacraments. His head was preserved in honey ( "candied Vlad"), sent to the sultan, his body was said to have been buried in the monastery of Snagov near Bucharest - as they opened the grave in this century, however, it was empty. The official Romanian history especially the Ceaucescu era, Vlad Tepes was celebrated as a great statesman, military commander and patriot - in an official brochure of the construction of a dam the construction of his "Eagle's Fortress" Poenari was compared. Today, his assessment is very different: from the clearly articulated desire for such a harsh condemnation as a disgrace to the ruler of Romania. For a vampire Tepes was never held, incidentally. First, there was not even time vampires, and also a vampire without a head is hard to imagine ... Only made him a vampire Bram Stoker - and Coppola in his film, in which, however, true to the figure of Vlad Tepes, almost nothing. According to the UK magazine Daily Telegraph, incidentally, a descendant of Vlad the German Ottomar Berbig adopted, which has since "called Vlad Dracula Prince Kretzulesco. In October 2000 the 60-year-old saw the headlines when he announced his wish to leave Germany because of the threat posed by neo-Nazis. "Dracula" is the title of Knight of the Dragon Order, whose signet is shown here: a curved, itself in the tail biting dragon (Uroborus). The first class of this "ordo draconis", or "Societas Draconia" or "ordo Draconia called, it belonged to illustrious masters as Vlad Dracul, the father of Vlad Tepes, or Oswald von Wolkenstein. The Order was founded in 1418 by Emperor Sigismund II (Sigismund of Luxembourg, 1368-1437, Margrave of Brandenburg, 1378-1388, Hungarian king from 1387, German king from 1410, King of Bohemia from 1436, emperor from 1433) against the Ottomans and the "angry Christians in secret," that is especially the Hussites. The Order's motto was: "Oh, how merciful is God, as righteous and devout" - an irony when one considers that the most famous of all vampires and vampire, Dracula, indirectly, owes its name to this Order. Dracula's spirit crosses the paths of travelers Sighisoara (gms) - terrifying the door creaks, the old floorboards creak and moan of the wind whistling through the old walls uncomfortable. And there, fluttering above the battlements of the castle tower, because not pitch black bats? For the breath of a second, the visitors chasing down a shudder of horror the back - he wonders, finally, whether or not something is there behind the Dracula legend, written in 1897, the Bram Stoker's vampire novel had "since the castle was in all its size, a thousand feet high, separated on the top of a steep cone, from the mountains through deep valleys all around: a wild and eerie sight! " Precisely this impression can nicknamed - in Romanian: Bran - in the southern arc of the Carpathians offer actually. She sits majestically on a cliff that is twisty and haunting, wild and scary, and from above there is a steep downhill. And it is located in Transylvania, the Romanians of Transylvania to call, which means something like "behind the woods". Alone: The Dracula Castle is nicknamed never been. Not even the souvenir stalls at the foot of the walls to change anything, in which old women Dracula knitwear and T-shirts hawking bat decor. As the throngs of American and Japanese tourists with enthusiastic "Aahh" and "Oohh" Acknowledge the locals with a suggestive grin. For the inhabitants of the village of Bran know only too well that the castle, which rises because of their homes, either with the fictional character with the historical Dracula still had something to do. Only in the 70s this was the ancestral home of the legend of vampires. At that time, opened the communist Romania Western tourists, and the comrades wanted to come up with a real Dracula's castle. Bran Since it looked like Dracula's castle is a commonly imagined, Ceausescu decreed minions of the building simply be spooky image. Anyone who has read Bram Stoker's book will know that the Roman castle lies a few hundred miles further north, near the town of Bistrita on the Borgo Pass. Pitch only that here, too, and there was not befitting Dracula-wall place. At least until the 70s. Again, the Communist Party of remedial knew - and had a hotel block, together with concrete tower and crypt pull imitation. "Castelul Dracula" is the thing, viewed from a distance, the least reminiscent of a medieval wall. If you stand against it unmistakably socialist exudes charm, but what is horrible, but not back to Dracula. Inside the slab one tries hard to conjure up an authentic atmosphere, dangling with blood-red carpets and a death chamber in which a rat over an empty coffin. These bloodsuckers Kitsch is offered. Despite the amateurish terror staged more and more tourists coming into the country in search of the vampire myth. He has now caused even the Romanian Touristenamt, a Dracula-issue booklet, which is also in German. Much you will not know it, at least this much: In the 15th Century there were in Transylvania actually a name sponsor for the vampire figure. He was Prince of Wallachia, called Vlad Dracul was a member of the Nuremberg and the Dragon. Dracul means dragon in Romanian, which explains the name of the prince. The son of Prince Vlad was also called, but was Dracula - small dragon called -. Dracula actually had a taste for blood: He made enemies and rebellious subjects impaled alive on yard-long piles. During his reign the Walachenfürst should have eliminated this way tens of thousands. That gave him the nickname Tepes (pronounced Zepesch) a - the Impaler. By Bram Stoker was Vlad Tepes, who had never been to Romania, wind. Thus Dracula was born. Stoker "lent" to the Prince's resume is not without alienating those with large amounts of blood to the unrecognizable. Away from the presumed vampire castles in Transylvania there are some worthwhile places in which the 'lived real "Dracula. For example, in Sighisoara (Sighisoara). The city was in the 12th Founded century by German settlers and is still a center of the German minority of the Transylvanian Saxons. The medieval old town has been preserved intact in the narrow alleys between crooked gables, and the mighty walls seems to be lost in time that were it not for the ubiquitous Coca-Cola umbrellas in front of the guest rooms. Symbol of Sighisoara is the hour tower with a clock whose dial has a diameter of 2.40 meters. In the shadow of this tower in the year 1431 saw Vlad Tepes the light of day, certainly at the witching hour. His birthplace is today and can not miss it - on the forecourt cavort with souvenir sellers vampire kitsch. In the house with its nearly meter-thick walls, there is a government-managed restaurant in which at least the beer tastes good. Really scary here is not, however, more like in the cemetery of the town: Here are altdeutsch inscribed gravestones of several centuries. If you speak with one of the ancient Germans, who here maintain the graves of their ancestors, will have difficulty in understanding their ancient dialect. A few centuries under his belt has also removed Kronstadt (Brasov) at the foot of the Carpathian Mountains, about 40 kilometers from the Törzburg. Today the city has more than 300 000 inhabitants, most of whom have to live in prefabricated buildings. In contrast, the old town is well preserved. The newly renovated some houses are nestled around the giant square together to form a unique ensemble, dominated by the Black Church, the largest church between Vienna and Istanbul. The Gothic sandstone church takes its name from a fire in 1689, since then, the blackened facade. Inside, many Oriental carpets in fall, the colorful hanging on the walls. The Black Church has in Europe outside of Turkey, the largest collection of antique carpets from Anatolia. The attached resources are from the 17th and 18 Century, they were the rich merchants donated Kronstadt. In the town of Kronstadt Chronicle also appears Vlad Tepes. The Walachenfürst had tried to 1459, to take Kronstadt vain -. However, the suburbs fell into his hands. Here he let hundreds of residents within sight of the city wall impaled, right next to it, he amused himself) at a breakfast, which occupies a historic puncture (above. Meistersinger Beheim Michel, a contemporary of the Prince, said his preference thus: "It was his desire and gave him courage when he saw flowing human blood." A must for visitors is also Transylvania Sibiu (Sibiu). The city was once the largest German population in Romania. Appears here is still the "Sibiu newspaper, one of the three German-language newspapers in the country. The leaves are suffering from massive loss of readers - most of the Romanian Germans, 1930, 800 000, have long since decamped to Germany. Only about 80 000 have remained in their homeland. Sibiu, with its winding streets and squares still exudes always Habsburg charm. Virtually back in the Hapsburg era feels, who in the hotel "Imparatul Romanilor" ( "Roman rulers descend") or who occupies a meal: in the house from the days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire is one serves not only friendly, but can also Romanian feast of local specialties and wines. For a state house in the course of today is not Romania. Also in Sibiu Dracula crosses the paths of travelers. Since there is here neither a vampire nor a castle Dracula's birthplace, one must resort to more mundane locations: in supermarkets, kiosks and souvenir stands. Here, the vampire winks at the tourists from the label overpriced wine and liquor bottles. If he can not suck the blood of the traveler, then at least his money.
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