How Cluj arrived more expensive than Rome. The lesson that Romanians do not learn from Italians

In Cluj I pay for three ice cream globes more than they give on a huge artisan ice cream, with whiskey and all kinds of toppings in the belly of Rome, says a Romanian in study in the capital of Italy. The situation is similar in Romania's “fits” cities.

Coffee and ice cream, more expensive in Cluj than in Rome. Photo: Shutterstock

Diana, a Romanian studying in Rome, makes a comparison between the prices in the city of Someș and those in the capital of Italy.

“Cluj. A tiny ice cream globe: 9 lei. I buy three globes and pay more than I give a huge artisan ice cream, with whiskey and all kinds of toppings in the belly of Rome. And at Rome I also look at Pantheon or Colosseum while I enjoy my ice cream, while in Cluj I admire the statue of Mihai Viteazul, if not a communist gray block from Mărăști ”writes on Facebook the young woman in Romania who is studying university at Angelicum – Pontic University San Tommaso d'Aquin, from Rome.

Things are even worse, Diana returns: “I hear that, in fact, those ice cream globes for 9 lei are a bargain. That in the more ladies-help confectionery it costs 12-14 lei a globe.”

Following is the comparison of the price of coffee.

“Cluj. A bitter coffee costs between 10 and 15 lei, cappuccino even 20+. In Rome, I give 1-1.2 euros in the center. Come on, maybe 1.5 euros if I drink it to Sant 'Eustachio, the famous cafe in the area of ​​Corso – Pantheon – San Lorenzo in Lucina. And the quality is incomparable,” Detales Diana.

The following comparison: a sandwich that costs 30 lei in Cluj, exactly how much he pays on a sandwich at Fiumicino airport.

“Something is wrong. I can't explain how it is possible.”

“Something is not right. Yes, I love Cluj, it is the city of my student and the city where I lived about twelve years in my life and in which I return periodically. Yes, Cluj has developed enormously in recent years, there is no comparison between Cluj in 2005, when I first stepped here, and Cluj cozy of 2025. To have higher prices in Cluj than in the West At much lower salaries … I give me a comma. I do not explain how possible … “, Diana concluded.

Posting had dozens of fruit.

“In the Unirii Square and in no mall nothing is sub12 ron the ice cream, the cakes over 20 RON, the juice, 8-10ron at half.”

“That's the way it is in Bucharest. Well, in Venice, last year, it was more expensive. In San Marco, but not, no. ”

“For a long time I have been amazed by this discrepancy, especially if we take into account different salaries … Life is expensive in Romania; If any stranger was coming here without wanting to see the prices, he would think he landed in Norway, Switzerland or I know what a great country … “

“The prices are very, very high, unintended by the high quality -general price leaves a lot to be desired.”

Why are such high prices?

A commentator tries to explain the reason for very high prices:

“The increase does not start at the counter. The small entrepreneur sells expensive because he also buys expensive. It pays large rents, increasing taxes, burdensome contributions, expensive utilities and struggles with a suffocating bureaucracy. The chain is long, and at his end there is no huge profits, but the daily care to survive. The heavy falls on the small companies, which keep the local economy in the back and more and more often they get to close, not to expand.

The problem is not in the cafe, neither in the confectionery, nor in the small businesses trying to resist. The problems are above in unstable tax policies, in the absence of real support for SMEs, in increases that come from energy, taxes, imports and decisions made without vision.

And, unfortunately, we all feel these increases: customers, entrepreneurs, employees, parents, young people. Not only in the price of a coffee, but in every daily choice. ”

Diana replies: “The rents do not think they are more expensive in Cluj than in Rome. And no higher taxes. And in the bureaucracy the Italians are champions …”

Another commentator claimed to be 3 main causes:

“

2. Cluj is a well-being pole that was flooded with state investments (prime minister's mandate) and private.

3. Social polarization and increasing social inequalities, in Cluj and big cities being even more obvious. ”

As for the solutions, it shows: “The taxation of luxury consumption, properties, real estate and state and private investments in the remaining areas, especially in Moldova. ”

“Not only in Cluj”

Other commentators claim that not only in Cluj are so high prices:

“Not just in Cluj. In Sibiu a Flatwhite coffee at the cardboard glass is 16 lei. A simple croissant, 11-12 lei. In Lisbon I paid 1 euros per coffee. “

“Yes. This shows that we have a lot of money circulating in the economy, that we have a polarized society and well -being poles like Cluj and Bucharest. ”

“I agree Diana, it's my experience in other cities. Prices are similar or higher than in certain places in the USA, and related to wages, it leaves me with many questions. ”0

“Total agreement. Rome becomes cheap compared to our cities. ”

“And in Brasov it is so.”

“Italians have the culture of the boycott”

Several commentators claim that since there is demand, the prices are justified.

“If they have not closed their taraba it means they have customers and the business goes.”

“There are a lot of Cluj people who allow these prices … otherwise they would not resist any service provider … there are cities with much more ok prices, with a higher quality of life, in which you can live a quiet life and without such frustration, but they do not have so much advertising and they have no advertising and they do not have. the influx of inhabitants that Cluj has. In Craiova, for example, in the Youth Park, the ice cream cup is 5 lei, and the prices for services, from trimming to the car, parking is 3-4 times lower. When I go there I have the impression that I live for free … I am ashamed to pay so little, being used to the prices in Cluj. “

A commentator shows that the Italians have the culture of the boycott and when the products are expensive without justification, they simply do not buy:

“Where is the key? Well in Italy (which I know well) if the price will increase at something justified or unjustified, no one buy that product that all Italians are made by a mother … They have the culture of the boycott in DNA, they should not mobilize on social networks. In W-3 days the business goes into the head and disappears or quickly regulates the price. In us the price for a product can be expensive with 300% unjustified in just 3 days, that the Romanian principle is: “What to do the mother … we have to eat”. When the profiteers hear this traditional conception, they rub their hands and are flooded with emotion. And the Romanian state gathered even more the socialist bolt of taxes to the despair of honest employers and the imbecilization of the buyer and the tax payer. ”