Whatever happened to DRACULA PARK?

The first planned site of DraculaPark, outside Sighisoara, 2000-2003

Last month I was in Transylvania for the first International Vampire Film & Arts Festival (IVFAF). I've been talking and thinking about it a lot since then. In general, a lot of Romanians have been against using the myth of Dracula (and vampires) to generate fun and tourism. They are a strongly Catholic country, so I can kind of understand. But attitudes could be set to change. A friend of mine is opening a #DraculaVillage near #BranCastle, #Transylvania, for a start... (more on that in a future post).

But I wondered, whatever happened to the plans for the #Dracula theme park that I remember hearing about so many years ago, sometime around 2000. I used my trusty Google guide to find out more...

I was surprised to learn that the original planned site for the theme park was just 10 minutes away from the Medieval citadel I visited for the IVFAF- Sighisoara.

"Although its name means 'land beyond the forest,' this historical province of more than seven million souls was not known as a particularly spooky place until 1897, when the Irish writer and critic Bram Stoker published his sensational gothic novel Dracula," said author Rudy Chelminski (Smithsonian Magazine) about Transylvania. For the full article, click here.

The man with the plan: Romania’s then-Minister of Tourism, Matei Dan 

"OK! I knew my project was unconventional. Original! Shocking! But I want to use it to attract a million tourists a year," Romania's then-Minister of Tourisn, Matei Dan, told Chelminski in an interview in 2003. "Elsewhere in the world there is a very big industry about Dracula worth hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, but here in Romania it doesn't exist. And so I decided it is time Dracula went to work for Romania!"

Dan's #DraculaPark was to include: a medieval castle with a torture chamber, a science laboratory, and a vampire den and "initiation hall" for "young vampires." The International Institute of Vampirology was to be located near DraculaLake, and the restaurant would serve spooky food like blood pudding, brains and jellied meat.

A simple digital image of the planned DraculaPark. Source:siebenbuerger.de

While the project received a lot of applications (over 3,000) from job-seekers, the locals were worried the town would be overwhelmed with "young people with satanic tattoos, smoking pot and sleeping in the street." Even Great Britain's Prince Charles was against the project: "The proposed DraculaPark is wholly out of sympathy with the area and will ultimately destroy its character," he said. 

Dan changed his plans and moved DraculaPark south- saving the ancient oak forest near Sighisoara from potential destruction.

But that second area he chose was given instead to industrial development and the project, clearly unpopular with the government, was left to fester despite the multi-million investment of private businesses in shares of the Park.

Then I found out that the DraculaPark idea had been resurrected again, now named Tepes (Impaler) Park. In an article from January 2015 which you can read here, author Daniel Stroe wrote that Simona Man, head of the #Romanian National Tourism Agency, had said: “We want to develop a Dracula theme park, based on the DraculaPark idea launched 15 years ago. That had a false start, but people have evolved and things have changed in the mean time.” 

Sighisoara- I was there! The Tepes Park might be built nearby...

"Tourism operators say the myth of Dracula can sell very well in Romania since it offers a unique perspective while it is well known all over the world. If explored properly, the myth alone can bring hundreds of thousands of foreign tourists a year. They give the example of the Bran Castle, standing at the mountainous gates of Transylvania, where Vlad the Impaler is said to have been imprisoned, visited in 2014 by about 600,000 tourists, most of them from abroad, up by 10 % compared to 2013. Bran was ranked the third that year in a top three destinations of tourists, after the natural science museum Grigore Antipa and the village museum, both in Bucharest," - Stroe writes. 

The trail after this article goes as dry as a vampire victim's veins. If I find out more, I'll let you know, then I'll go buy tickets!!!

Source: hoteltransylvaniaonline.com