[Opinion] Farewell, Ruritania: Saying goodbye to Eastern Europe’s exotic aura - Washington Examiner

Farewell, Ruritania: Saying goodbye to Eastern Europe’s exotic aura - Washington Examiner

Bram Stoker’s Dracula begins with an unsettling journey. As Jonathan Harker crosses the Danube River, he remarks ominously, “The impression I had was that we were leaving the West and entering the East; the most western of splendid bridges over the Danube, which is here of noble width and depth, took us among the traditions of Turkish rule.” Harker continues onward to Castle Dracula in Transylvania, “one of the wildest and least known portions o…