“If you don’t study, you will end up a fisherman!”

A brief history of the fishing profession before and after 1989

In the past, fishermen were not exactly at the forefront of society in the Delta, let’s say. It was a profession somewhat on the periphery. Now, it’s not that it’s an easy profession or one that requires very little knowledge, but it’s a very tough profession. It’s a very tough profession and then those who were able to learn an easier profession did it without any problem. They were, basically, almost the poorest people, with the most children, with difficulties, with less organized households, with the weakest education in society, in the community. The children, too, were not very fond of school. And then clearly, we are talking about the period before the Revolution, being a fisherman represented a kind of threat from parents to children who did not study: “If you don’t study, you will end up a fisherman!” “Woe to you, you will work like a fool, you will put your hand in cold water in winter and you will shiver, and in summer the waves will beat you and you will carry fish and you will smell like fish.” It was a job, a kind of “dirty job” from that American report, something like that at that time listed and quite poorly paid.
With few exceptions, before the Revolution fishermen were not very rich people,they were even among the poorest.
After the Revolution things reversed or things took a slightly different turn. Fishermen began to become practically the first businessmen in the Delta. If until then most people were workers or laborers, they had a salary and their hierarchy in society was based on their salary and the positions they held, fishermen were the ones who invested in means, for example in a boat, fishing tools, permits and obtained an income from this activity. They were investors. This turned all social values ​​upside down. Also, access to this job began to be different. Before, you would go and work for a fishing company as an apprentice, after which you would learn this job, sharpen 3 hooks, make a net and get a higher salary and that was about it. When things started to look as investments, access was different. The poorest people would first come in as helpers alongside those who already had, let’s say, a net, a boat, they would start untangling their nets and preparing them for launch, helping them in the pond for launch. But they basically had a monetary reward, a kind of salary, they weren’t that much… After that, over time, they would save up some money, learn to steal a net, put it in a pond at night and catch a fish or control the nets of other fishermen, save up some money for a boat, partner with another apprentice, they were called “palopaicici” and they practically became entrepreneurs in their turn. After that, they would be left alone, manage to escape the partnership because they also took the boat that they hadn’t had and for which they had to partner with the other, make their own set of nets. After that they would become the sole investor, after that they would start taking their turn, hiring “palopaicici” and they would already become full-fledged fishermen. That was kind of his evolution, but essentially they were all businessmen, they invested and got the results. Still being businessmen, unlike a worker who didn’t care if, for example, the boss lost his factory, the theft of nets or a boat accident or a problem related to fish had a very big influence on his life. That man was practically losing his means of livelihood, of earning a living.
So little by little the fishermen became a different social category, already desired, because being investors in the post-communist period and the beginnings of capitalism in Romania they had access to money and basically a gold rush like in the Wild West was triggered in the Delta. We are talking here about stories with fishermen who would come after delivering the fish and spend the money at night in pubs like nabobs. Something you didn’t see before. So, automatically many people started to turn to this activity. And many of the previous workers, we are talking about welders, turners in the construction site, started to be fishermen and to do this activity in the way I said. By joining forces, investing, taking out money, reinvesting, losing, crying that they lost. So capitalism in Romania began in the Delta, paradoxically. Much faster, in a different form indeed, but much faster than in the rest of the country.