Costi Susac, captain of passenger river transport ships - Navrom, Tulcea, Romania
The Passenger is the local name for the Navrom ships that transport passengers from Tulcea on the three arms: Chilia, Sulina and Sfântu Gheorghe.
Until 1989, it was bustling. There were many passengers. For example, once on May 1st, I was on the [ship] Istria and I departed from Chilia. At that time, there were workers in the delta who worked on construction sites and every 2 weeks, they were given Friday, Saturday, Sunday off. And I left on this May 1st, I left Chilia. We arrived in Tulcea with 1,000 passengers, and the ship had a capacity of 600. We arrived in Tulcea with 1,000 passengers. When we arrived in Tulcea, “Stay on the ship because you have work to do. Immediately leave for Crișan, because the Passenger [ship] from Sulina couldn’t take all the passengers.” When we went to Crișan, when we arrived, there was a huge crowd. The local policeman, Valerică, was standing with a gun in his hand, on a ladder because he couldn’t handle them anymore, to keep them in check. And we took them and we arrived in Tulcea with 800 passengers. And at 10 in the evening “Now leave, make your journey, leave for Sfântu Gheorghe, you have 200 passengers.” And at 10 in the evening we left for Sfântu Gheorghe. So 2000 passengers in one day. There were. There were passengers then, now fewer.
