2009-09-27

Wallachian commander Vlad Ţepeş (Impaler), whose residence was located in Sighisoara, Romania, was neither a vampire nor any other supernatural creature. His family coat of arms had an image of a dragon on it, Dracula in Wallachian. That’s where the commander’s sinister nickname came from. However, the stories of his cruelty are most likely true. And Tepes was a nickname as well, not his last name. Vlad enjoyed impaling people (“tep” means “pole” in Romanian).

hey say he nailed the hats to the heads of French ambassadors because they refused to remove them before him. He impaled his servant only because the poor guy could not stand the smell of corpses that served as a background for Dracula’s feasts.

Once he gathered all the beggars of his area for a feast and burned them down afterwards. The villain believed that he killed two birds with one stone – freed the country from the beggars and saved the beggars themselves from illnesses and suffering.

Once Dracula ordered to chop off the hands of a peasant’s wife and then impale her because she met her husband wearing rugged clothes. This was a reminder for other female peasants to patch their clothes.

Once Dracula ordered to impale ten thousand people at once, the entire population of a little town that was short of paying him two silver coins in taxes. Dracula was smiling doing this: “This will make others always pay me what they owe.”

By his order people were burned down in their houses and their corpses were fed to crabs in a local pond. Then Dracula fed the crabs to the families of those who dared to infringe upon his power. He liked to dine in a hall next to his enemies’ corpses with their throats cut open. Their dead hands held glasses filled with wine.

There is a castle on a mountain in Brasov called Black Castle. The owner gave it to Dracula as a birthday gift. Dracula did not like something about the castle and ordered to put the vassal to death.

In 1474 the maniac count was assassinated by fed up people at the foot of Moldoveanu mountain. He was not just murdered as a regular criminal, but dismembered.

His head was chopped off (most likely to kill any hope of his revival by black magic), covered with honey (most likely, to preserve it) and sent off to Istanbul to a Turkish sultan. The body was buried in the family tomb in Brasov visited by over 250 thousand tourists a year.

Hundreds of years ago medical experts came to the conclusion that Dracula suffered from continuous sluggish schizophrenia and another rare disease, porphyria. The symptoms of this disease include sunlight phobia (ultraviolet may cause cancerous tumors), extensive body hair coat, sharpening of all teeth.

But the main symptom is constant need of blood. This explains the vampire legend.

Recently Romanian officials came up with the idea of building a huge horror park on the territory of Sighisoara. The park will exhibit attributes of the Inquisition and other bloody periods in human history – scaffolds, guillotines, electric chairs, and various torture devices. Other exhibits will include torturous devices used by Gestapo, Stalin’s All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Speculation, and Sabotage, Main Intelligence Directorate, and KGB.

Various social and ecological organizations, including UNESKO, opposed the construction. They believe that the park will be harmful for the environment and will ruin the historical atmosphere of the place.

They are also concerned that such an unusual entertainment park will attract people with psychological disorders, for example, maniacs, who consider Dracula their idol.

At the same time the officials are not going to abandon the idea that can potentially bring colossal profits from tourists. Now they are considering building the “DraculaLand” closer to Bucharest, Romanian capital.

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