Dracula terror park plan is stranger than fiction

Romanians fear a vampire theme park in a heritage town would turn the history of their country into a cartoon. Ann McElhinney reportsfrom Bucharest

Over 100 years after Bram Stoker shocked Victorians with the novel Dracula and its gothic tale of a mysterious foreigner who sucked the life out of English maidens, the Irish author's book is still causing a fuss.

In the fictional count's home country of Romania, a row has erupted over a plan to use Stoker's character to revitalise its moribund tourist industry.

The government wants to build Dracula Park, the "world's first terror park", complete with scary attractions and blood-red candyfloss. There are also plans for a castle, golf course, 2,000 hotel rooms, restaurants and an Institute of Vampirology. The government claims Dracula Park would cost around €40 million and would create 4,000 jobs, attracting one million visitors a year.

There are some who question these figures, but most opposition to the project has come from historical purists who claim the park will demean Vlad Dracul Tepes, a former Romanian prince and Stoker's inspiration for the vampire.

Tepes is a national hero in Romania because of his success in expelling Turkish invaders and his particularly vicious zero tolerance policy for criminals. To the delight of Romanians, captured Turkish soldiers and those caught breaking the law were impaled, earning him the loyalty of his people and the epithet Vlad the Impaler.

Nowadays, Tepes is seen as a symbol of justice and moral rectitude, particularly amid the rampant corruption, which followed the 1989 collapse of communism.

A group of international historians opposed to the park say it threatens to denigrate an important chapter in Romania's history: Dracula Park will turn the history of Romania into a cartoon. Far from a reason to be proud it will ridicule Romania, they argue.

Despite Dracula Park's focus on the vampire, Stoker - Dracula's creator - never visited Romania and is believed to have read about Vlad the Impaler during research in the British National Library in London.

Dr Elizabeth Miller, a Canadian academic and Dracula scholar, worries the project will confuse the two Draculas, alienating potential customers.

"The connection between the two is very minimal. Will the park be solely an entertainment site focusing only on the vampire of fiction and fantasy? If so, it will be of little or no interest to Romanians, who view the vampire fantasy as an import with little connection to their own culture," she says.

The site chosen for the park has caused the most controversy.

It is in Transylvania - where both Draculas lived - but opponents are objecting to the choice of Sighisoara, the last perfectly preserved medieval town in Europe and a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Environmentalists fear the project will swamp Sighisoara with a flood of tack. They are also alarmed at the planned destruction of 121 hectares of protected 400-year-old oak trees to make room for the park. UNESCO has ordered an investigation into the project.

The decision to locate Dracula Park in Sighisoara is questionable anyway, since the house in the town alleged to be the birthplace of Vlad Tepes was apparently built 200 years after his death.

The claim that "Dracula lived here" is actively promoted by the owners of the restaurant now located in the building who do a lively trade serving visiting tourists fairly average Dracula Stew.

The project has even been opposed by a Romanian evangelical group which fears it will encourage satanism. Its objections and a desire to attract family groups has led the tourism ministry to try to downplay the horror aspects to the development and attempt to market it as a fun location for a family day out.

However, it has not quelled the growing number of opponents to the scheme, and some who have made their dissent public have been on the receiving end of some very bizarre, but also typically Romanian treatment.

Vlad Popa, an opposition senator, who in a TV debate with a senior tourism ministry official suggested locating the park at a less environmentally damaging and more historically accurate location, was immediately threatened with exposure of his alleged secret police past. He is now suing the ministry to clear his name.

OTHERS claim they have received phone threats and one newspaper has reported that the Romanian secret service has been asked to investigate opponents of the project as "enemies of the state".

Some observers are sceptical of the economic wisdom of the plans. Under the government's feasibility study, 75 per cent of the one million visitors to Dracula Park would be Romanian, spending an average of $25 a trip. The average salary in Romania, for those lucky enough to have a job, is $100 a month.

The detractors also point out that Disneyland outside Paris has struggled, despite having benefited from the facilities and marketing of a huge corporation.

For many, the claim that tourists will flock to a "terror park", in a remote town in Transylvania with no international airport and an inadequate infrastructure is almost as fabulous a fiction as the book which inspired it.