Littoral, a (com)promised land

There is no doubt that the Black Sea littoral has remained in the collective imagination as one of the brightest chapters of the Romanian post-war period. In its condensed form, the "littoral" represents the great place of manifestation of creative freedom, where the world of the socialist East met the unapproachable West, through architecture and art and the presence of tourists who came ^here1. How authentic can this land of reverie be seen today, when more and more people are talking about true escapes into the freedom of seaside vacations, far from the tumultuous life of the official resorts, south of Mangalia, in the fishing villages of 2 Mai and Vama ^Veche2. From such a perspective, the famous Romanian seaside seems to be a delusion, an attractive concept wrapped up in public discourse, but nevertheless nothing but a way of regulating ^vacations3, nothing but one of the great socialist projects, a "smokeless industry", as inefficient and artifici