I was in Constanta last week for a exhibition at the Museum of History and Archeology entitled ‘British Constanta’. This describes the history of the British Danube-Black Sea Railway company which was the first to build a railway between the Danube at Cernovoda and the port of Constanta on the Black Sea in 1860. In fact, this was the first railway on the territory of the Ottoman Empire and was passed to the Romanian state after independence.
The original plan was to build a canal between the Danube and the Black Sea, but the company’s directors decided this option would be too costly and time-consuming. They were anxious to meet immediate demand in the UK for Romania’s grain exports, following the famine in Ireland. So they invested some fifteen million pounds in the construction of a railway instead, and they built it in two and a half years. They appreciated the enormous commercial potential of Constanta port, and built a new
harbour that could manage large-scale commercial traffic not just local ships. They even issued their own postage stamps for letters and parcels carried on the railway.
Constanta enjoys the same advantages today. The port is now the fourth largest in Europe. It has huge silos which store those same grain exports that were so attractive to investors in the past. But the port also boasts facilities for loading chemicals, petroleum, oil and all sorts of container traffic. Its full potential will be realized when it has the infrastructure in place to connect it properly with its hinterland – the completion of the railway and road to Bucharest and further development of navigation on the
Danube. British companies are keen to invest in these projects now, just as they did 150 years ago. I met the Transport Minister on my return to discuss the opportunities.
Many thanks to George Stanculescu, the architect behind the exhibition and the Director of the Constanta History Museum Gabriel Custurea, plus his colleagues, for putting this fascinating exhibition together. When Romania’s national poet Mihai Eminescu visited Constanta he stayed at the ‘Hotel D’Angleterre’. When I visited I felt there was a piece of ‘Angleterre’ right here on the Black Sea, a tradition we can build on in the future.