Cost of Living in Constanta

This city was amazing. It was so clean, I had a quiet flat near the sea, was so quiet you couldn't hear a pin drop. Amazing low cost food and farmer's markets. Transport cheaper than most cities in Europe at $1.50 lei a ride. Beautiful malls and zoo/aqua park. The beaches have the best jogging in all of Europe , maybe the world. You have wide sand of various viscosity so you can run perfectly as you wish. The air is clean and fresh. I really think to move here. Romania has one of the lowest income taxes in the world. If you compare to Canada or Denmark it's almost no tax at 10% flat. Medical care is amazing. Better than anything I ever experienced in the West. No lineups, instant tests same day that would have weeks or months of wait time in the West. Really if this isn't Paradise I don't know what is!

Very dissatisfied to live in this city: dirty, poor infrastructure wrongly built from the scratch, extremely noisy city, very polluted with very few tidy green spaces to relax. The city administration fails big time, while people don't care and live within dirty conditions showing off their new cars and clothes. Living cost is too high for the medium wage, shopping is even more expensive than in Dusseldorf, Germany. Most people strive paying credits to buy cars and almost no one rides a bicycle, since it seems to be a poor's way of transportation following the mentality of the locals. The beaches are nice, but extremely polluted since the city is located in between an industrial oil refinery and the commercial shipyard, thus water currents transport pollution to beaches from both sides of the city. Main summer resort Mamaia has become an European Detroit since real estate development was left uncontrolled and ruled by local mafia. Usually, people here complain about life, but do nothing in order to make a change. It is a city where you pay more to live in low-quality. Having fun and clubbing costs are incredibly high, compared to local average income, a beer in a club costs around 3-4 euros. People are usually low-educated, many of them throw garbage off the window while driving their posh cars. The city lacks civic education at all, while politicians and authorities lure citizens to put the blame on foreign countries for their own failures. Buildings are raised chaotically and follow no specific urban development plans. Everything built in this city looks kitschy and outrageously illogical, while most locals strive to build posh villas in the middle of the third-world. Education is corrupted and many students get their degrees by bribing and connections. Many mediocre students having the right family connections become medics and doctors and then perform malpraxis. The health system is corrupt, doctors usually get into high healthcare positions by joining the local political and administrative mafia. Taxation is very biased, strictly imposed mostly to commoners while the rich evade tax and thrive on money laundering. The pedestrians walk on low quality pathways and it is usually risky to walk during the night since one may fall into ignored gaps, cracks and hit strange obstacles that exist everywhere throughout the city. While being fairly safe during daytime, it might be very dangerous to walk alone by night as a woman, with places being reported for rape. Food quality is quite unpredictable, with many cases of intoxication happening in restaurants and fast-food industry. Local markets offer low-quality products with oscillating flow of product stability, while most of fruits and vegetables are imported and sold at high prices by local gypsies that replaced the traditional farmer selling own products at the market. As a whole, the city offers extremely low quality of life and standards contrasting to high living costs, which is the main reason most of the educated people opt to leave and move to a better place. About myself: my name is Stephen, a former Erasmus student from Germany at the local University of Medicine, the Uni of Ovidus, Constanta. Altogether I have lived and been lately involved in medical cardio research in the city of Constanta for 4 years. My statement represents a personal experience and I hereby not recommend this city.