Eibenthal is an idyllic village nestled in the Banatului Mountains of
Western Romania. It’s a charming place inhabited mainly by ethnic
Czechs, but what really makes it stand out from other villages in the
area, or pretty much anywhere else in the world, for that matter, is its
reputation as a theft-free community.
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There is no police station in Eibenthal, and frankly, there’s no need
for one either. People in this area of Mehedinti county are famously
peaceful and respectful of each other, and the crime rate is
considerably lower than the national average. Theft, for example is
virtually non existent, and people are perfectly comfortable leaving
money in bags on the streets for the bread delivery man. He drives by,
takes the money and leaves the requested number of bread loaves and the
change in the bags hanging on lamp posts or people’s fences. In over 20
years, no one has ever reported any money of bread missing.
Eibenthal’s reputation as a theft-free village dates back to 1996, when
locals started hanging bags and money outside their homes for the bread
delivery man. The only local store had closed down soon after the 1989
revolution and people had to constantly watch out for the bread truck
coming from another village 20 kilometers away, every two days, to make
sure they had bread to put on the table. But at one point, someone came
up with the idea of simply leaving the money along with a note for the
delivery man on the street. They realized that they weren’t going to
steal from each other anyway, and anyone coming from the outside with
nefarious intentions would spend more on gas than on the bread money
they stole.
“The car delivering bread comes every two days and I buy 4-5 loaves. I
put the exact amount in the bag or I leave a note with how many loaves I
want and the driver leaves the change,” a 75-year-old Eibenthal resident
told Euronews. “We’ve never had problems, not at all, I’ve never heard
of money or bread disappearing.”
“I leave the bag there and I go to work on the field and in the evening,
when I come back, I find the bread and the change,” another person said.
And it’s not just about the way people buy bread in Eibenthal. Locals
also respect each other’s property and never set foot in each other’s
yards without permission. They just call for the owner at the gate, and
they only enter if invited in. If no one answers, they just leave.
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“There is no stealing in this village,” local priest Vaclav Masek told
Romanian newspaper Adevarul. I have various useful things in my garage,
and it’s open all the time, but nothing has ever been stolen. Eibenthal
is the most civilized of all ethnic Czech villages. In the 13 years I’ve
been priest here, I have never heard of any theft taking place.”
“We all know each other here and we were raised in such a way that we
know if we need something from somebody, to ask, not to steal,”
Eibenthal mayor Victor Doscocil told Euronews. “For the moment we are
happy we don’t have bad behavior.”
Eibenthal and it complete lack of theft reminds us of another unique
village we wrote about a few years back. Shani Shingnapur is often
called “India’s village with no doors” for the simple fact that none of
the buildings there have doors. Installing a door in this village is
considered blasphemous, so people just use curtains, but stealing is
hardly ever reported. |