Later, in the years to come, the rehearsal took place at Olimpia stadium. I remember that the children were so glad over a bottle of Pepsi or Cico. My accompanying a group of pupils to the stadium gave me the right to a bottle of Pepsi, every once in a few days. I used to take it home to my kid. One day, a neighbor of mine, who is one or two years younger than my daughter looked at that bottle of Pepsi with dilated eyes and said:? Oh, it must be great over there, at the stadium 23rd August, since you get Pepsi?.

As for the performances, there were some ladies, teachers of physical training, who conceived these mammoth shows and who had real talent, I mean it. You had to think of new movements constantly, to take the long view of the matter, you were dealing with a stadium full of people, though. You couldn?t have those ranks of people all bumping into one another. Consequently, everything was well thought-out, initially outlined on paper, then the entire stadium was covered with numbered round discs. Each pupil knew his\her own round disc, its number and color, we didn?t have to deal with the ?plate-bearers?. The ?plate-bearers? were the employees from various factories in Bucharest who, after being evidently thoroughly checked up, sat down in the stadium, holding some cardboard. At each file of ?cardboard-bearers? there was a coordinator. He kept track of the plates and told the number of the plate. ?The plate-bearer? had a heap of plates down by his feet and he was supposed to know when to take out three, when to take out four, how to turn it, right, left, so, as a matter of fact, on one side there was the number, he raised the plate, on the external side there was a color, let?s say red, yellow, and thus, like in a game of puzzle, an image or a slogan cherished by the leadership took shape. The show always began with the pioneers? show. On 23rd August, the participants weren?t solely pioneers, after us the rest of the world followed and the fanfare started the show. (A. S., 130).

The parade was compulsory even for children. On those days there were taken out of the schools. They had artistic programs on the road. That happened on the 1st of May, 23rd of August. As a child, I used to march on the 7th, 8th November, the day of the Soviet Republic, which happened in the fifties. It was a military parade, with armament and of course, dances. First, the army would parade by with the tanks, the armament and then, the civilians. Then, people would get wild, having fun and eating grilled sausages. That was in the fifties and sixties. During Ceausescu?s time, they used to say that people got drunk and shouted slogans against the leadership. Folk shows used to be arranged in the parks, with music and dances. These shows were organized by schools, work places, where there were persons especially appointed to do this job. One could not avoid showing up for such events. They didn?t fire one if you didn?t, but after that, if you had a problem, they wouldn?t give you a leave, they wouldn?t give you holiday tickets or you would be discredited by an alleged professional misconduct so that they could cut off from your salary. (A.-I. B., 103)