Dave, Romania is everything but brutal.
I’m a Romanian and I must admit I’m not too proud about my country
during these days but even if life is particularly harsh during the
actual transition period I am proud about two things: nature and
people. We have great nature, magnific, and we have great people. You
won’t experience the kind of hospitality, open hearted, honest and
tolerant people like my nation is many places.

But don’t believe me, read what others (westerners have said about it).

Another issues, Bucharest was (and maybe is) considered “Little
Paris of the East” and Romania is the biggest country in Eastern Europe.

For more informations see this link.
For pictures try this
one.

BTW, doing a search on Google on “brutal Romania”
resulted in 13,300 links and one on “kind romania” resulted 240,000 which I guess proves something.

P.S. I’m from Transylvania so
please don’t mess with us 🙂