Sandu from Pericei is one of the most interesting guys in Oradea. His real name is Alexandru Tatar and he was born in Pericei Commune, Salaj County. He used to work with Metalica Oradea Company, but after the Revolution, he founded his own company, SC Sandu de la Pericei SRL, which is located in close proximity of Metalica. His warehouse of construction materials and steel and chemical products is famous for being one the most inexpensive in Oradea.
As he did not have the start-up capital he needed, Alexandru Tatar in 1990 left the country to go west. He went to Germany soon after the Revolution.
As some acquaintances had told him that food is expensive in Germany, he took some provisions with him to avoid starvation: several kilos of slanina (lard) traditionally smoked, one sack of onions and one sack of garlic, some 50 kilos of palinca (an alcoholic drink), some wine and several trifles, as no Transylvanian can feel good unless he eats a piece of slanina and drinks some palinca.
He failed to make money in Germany, especially because he could not speak the language. So he went to Austria, in Vienna.
His big break came in a market in the Austrian Capital, where he was trying to sell some of his provisions, as he had run out of the money. He heard somebody speaking Hungarian, a language very familiar to him at home. This was how he met a Hungarian refugee from the 1956 Revolution to whom he introduced himself as "an inhabitant from Transylvania."
His new acquaintance was actually fascinated with the slanina, the onion and the palinca from Tatar's car and bought the entire stuff, paying DM 3,000 and offering him a job. "I used to be an security guard during the night, a driver during the day and a gardener sometimes," Tatar now recollects.
"I have never been ashamed of working. Any work is honest and worthwhile. This is one of the principles that guided me in my lifetime and helped me stand up when others starting to do something at the same time with me just failed."
Sandu de la Pericei sometimes came home with the money he had earned and with several goods difficult to find in Romania. It helped him support his wife and kids. Then he left again, of course, carrying slanina, onion and palinca, as he made a lot of money selling them abroad.
Nea Sandu recollects that the foreigners used to queue in order to buy a piece of slanina and one litre of palinca.
As he was an entrepreneur, like all the Romanians, Sandu de la Pericei soon realised it was a good source of making money and set some attractive prices for Germans and Austrians: a piece of slanina would cost between DM 10 and DM 15 depending of the size, while a bottle of palinca would cost only DM 20-25.
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