S2 Ep39: Above the Top Floor

Summary

In 1990s Cluj-Napoca, Transylvania, a few years after the Romanian Revolution, six-year-old Nadina explored a Soviet-era apartment block with her older sister and their best friend. When the children climbed past the top floor of apartments to a metal door, something huge, aggressive and feral-sounding began violently attacking it from the other side, and they ran. Decades later Nadina still doesn't know what was behind that door, and the hosts weigh possibilities ranging from Romanian werewolf and vampire folklore to staged sideshow illusions.

Key takeaways

• 1The story takes place in Cluj-Napoca, Transylvania, in the 1990s, a few years after the 1989 Romanian Revolution
• 2The apartment block was a Soviet-era building, tied to Ceaușescu's 'systematization' urban planning program
• 3The children found a metal door above the last floor of apartments, and something large and feral attacked it from the other side
• 4Romanian folklore creatures discussed include the Pricolici (werewolf) and the Strigoi (restless undead spirit)
• 5Emily Gerard's 1885 book 'Transylvanian Superstitions' is cited as a source on regional folklore
• 6Related references include Hoia Baciu Forest, the Beast of Bray Road, the Beast of Gévaudan, the 'Girl into the Gorilla' sideshow illusion, and Pepper's Ghost

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