Marius Balo, who returned to Romania after spending eight years jailed in China for an $80 trap, says he plans to run 2,922 kilometers, one kilometer for every day he was locked up.
The English teacher, who returned to Romania a month ago, calls it “a spiritual run.”
He said the route will take him past Romania’s former political prisons where thousands of politicians, priests, intellectuals, peasants were detained by the communist regime after World War II.
“The run will include visits to prisons where the former political prisoners suffered, and in places where there aren’t any more prisons, commemorative monuments dedicated to them,” he said in a message sent to Universul.net.
Hundreds of thousands of Romanians were sent to communist gulags and labor camps. Thousands lost their lives there from hunger, disease, cold and mistreatment.
In a message sent to the media, Balo, 40, said first month of freedom had been “the most beautiful” of his life.”
“The first is a dream of mine, I dreamed it when I was there, going on a pilgrimage, a spiritual run when I got home.”
He said he would complete the run in 100 days, at a rate of 30 kilometers a day.
The route is being planned with Leontin Iuhaș, chairman of the Doina Cornea Foundation.
Doina Cornea was one of Romania’s best-known political dissidents of the 1980s when Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu tightened his grip on Romania.
Mr Balo arrived in China in 2010 to work as a university English teacher, and was arrested by Chinese authorities in March 2014 and charged with an alleged US$80 contract fraud and was later, in 2016, sentenced to eight years and fined 13,600 Euros.
He then spent eight years in captivity in grueling conditions inside China’s prison system.
Romania to build memorial at notorious communist jail to honor victims, educate future generations
