A music festival is using one of Romania's favorite sons, Dracula, to help boost blood donations in that country. The UNTOLD festival will give a ticket to the festival to anyone who donates a pint of blood. The techno-music festival will be held in the city of Cluj-Napoca, in the Transylvania section of Romania, but the "Pay With Blood" blood collection sites are being set up all over the country. Posters feature the world's most famous vampire with a blood donation bag.
Romania has a very low rate of blood donation. Only 1.7% of people in that country donate blood, which is next to the bottom in donation rates in Europe. The people who run UNTOLD decided to do something about that. The "Pay With Blood" program is being set up jointly by the UNTOLD festival and Romania's National Blood Transfusion Institute.
UNTOLD is offering free one-day festival tickets to anyone who gives blood at a mobile unit in Bucharest or at the blood transfusion centre in Cluj-Napoca, as well as a 30% discount to anyone who donates blood at one of Romania's 42 blood centers until 24 July. On the first day of the campaign, 45 people donated a pint of blood.
Transylvania's most famous fictional character is Count Dracula, the creation of Bram Stoker, an English writer. The character is the archetype for vampires, who live by sucking blood of unwilling. But Dracula is said to be based on the historical person, Prince Vlad III, also known as Vlad Tepes, Vlad the Impaler, and Vlad Dracula. Vlad III is revered by Romanians because he protected them from invasion by the Ottoman Empire. His historical legacy as either a great war hero or a vicious tyrant depends on which side was writing the history. After his death, he was known as the impaler because impaling people was his preferred method of execution.
