These links mostly included people from foreign countries, many in Canada and the US, as well as a few from within the country's current boundaries. Upon visiting many pages, I discovered that most people had lived in their home country for some years, and had moved for personal reasons (mainly for education and schooling) - however, many had left their country due to political turmoil that they or their families found threatening. Interestingly, many of the members of the Virtual Romania website are involved in the technical fields, especially computing and physics, while the vast majority of SAWNET homepages I visited indicated a tendency towards educational facilities (mostly University professors), and writing. (SAWNET also represented several artists' sites.) .
Few of the homepages spoke at depth about political issues, but both of the sites themselves has extensive links and information relation to politics and religion. The Virtual Romania site predominantly features several photographs of the Pope, from his recent (May 10/99) visit to Bucharest. In addition, there is a huge headline about Romania's recent invitation to join the European Union, followed by a brief article with pertinent facts. Something that I really liked about the Romanian site was the fact that any English text was followed by copy translated into Romanian. The site even included some RealAudio files that spoke basic Romanian words for greetings, getting around, small talk, and finding accommodations - a real benefit for the non-Romanians visiting the site. There is also extensive listings of passport, visa, health and curre ncy exchange information for visiting the country, as well as Romanian Embassy details for Romanians who are currently in other countries (everywhere from Oslo to Tokyo).
SAWNET itself listed some political sites, but under the bold heading "This listing is not an endorsement of any particular organization by Sawnet".
