JR47: "As the regular Romanian forces were equipped with the AK47/74 rifles, the use of SKS rifles would have been relegated mostly to irregulars. They would have been obtained in fairly small numbers, compared with the overall stocks, and their use would have precluded their return to storage, as I doubt that many of the participants would have seen the necessity of returning them to the depots. Rather, they are probably buried in preservatives in the forests."
No doubt, though some issued rifles did make their way here. My '59 Cugir has a lot of honest wear, probably from training exercises over the years.
Keep in mind that the army was far from the only armed force involved in the Christmas '89 festivities; the Sekuritate and regular police got some game time, too, as did trade unionists, journalists, ordinary citizens and foreign adventurers.
Those SKS rifles which saw field use in the Subcarpathians and along the Timisoara Road during the freakiest Christmas in living memory repose in their Wallachian/Transylvanian hides, for such time as the next mad Count or Commissar finally goes completely over the top.
Mike the Wolf, I agree -- for all his crimes, Ceaucescu and his colleagues did some fine work in guns and wines. Pity the wines were allowed to deteriorate after 1989 (1995 was the last really decent batch of Dealul Mare Cabernet); but the guns remain.
