Dracula's old home is in a terrifying state, according to some Romanian authorities. The problem is a shortage, not of blood, but of money.
Experts have sounded an alarm over his old Transylvanian castle, in danger of collapse without a fresh cash injection.Authorities have detected cracks in the rock foundation of the Bran Castle, a famed abode of legendary vampire Count Dracula.
They say the 14th century fortress could crumble in a major earth tremor. State funds for emergency consolidation works have run dry.
"We discovered the cracks two years ago during repair works at the castle," Teodor Ogrean told Reuters from Bran, set amid picturesque mountain slopes 125 miles north of Bucharest.
"This year we didn't get any money to repair those fissures," Ogrean, in charge of works at the castle, said.
Peasants in the nearby Bran village thrive on the tourist spinoffs of the Dracula myth, selling coarse wool sweaters depicting medieval Romanian Prince Vlad Tepes, role model for 19th century novelist Bram Stoker's vampire Count.
They spin yarns of Prince Tepes (The Impaler), said to have spent a fortnight at the castle some 500 years ago.
In those dark ages Vlad earned a blood-curdling reputation for impaling his unlucky foes on sharp-ended spikes.
The prince's lust for blood and his cruelty inspired fear and enduring legends among the local Saxon settlers, who built the Bran fortress on a rocky hilltop surrounded by thick woods and tall mountain gorges.
Thousands of tourists drawn by the Dracula legend and the beauty of the surroundings regularly flock at the castle gates, to visit the premises and an open air village museum on the castle grounds.