Romanian entrepreneur Radu Oprea has started a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo to raise the money needed to build a special themed holiday village near the Bran Castle in Romania, called Dracula Village.

Canadian writer Dacre Stoker, the great grand-nephew of Bram Stoker and author of Dracula's sequel, Dracula the Un-Dead, is also part of the project. He was in Romania on Halloween for a press conference in which the team presented the project.

“With your support, we want to build Dracula Village! We have a passion for the Legend of Dracula and want to share it with the world! We found the best location to build Dracula’s Village in the very heart of the legend - Bran Village in Transylvania. Overlooking Bran Castle, which served as the source of inspiration for Bram Stoker to sketch the castle belonging to his infamous Count Dracula, and the legendary Carpathian Mountains, our location is the ultimate place for your next thematic vacation,” reads the presentation on Indiegogo.

The Dracula Village will introduce tourists into a vampire-themed atmosphere, and will give them the chance to learn about the real Vlad the Impaler (Vlad Tepes) and how Bram Stoker's Dracula came to be connected with Transylvania.

The village will have thematic houses built in the 19th-century style, the time when Irish author Bram Stoker wrote his famous novel Dracula. It will also include a café and relaxation areas.

Some of the houses planned for the project, which will be designed by architect Gabriel Henegar, are the Prince Vlad Mansion, Stoker’s Retreat, Van Helsing Duplex, and Harker Café.

The project’s initiators will build one or more houses, depending on how much money they raise via the Indiegogo campaign. The minimum target is USD 20,000, which would allow them to renovate an existing old building and turn it into a guesthouse. However, their maximum goal is to raise up to USD 1.3 million, which would allow them to build eight new guesthouses, including a mini-hotel.

They hope that they will start building the village in March next year, and that they will welcome the first guests by Halloween 2017. The project also has its own website.

Meanwhile, Bran Castle hosts its first overnight guests for the first time in almost 70 years on Halloween night. Two Canadians from Ottawa will be the first people to sleep in Dracula’s castle in nearly 70 years. Tami and Robin Varma won the trip to Bran Castle through a promotional giveaway by Airbnb.

Dacre Stoker, the grand-grandson of Bram Stoker, the author who created Dracula, came to two greet the two lucky winners at the Bran Castle.

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Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Dracula Village on Facebook)