I was there very recently. It's a nice place. It's a bit like you imagine Durham UK to be if it'd been occupied by the soviets - a university town with some incredible old buildings, but with a real feel of poverty about the place. Still, it was pleasent and felt safe. Everyone from the taxi drivers to waiting staff know that it's stuffed to the gills with programmers. Seems there's also a pretty impressive gender split - the tech events I went to tended to be 50% women.

    > he lists the geographic proximity to Western Europe

Getting to Cluj is a completely ball-ache. There are some infrequent flights from Vienna (on a terrifying TAROM turboprop), and a Whizz Air flight from Luton once a day, and presumably at least one flight from Bucharest. Train from Budapest or Bucharest takes for-e-v-a.