UPDATE / EAST EUROPE RECOVERS : In Romania, Hope Is Reborn : Ceausescu’s former subjects no longer suffer in silence, and life slowly improves.

On cold days, the heat is allowed to rise above 60 degrees in mental hospitals and orphanages, places that six months ago were frigid chambers of horror.

Health officials have ordered an end to the crude ritual of injecting newborns with adult blood, a formerly common practice that spread the deadly AIDS virus to hundreds of infants.

The widespread hunger suffered by Romanians under the brutal rule of Nicolae Ceausescu has eased with the annulment of “scientific nutrition,” a starvation diet prescribed by the late dictator in a vain attempt to hide food shortages.

It will take decades for Romanians to erase the social and psychological scars inflicted by half a century of tyranny. Poverty is widespread, and per-capita income is less than $70 a month. Political unrest and woeful service industries offer little to lure Western tourists and investors.

But in what a few months ago was East Europe’s darkest capital, the first signs of a slow recovery are appearing.

The streets of central Bucharest are flush with fledgling private enterprise. Kerchiefed women balance on tottering stools behind their wares spread out on the sidewalk--bars of soap, plastic combs, bags of pretzels.

On display in virtually every subway corridor and street corner are rows of newspapers. The number of newspapers has risen to nearly 1,000 under press conditions said to be free, although opponents of interim President Ion Iliescu say the state retains de facto control.

Giving voice to one’s grievances is indulged in to excess after years of suffering in silence. Every stairwell and fence is emblazoned with graffiti: “Down With Iliescu,” “Communism, Never Again,” “Remember the Victims of Timisoara” (where the revolt that toppled Ceausescu began).

Deputy Mayor Mihail Enescu says the city is short at least 50,000 apartments. An ambitious building program calls for providing a third of them by the end of this year, mainly by offering land to private builders who will sell or rent the new housing at market prices. Housing being vacated by the few who can afford a move up is returned to the state for redistribution.

Maria Pipera was one of several dozen hopeful recipients lined up outside City Hall on a recent morning. She lives in a one-room apartment with her mother, husband and six children.

“Most people are like us; they have somewhere to stay. But is living nine people to a room any better than being homeless?” lamented the frail cleaning woman.

Airing grievances has been elevated to an official activity since February, when a special commission was established to investigate claims of abuse at the hands of the state and to rectify injustices where possible.

As many as 2,000 people come to the commission seeking justice at each of its hearings on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, according to Vice Chairman Nicolae Grigorescu. The commission can reinstate workers unfairly fired from their jobs, order welfare for relatives of victims of December’s revolt and reform the state health and social institutes.

The commission has cleared the way for more than 1,000 orphans to be adopted by Romanian and foreign families, easing overcrowding at the state facilities where unwanted children were virtually warehoused under Ceausescu. His goal was to boost the nation’s population from 23 million to 30 million by the end of the century.

The number of abandoned children has fallen sharply over the last two months as Romanian women become more confident that they can provide for their offspring, according to the Health Ministry.

“I was desperate when I realized in early December that I was pregnant again,” said Iuliana Tusu, from Rimnicu Vilcea. She said she now looks forward to rearing her fourth child.

“We used to be hungry,” she went on. “The improvements in our lives are really visible.”