When In Romania

November 2024

Bucureşti

It was 3am when I was dropped in the centre of the Romanian capital. It was foggy, freezing cold, and I had nowhere to go.

Sometimes I'm pretty dumb. When I bought my bus ticket in Varna I didn't really think about whether I actually wanted to arrive at 3am in winter in a new country and a new city. I'd tried for tickets so I could arrive the previous night, but none were available. If I'd really thought it through I would've just bought one for the next day.

But I was also sorta keen not to get stuck anywhere, and then end up being late arriving for work in Germany.

So as we drove in to Bucharest in the middle of the night I scoured the dark streets for somewhere open, where I might be able to hang out until my hostel opened and I could store my bags until checkin time.

I didn't have a SIM card and no local currency.

About a click before we were dropped off I noticed a large café that was open, I took a note of where it was, and then walked back there once I was dropped in the centre of the city.

That was super lucky. It was perfect. There was coffee. Lentil soup. And heaters.

Strolling in the freezing cold. Welcome to Bucharest.

I stayed in here for six whole hours, until it was light, and my hostel was open. There was a huge rush for about an hour around 4am, when some of the clubs closed I guess, and the place was suddenly inundated with young locals, dressed to kill, who were still charged and partying.

But after an hour or so the place was pretty empty and quiet again.

And then about 9am, when it was well and truly light (or as light as maybe it was gonna get for the day), I headed towards my hostel, surrounded by workers and Monday morning traffic.

It wasn't too far to walk.

There's an extensive tram network in Bucharest.

Politicking. There's a Presidential election happening in less than a week's time, and parliamentary elections not long after that. The pro-Europe Presidential candidate, Marcel Ciolacu, from the Social Democratic Party, is the front runner, despite his party being involved in a succession of corruption scandals.

I agree.

The magnificent Biserica Sfântul Spiridon-Nou, a Romanian Orthodox creation, was built in the 1850s, and, like scores of historic buildings in Bucharest, was modified later on.

I went to my hostel, thinking maybe there was a chance of being able to checkin early, as I was absolutely exhausted and wanted to sleep.

But the dorm wasn't ready, so I left my gear and went out wandering again.

Bucharest is packed full of amazing bakeries, selling all kinds of bready snacks, savouries and sweet pastries. They're everywhere, and the prices are good.

Covrig is the go-to bread roll snack, the Romanian version of the Turkish simit.

Strudel is their generic term for a stuffed pastry. They have meat, cheese and sweet varieties, including apple.

And loads of amazing cakes and slices, sometimes layered with fruit, like apples or apricots, or creams and custards. Yum! Six lei is the equivalent of less than €1.20.

Old manual industrial sewing machine in a shop window

I hope so too. But you never know what liffe is gonna bring.

Now that's what I call a hair extension. It actually makes really good financial sense, because you don't need to spend money on clothes anymore.

Although maybe you'll need an expensive neck brace after awhile.

The glass wall

Bucharest is a grand city, jam packed full of beautiful, huge and ornate buildings.

There's a long and convoluted history behind the many different architectural styles here, as a result of natural disasters, and because history kept getting revised by whoever was ruling at the time, and they rebuilt or renovated buildings according to whatever architectural bent they were into.

Fiery autumn

The Romanian language is very obviously Latin based, in stark contrast to Bulgarian or Turkish, or the languages of many of its other neighbours. It also uses Latin script. It's handy, because I can sometimes roughly understand some of the signs without needing to translate all the time.

Eventually it was finally late enough in the afternoon for me to checkin at my hostel. So I headed back, checked in, and then, about 30 seconds later, was fast asleep.

I re-emerged after 3 hours, got some take-out food, and then chilled back in my hostel. It was warm, and pretty soon I was back in bed, as I had an appointment the next morning.

Bogdan's Little Tour

It was super nippy as I left my hostel to walk to the Coltea Church, the meeting point for our "free" walking tour of Bucharest, which I'd booked online.

The 'i' is silent, and the ş is pronounced like a 'sh.'

The band Nazareth is actually playing in Bucharest

There's swathes of beautiful buildings here

And equal numbers of run down apartment buildings badly in need of repair. I can't imagine how these guys will fare during the next earthquake.

Our walking tour was very competently and imaginatively run by Bogdan, a lovely young local guy who seemed to have a pretty comprehensive and rounded view of all things Romanian.

He explained right from the start that Romanian history has been defined by constant change, by creation, destruction and reconstruction, and that all of those processes are reflected strongly in the architecture, in the politics, and in the Romanian psyche.

Yeah, Romania is situated on a very vulnerable seismic fault line, and has suffered a succession of huge earthquakes over the centuries. In fact a big one hits roughly every 40 years. The last was in 1977, when huge swathes of Bucharest were destroyed, and so everyone's bracing for the next killer.

But the government is so corrupt that earthquake-safe building certificates are easily obtained through bribes.

When earthquakes strike, buildings are rebuilt, and often architectural styles are revised, to reflect whatever it is the leaders define to be the flavour (or the political history) of the day.

And I can't go any further without mentioning one of the most notorious Romanian dictators of all time.

No it wasn't Vlad Dracula, but another way more destructive bloodsucker.

Nicolaemaniac

Nicolae Ceauşescu was Romanian head of state between 1967 and 1989, ruling the country when it was part of the communist Soviet Union. When he first came to power he was a populist, and knew how to endear himself to his people, by standing up to Soviet leaders, and even condemning their invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.

However his niceness was all a front, of course. While Ceauşescu was in power, the Romanian secret police, the Securitate, became the most repressive in the whole of Eastern Europe (and that's saying something), and was involved in widespread human rights abuses such as torture, rape and murder, severe repression, mass surveillance, and complete control of the media. They were responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent Romanian people during that period.

The Securitate also engaged in huge disinformation campaigns, the deliberate framing and subsequent arrest or execution of intellectuals and other social commentators, they fomented discord within and between different groups in Romanian society by deliberately spreading false rumours, and claiming evidence of crimes against each other etc.

In 1967 Ceauşescu signed Decree 770, which severely restricted abortion and contraception in the country. Prior to the decree becoming law, Romania had one of the most liberal abortion policies in Europe, and because contraception wasn't widely available at the time, abortion was widely used as a contraceptive method.

Under Ceauşescu, the Romanian Communist Party suddenly decided that it wanted to increase the Romanian population from 20 million to 30 million.

Yeah right.

And we can't let women's choices get in the way of such an important national goal now can we.

Suddenly, abortion and contraception became completely unavailable. The secret police forced every single woman in Romania to have monthly gynaecological checks, and if any became pregnant, they would be monitored and surveilled until the baby was born. The secret police even monitored hospital procedures.

Of course we all know what happens when you ban abortion, don't we.

It just goes underground.

Scores of women died as a result of backyard abortions, and the mortality rate of pregnant Romanian women became the highest in Europe.

Surprise surprise.

The wealthy found ways to circumvent the decree, buying contraceptives from outside the country, or bribing doctors to diagnose them with conditions that necessarily meant they needed abortions.

And a huge number of unwanted babies were born, causing huge social problems for the poor, and plunging them further into poverty. Orphanages overflowed with unwanted children, not because their parents were dead, but because they couldn't afford to bring their kids up.

Like many demented leaders, Ceauşescu spent millions of Romanian taxpayer dollars on fomenting a cult of personality around himself. He made some very poor economic decisions, plunging the country into huge debt. And then, in an effort to pay back the debt, he introduced crippling austerity policies in the 1980s, plunging average Romanians further into poverty.

He became the most hated man in the country.

In the late 1980s Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev's policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring), began to offer opportunities for countries under Soviet control. Faced with turmoil within his own country, Gorbachev's government gradually stopped interfering in the affairs of Eastern Bloc and Central Asian countries.

This led to numerous independence movements within these countries.

In Romania, anti-government riots exploded onto the streets of the city of Timişoara in 1989, initially started by oppressed ethnic Hungarians. Of course, the riots were met with force, and at least a thousand people died. The riots then spread, eventually reaching the capital of Bucharest, and by December 22nd they had become so overwhelming that the army could no longer stop them, and so what to do? The soldiers just switched sides.

Ceauşescu and his wife tried to leave the country by helicopter, but had to land whilst still within Romanian borders, as the army threatened to shoot them down. A clever farmer then offered them refuge in his farmhouse, but then locked them in a room, and they were later arrested by the police. (Fooled ya, sucked in).

Both were executed a few days later.

Many Romanians still speak of Ceauşescu with unfiltered hatred and vitriol. However some, believe it or not, seem to have forgotten his nastiness, and pine for the days of strict government control and less chaos. It's like Russians wishing for Stalin.

It's incredible how quickly people forget.

Destroying and Rebuilding

Coltea Church was originally built in the late 1600s in a Byzantine style, but subsequent earthquakes and fire led to parts of it being destroyed and rebuilt.

Grand renovations for a grand masterpiece

These buildings remind me a little of Madrid

This is the Biserica Sfântul Gheorghe Nou, another magnificent church originally also built in the Byzantine style in the 1600s, to honour St George.

Interesting skull at the bottom.

The church, which is Romanian Orthodox, is like an art gallery of the most stunning masterpieces. They're everywhere.

The tombstone of St Constantin, and assorted precious things.

More halos than a Beyoncé anthem

We passed under the main road through the Pasajul Latin, the Latin Passage, where Bogdan chatted about the Romanian language's Latin roots, and the difference between Romanians and the Roma (gypsy) people. In the Roma language the word 'roma' means husband. It has nothing to do with Rome, but the gypsies did traditionally move around a lot so I guess they were Roamers.

Bogdan also made a point of stressing that the Roma people are very much Romanians - as Romanian as anyone else who's been born and lived in the country their whole lives. It was refreshing to hear that. Like Bulgarians, locals here tend to be unswervingly racist against the Roma people.

Bucharest in 1500

Actually, later in the day I was walking down the street with my little day bag accidentally open on my back, and a couple of guys alerted me to that fact. One then said I was lucky that they'd told me, because Romanians would normally help themselves to my stuff in a situation like that. The other one berated him and said not to stereotype Romanians. He then assured me that Bucharest is a safe place, but then seemed to suddenly remember something, and proceeded to warn me about the gypsies.

Say no more.

Back to the tour, and the government of Italy gifted this statue to Bucharest to celebrate the connection between the two cultures, and their common name. It's of Romulus and Remus, the two famous brothers who led to the founding of Rome and the Roman Empire, feasting on a she-wolf's milk. Romulus killed his brother Remus after an argument by the way, but that's by the by.

So much of Romanian architectural history has been destroyed - either by marauding invaders, by earthquakes or fires, or by dictators desperate to create their own legacies. This building, the Inn of Manus, was an original caravanserai, where traders would come and trade their wares in the open courtyard, and be given rooms and food for their stay. Just like they did on the Silk Road.

During one of his building sprees Ceauşescu wanted the building destroyed, but local party officials quickly provided him with a report advising that the building had important connections to the history of workers' rights, so shouldn't be touched. The local officials knew that issues such as these suited the narrative the dictator favoured at the time.

So Ceauşescu decided to spare the building.

It was all bullshit of course, there was no such history in the building.

Brave liars they were.

The old town's a cracker here, with lots of beautiful buildings, all partially restored, but not in an over-the-top too ritzy way.

Well, with some exceptions

OMMC!* is it Christmas already?

The Romanian National Bank. There's a great heist story here, said to be the inspiration for the 'Money Heist' Spanish Netflix series. In 1959 a bunch of six Romanian Jews managed to steal 1.6 million lei from an armoured vehicle here, and their intention was to give the money to the Jewish community as compensation for all the possessions and properties stolen by the Communist Party when they came to power here.

Unfortunately, unlike the series, there was a Securitate operating in Romania at the time, and within two months all the robbers were captured, and were forced to confess on camera how they actually did it. After their confessions they were promptly executed, ie, murdered. Not a very happy ending.

Well, actually five of the six were executed.

The sixth, a woman named Monika Sevianu, was pregnant at the time, and was put in prison, and eventually emigrated to Israel some years later. Monika is also the name of one of the Netflix series characters, and Bogdan said the real Romanian Monika was the inspiration for the series character.

*Oh Mary Mother of Christ

Beautiful indoor arcade. This one was created by two sisters, who had great skills in architecture and a beautiful aesthetic, and who lovingly designed it all themselves. Of course, once completed, it took on the name of their husbands, as women weren't allowed to own property, as they can't handle such things because they're not as intelligent as men etc etc.

Excuse me while I vomit.

This amazing building is the Casa de Economii şi Consemnațiuni. Bogdan said it's the luckiest building in Bucharest, as it's survived multiple earthquakes undamaged. It even survived that other living earthquake, Ceauşescu. Locals believe the building's been blessed by God, as it sits on the site of a previous sacred church.

One of the few Gothic buildings left in the city.

Romania was colonised by the Ottoman Empire for about 300 years, till the late 1800s, so many of the older churches have a distinctive eastern flavour.

Nadia Comăneci was a famous Romanian gymnast, she was pretty much the Simone Biles of the 1970s, who won a score of gold medals. In the 1976 Montreal Olympics she was the first gymnast to score a perfect 10 score for a routine, and then went on to do it another 6 times during the games.

Impressive. I remember watching her on tv when I was a teen, and I think had a crush on her.

But actually I had a crush on pretty much everyone in those days.

This massive building is called the Palace of the Parliaments, and is the second largest government administrative building in the world, after the Pentagon. It's the brainchild of that ex-President dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu.

He was such a case.

In fact the whole building is a case, and its history rather brutal.

After the massive earthquake in 1977, the Romanian leader decided to rebuild the city just as he liked it.

As if they could afford it.

He'd just been to visit North Korea, and was inspired by the palace there, so was determined to build something much much greater.

But where to build it? The earthquake had destroyed many random buildings, but there was nowhere in the city centre that had the amount of connected vacant land needed for constructing such a massive building.

But why let that small detail get in the way?

So Ceauşescu just went ahead and ordered the destruction of huge swathes of historic buildings, including numerous temples, hospitals and factories, and the houses of at least 40,000 people, whose properties were confiscated, and who were forced to move.

What a guy.

Nor was Ceauşescu a patient fellow. He wanted the building up and running as quickly as possible. So 100,000 workers were employed, with shifts operating around the clock, to get it done. As you can imagine, under such time pressure worker safety became a secondary concern.

Many people lost their lives in the construction of this building, but records weren't kept of the number of accidents or the number killed. Many corpses were just buried in the concrete.

Yep.

The building cost the equivalent of the total Romanian budget for a period of five whole years, meaning that millions of Romanians were plunged into poverty as a direct result of his mindless desire for grandeur.

Man, really! What a guy!

He must've had a really really tiny tiny penis.

Many Romanians despise what this building represents - the excesses of absolute power, and the brutality of Ceauşescu, the scourge of the nation.

It's worth remembering at this point that a number of other countries in the world are currently faced with leaders just like him.

And things are also not going very well for those people either - for example, for North Koreans, Russians, Burmese, Syrians, Venezuelans etc bloody etc.

The Palace of the Parliaments building itself has 1,100 rooms, and is actually an incredible 240m long, and 270m wide. The pic I took is just a taste of the sheer size of it.

It's 12 storeys high, but then has another 8 floors below ground, including an atomic bunker.

It's considered to be the heaviest building in the world, which really surprised me, given modern skyscrapers.

Well, who knows, even if it's not the heaviest, it would definitely have to rank as the stupidest.

After the tour I slowly strolled back to the hostel. It was actually warm, like 7 or 8 degrees! I'm not joking, but that actually feels warm to me now. Sad but true.

Snack attack. Covrig cu maslin, a delicious savoury pretzel pastry stick with cheese and olives.

My hostel attempted a Halloween decoration

I went out strolling again in the evening.

Not Budapest. Bogdan said everyone gets the two mixed up.

There's loads of sex shops in this town.

And churches. Not sure if there's a relationship there.

This is an Italian one, Roman Catholic.

Catholic heavyweights

Seedy side of the old town

Despite the cold, and despite the fact that it was Tuesday night, people were still out and about in the old town.

At least they don't call them "baffles" like in Yerevan

There are poor people here. You see homeless people, people begging, people struggling to sell a few things to get some measly income. You can even buy one or two slices of bread, if you can't afford a whole loaf.

Obor Market

The next day I decided to walk out to the main Bucharest market, Obor.

Amazing old tram. Check out the wheels on it.

5 lei per coffee is about $1.60 Oz.

Bucharest has all its grand old buildings splashed around the main squares, but the back streets are full of old rundown ones, some of them quite magnificent in their own right.

People here would argue that you actually need to protect yourself from these guys. Romanians rank the police force as one of the most corrupt institutions in the whole country. And that's saying something, as there's lots of competition.

Another beautiful Byzantine-influenced church.

Plastic and real

The Obor market seems to be frequented by older and poorer people. I like it for that. At least at this time of the day anyway.

Pastry shop.

Fried, greasy and popular

One of the big market halls

These little piggies went to market. These little piggies didn't go home.

Salt

Sweet and sour

Please, I really have no idea what this is. It looks intestinal to me. Great for sausage casing.

Loads of live (and unlive) fish

A bloody end

These poor creatures were out of the water, but still flopping around, suffocating to death. Humans can be so inhumane.

RIP Sirs.

They were selling loads of crap there, I mean carp.

Sturgeons awaiting surgeons.

Lobsters

No, they're not rubber swimming caps, but beef tripe, which is the lining of cow's stomachs. Mmmmm yum looks so appetising.

The mind boggles doesn't it. These bits are from calves.

Phew, finally out of the morgue.

There was loads of garlic everywhere, obviously to protect everyone from vampires, as they were first invented here, and they're everywhere.

Vlad The Impaler

I've mentioned this notorious historical cruel nutcase in a previous blog, but just thought I'd get some more mileage out of his gore and brutality, as, after all, he lived here in Romania, and he was the inspiration behind the famous Count Dracula whom we all love.

Vlad the Impaler, or Vlad Dracula, was the ruler of the Romanian state of Wallachia in the mid 1400s, and was involved in some brutal wars against the Ottoman Empire, which had been forcing Wallachians to pay regular tributes, and had held him and his brother hostage when they were kids.

****Beware, yukkiness coming ******

Vlad had a penchant for impaling his enemies, a process by which a sharpened thick stake is carefully hammered through the anus, and then through the whole length of the body, making sure not to pierce any body organs. The stake is then hammered through the chest, and then, with the person attached, placed vertically in the ground, so the poor victim can be displayed until they die the most gruesome and horrible death imaginable, which can take days.

Vlad had his troops do this to hundreds of people.

I bags not being one of his soldiers.

******Ok, yukkiness over *******

The other famous Dracula, Count Dracula, is not real. He was a fictional character in Bram Stoker's vampire story, and hailed from a castle in Transylvania, also here in Romania, where he sucked the blood from the necks of his human victims.

If I had to choose, I think I'd go with the Count.

I Can No Longer Romanian

Yeah, the show must go on.

I need to get to work.

I left the super interesting Obor market, and headed back to my hostel to pick up my gear.