Thursday, August 11 to Friday, August 12, 2005

Bucharest, Romania:

People can say what they want to about it, but I liked Bucharest. The city is chaotic and full of energy, not to mention some of the most homicidal drivers I've seen outside of Lima, Peru and Naples, Italy (which are two cities I could compare to Bucharest on a number of other levels), but I found it relatively easy and safe to get around nevertheless, while the warmth of most of the people I encountered reminded me that I was back in a Latin country again. Sure, there are parts of Bucharest that look like a war just took place there but that's because, essentially, a war DID just take place there (the brief but bloody revolution leading to Ceausescu's fall in 1989). And while many historic neighborhoods were indiscriminately demolished under the old regime, you can still see plenty of surviving 19th-century buildings built and ordered in grand Parisian-style. The city is a sprawling, cluttered but interesting mix of old and new and for the first time since arriving in Europe, I was able to roam around without encountering significant groups of Western travellers like myself nearly everywhere I went. I don't bring this up because I automatically look down on people who are doing exactly what I am doing but because, as I keep pointing out with respect to places like Prague, a large enough stream of tourists can alter the climate of a city significantly, giving local-oriented businesses an incentive to transform themselves into homogenous, tourist-oriented ventures (an example is a $1-2/plate local sausage house shutting down for a week and re-opening as yet another lousy $6-10/plate pizza and pasta place). So it was refreshing to see that Bucharest wasn't under that kind of pressure to conform to the tastes of foreign mobs. However, I did notice heavy construction and/or renovation almost everywhere I went and people seemed to me to be fairly optimistic in general, despite the economic and social problems Romania still faces. Perhaps that's because EU entry in 2007 is pretty much locked up now. Also, as one of several articles I read recently (posted in a sidebar comment) points out, foreign investment in Romania has started to grow rapidly and will probably continue to do so for the foreseeable future. I regret that my visit to Romania consisted solely of a few days in Bucharest, without a venture out into Transylvania. However, I think it would be interesting to come back in a few years and see how things have changed in the interim. I don't think crowds of tourists will be mobbing the streets, but hopefully the place will be cleaner, wealthier and more developed without having sacrificed any of its character or culture.

Thursday, August 11

I left the hostel just before noon and wandered toward the city center, which was a ten minute walk away down hectic Carol I Boulevard. After stopping in University Plaza, I walked through a few side streets near the University and Romanian National Library, finally settling down in the shadow of the ornate Bulgarian Church at a place called CremCafe, where I had lunch (and surprisingly good coffee, which is a sign of development if anything is). When I was finished I went north to see the Plaza of the Revolution, named for said event, where a number of people were killed in the protests that broke out before Ceausescu was finally siezed in December of 1989. A monument stands in the middle of the square, surrounded by the former Royal Palace (now the home of the National Art Museum, which I would see the next day), the Senate (formerly the Central Committee of the Communist Party Building) and the Greek classical-style Romanian Atheneum (Bucharest's main concert hall), built in 1888. On the south end of the plaza is Cretulescu Church, built in 1722 but damaged heavily in the fighting in 1989.

I walked through the area for a few hours, passing the famous (and partially infamous) Athena Palace Hotel and wandering up Calea Victoria where some upscale shops and an assortment of restaurants lie. Then I went back down
to see Bucharest's most notorious landmark sight, the "Palace of the People," as Ceausescu's regime ironically dubbed it, an enormous layer cake of a building which he demolished an entire neighborhood (lived in by plenty of "the people")to construct (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_the_Parliament). The building is, depending on what source you check, the second or third largest in the world (the Pentagon is the largest). Basically, the thing looks like several dozen opera houses stacked on top of one another and fused side by side. The main approach to the Palace is the via Boulevard Unirii, a massive street flanked by depressing squat apartment buildings and, further down, at the Plaza Unirii, a series of gaudy commercial malls. Intended to be Bucharest's answer to the Champs d' Elysses, it simply doesn't come close. You can't really blame the city itself however; this is what happens when egotistical dictators undertake massive development projects their nations lack the wealth to complete according to plan.

When I came back to Elvis' Hostel in the early evening there was still no sign of Elvis. There were two policement present, however. They were --- with the help of the Romanian girl at reception, who was translating --- taking down the details of the burglary of one of the hostel guest's backpacks. Apparently, he'd left it under a table on the outside patio and gone off someplace for a few minutes. When he came back, it was gone. The hostel had a few video cameras in place, but they didn't pick anything up as they are mainly focused on the entrance and reception area, not the front yard. The victim grew frustrated with the police after a while (they needed him to fill out various forms before they would do anything, not that there was any real chance they would catch the thief) and decided not to follow through. He hadn't lost anything significant, so he was lucky. When the police had gone, one of the other hostel guests who had been looking on revealed that he had been pick-pocketed earlier in the day on a crowded bus. He'd only lost about $50 US and a credit card he had called to cancel. Still, he told us he felt "Bucharest is a shithole" and that he was "getting out as soon as possible." I think that (1) leaving your bag unattended, and (2) riding a crowded bus with cash in your loose khaki pockets, are both things you oughtn't do in certain places and expect to get away with. Fortunately, nobody lost anything irreplaceable or overly inconvenient (like a passport).

Friday, August 12

I went back to Cremcafe to read and people-watch for a while. Then I went up to the the National Art Museum, which is definitely worth a few hours of time if you visit the city. The Romanian wing takes up several floors and includes a number of impressive pieces dating from several hundred years ago to the present. A smaller but still significant exhibit apart from the paintings and sculptures displays various jewels, tapestries and religious relics dating back to medieval times. If you only have an hour, however, you would do best to head to the European gallery, which holds, among other things, several Rodin sculptures, a couple of Rembrandts (http://art.museum.ro/pozema/rembm.html), a minor Monet, some El Grecos and (my personal favorites) a small collection of work by Pietr Breughel(s), the Elder and Younger both (including "The Slaughter of the Innocents," from 1565).

In the evening I walked through the pedestrian streets around Lipscani Street. A number of buildings were all but ruins, yet there were plenty of people and shops and the overall scene was lively and upbeat, with a lot of outdoor bars and cafes operating at nearly full capacity. One bar, "La Ruine", was just that; an outdoor space set up cleverly in and around the ruins of a brick building.

That night I was a bit annoyed to find that the hostel had no record of my having paid my night's accomodation, which is something I did during the theft commotion of the previous evening. "This is very strange," said the manager from New York, as if to imply that my claim of having paid was in doubt. In the end I had to stand there with two of the receptionists and watch video footage from the night before, which finally showed me paying one of the new girls they are trying out for a position. She never gave me a receipt or recorded the payment, though I suspect it was absent-mindedness rather than dishonestly. Nevertheless, I didn't like the attitude I was given and can't help but think that it never would have happened if Elvis had been there.