More Happy Peasants, this time from the AFP.
It is the usual (now all too familiar) tale of how Romanians like nothing better than a day’s back-breaking work, in this instance picking elderflowers for two lei a kilo. Yes, two lei a kilo. The story even has a tenuous Prince Charles reference for extra points.
Hard labour, there’s nothing like it: especially if you are a wealthy westerner who can stand and watch.
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Two useful web addresses for you.
We have written in the past about being caught short by repair or upgrading works being carried out on Bucharest’s water and electricity infrastructure (most recently here and here).
As we mentioned in the first of those posts, while the practice of placing warning notes on front doors about upcoming stoppages appears to have been stopped (for the electricity and water supply at least: for gas outages the familiar yellow warning notes are still put up religiously), both Enel – the electricity company and Apa Nova – in charge of Bucharest’s water supply – do at least post warning of planned maintenance work on their websites:
Apa Nova make the information available on this page (lipsa apa in the influenta consumator column means that water will be cut off)
Enel publishes lists of planned works here
Note, of course, that there is still no accounting for unplanned outages, such as that which left much of Bucharest’s Sector 4 without power this morning.
And while we are on the subject of useful things, we know we are rather late to the party but we would like to give a nod to the Star Taxi smartphone app.
We had in the past been big fans of the Meridian app, but the most recent update made it all but unusable (the Android version at least), so we have ditched it in favour of Star Taxi.
A bit of a pain when you first use it (you need to register your phone number and wait for an SMS with an activation code) it is brilliant thereafter. Star Taxi finds you taxis from all sorts of companies (including, we have noticed, from Meridian), which means that there is always usually a taxi available. The app will tell you which driver of which cab with which tarif is coming to pick you up. Oh, and it will show you a picture of him.
You can even register a Visa or Mastercard and pay automatically, via PayU (you choose the ‘pay with card’ option when ordering): all you need to do is leave the driver a tip (if he deserves it).
You can also see where the taxi is when the driver takes the order, and then follow its progress. You can rate how good your driver is (we always mark them down if they smoke or if they drive too fast).
Anyway, try it, it is about the best Bucharest taxi app currently available.
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It was on this day in 1998 – at about tea time to be precise – that we first arrived in Bucharest, ostensibly to stay for a year or so in order to perfect the Romanian we had learnt at university in London.
Fifteen years on and – a Florentine interlude from 2001-2 aside – we are still here.
We’d been to Romania before 1998 of course, many times in fact, but never for more than a month or two and usually only for a week, or even less. No, the summer of 1998 was when we first arrived with the real intention of getting seriously stuck in.
Indeed, so stuck in (embedded would probably be the modern word) did we intend to get that we hadn’t planned on staying in horrible old Bucharest for very long at all; Lord no. We instead had rather idealistic notions of heading north double quick, to some remote town or village, in order to go as native as possible.
As it turned out, the free use of a rather nice apartment at Piata Universitatii, a few nights spent between the Dubliner and Club A and a small windfall courtesy of the World Cup sweepstake at the Harp (we had picked France out of the hat the night we arrived) encouraged us to stay in Bucharest a while longer. A little after that we were asked to work for a newspaper, and the rest, as they say, is history.
The city was at the time reaping the benefits of the foreign investment which had begun to flow into Romania since the election of Emil Constantinescu as president in December 1996. A right-wing, anti-PSD alliance known as the CDR formed the government (Radu Vasile had just taken over from Victor Ciorbea as prime minister), and although the economy would soon collapse and the CDR tear itself apart (in fact, Traian Basescu would tear it apart), in the summer of 1998 all was still rather rosy.
Two heavily competing GSM phone companies – Dialog and Connex – were bringing mobiles to the masses for the first time, and a few – although not a lot – of bars and restaurants had begun to appear to supplant the ghastly state-run places of yore. Caru cu bere – today such a tourist favourite and genuinely wonderful place – was one such state-run disaster. It was the kind of place where you would sit at a table, wait half an hour, then leave, with not a single member of staff having offered you so much as a menu. It was not the only place guilty of viewing clients as a pest.
Which is why venues like the Dubliner, the Harp, the White Horse and Sydney Bar & Grill were so revolutionary. You didn’t have to wait to get served. You could even go to the bar and order your own drink.
No wonder that’s where we spent half of our time.
By and large, however, despite clear signs that the country was starting to move in the right direction, the Bucharest we arrived in 15 years ago was not all that different to the Bucharest we remember from a visit in 1990. There were more adverts – although the horrible habit of defacing entire facades with enormous ads had not yet caught on – but while there were plenty of non-Romanian cars on the streets, the vast majority of vehicles on the road were Dacias of the old kind. And the comically bad Oltcit, of course (a car which a friend insisted on calling Oldshit).
The summer of 1998 was also the last time the Romanian football team qualified for the World Cup. They memorably beat England shortly after we arrived with a last minute goal from Chelsea legend Dan Petrescu. Never having been much of an In-ger-land fan, we were delighted: Chelsea had stuffed it to England. You may remember that the Romanian team then dyed their hair yellow before promptly disappearing without trace. (We often say, by the way, that we arrived on the day of the Romania-England game itself. In truth we arrived a week or so before).
Back in 1998 Romania used to charge us Englanders (and just about everybody else for that matter) to get in. Officially still a student when we applied for our visa, we only paid a pound. But we could only stay 30 days, after which we had to shuffle off to the passport office to get an extension for another 60 days. That cost $66, which had to be paid in US dollars (and you had to have the exact amount) at one particular branch of CEC. Oh what fun we had the day visas had to be extended.
We imagine non-EU citizens still do.
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We know that you all love a bit of a newspaper archive, so we are delighted to report that The Spectator today made its entire archive – dating back to 1828 – available online.
Amazingly, the whole archive is currently free, although we assume that is a temporary move while it remains in beta (there are some issues with some words and texts not displaying properly). Nevertheless, we suggest clearing your schedules and filling your boots over the next few days, while you can.
First thing we searched? Bucharest of course.
This Bulldozing Bucharest report from 1988 – which paints an accurately grim picture of the Romanian capital at the time – caught our eye, as did this brief yet wonderfully evocative despatch sent in the aftermath of a parliamentary election in 1888.
Perhaps the most interesting story we have found so far though is this thorough 1979 report from a young Timothy Garton Ash (although he was calling himself just Tim Garton Ash in those days). Packed with detail it’s fascinating from start to finish.
Who knew, for example, that thousands of Eastern European tourists had been stranded in Romania in the summer of 1979 when the Romanian government suddenly decided that all foreign visitors (including those from other COMECON countries) would have to pay for petrol in hard currency?:
The Polish authorities protested, and then started handing out American dollars to their nationals through their diplomatic missions. The Czech authorities protested, and even granted Czech holidaymakers permission to drive via Yugoslavia to the Black Sea resorts of Bulgaria, thus bypassing Romania altogether. (A gesture which resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of Czechs seeking asylum in Austrian refugee camps.)
Wonderful reporting. Now, go browse the archive while you can.
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You may remember a while ago we wrote about how we had been forced to come up with our own version of the Bucharest metro map for publication in Bucharest In Your Pocket, a result of the continued failure of Metrorex – the company which operates the Bucharest metro – to provide an easy to use map (and/or one which does not include fantasy lines and stations that may never be constructed).
Well, given that the current Metrorex map is no improvement, we have once again decided to create our own map: an upgrade on our last effort, which has also been updated to include the rather impressive number of stations which now offer step-free access. (Of 46 stations, 37 are now accessible for those in wheelchairs: two years ago when we last did the map the number was just eight: that is real progress):
Credit for the map must once again go to Son of Bucharest Life, who, this time armed with a later version of Illustrator was able to round corners, and has – you many or may not notice – stuck to Harry Beck’s rule of only drawing lines at 90 or 45 degree angles.
Well done him.
As before, please let us know if you think that there are any inaccuracies or omissions, or if we can improve the map.
Please feel free to reproduce or distribute the map (online), but do us the courtesy of mentioning the source.
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Not having been able to make the press preview back in April (we were out of town), we this weekend finally got round to visiting the Treasures of China exhibition at the Romanian National History Museum (MNIR).
At a wallet-busting 25 lei a ticket it is one of the most expensive exhibitions ever held in a Bucharest museum: it is also one of the best. (There is, however, a family ticket available for 50 lei, allowing two adults and up to three children access on the one ticket).
The exhibition features more than 100 pieces of Chinese art dating back to the Paleolithic period, and charts, in linear form and with clear, well-written captions in Chinese, Romanian and English the progression of Chinese culture and civilisation. The story of the Silk Road and its importance in the development of China as a great trading power is particularly well told, and there is even a small section dedicated to historical links between Romania and China, featuring ancient Chinese coins and other artefacts found in Romanian territory.
The centrepiece of the exhibition – and by far the biggest attraction, however – are the terracotta soldiers of Xi’an, guardians of the tomb of the first Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang. These lifesize statues – rarely seen outside of China – are unquestionably impressive, as is the horse which accompanies them.
If we have one complaint about the exhibition it is that there is no accompanying informational leaflet, just a rather lush brochure which will set you back 70 lei. You can, however, have a guide take you round, for just 10 lei (in Romanian; the price shoots up to 75 lei if you want an English or French-speaking guide).
Much of the rest of the museum is currently being renovated, but its biggest attractions remain open: the Lapidarium, and Romania’s National Treasury, which includes the Crown Jewels.
The Lapidarium includes statues brought from a Bronze Age necropolis close to present day Cernavoda and what is probably the museum’s finest exhibit, a full-scale replica of Trajan’s Column. The Romanian Treasury includes jewellery from the time of the Geto-Dacians, as well as the current Romanian Crown Jewels, including both the king’s and queen’s (pictured below) crowns and an amazing selection of emeralds made for Queen Marie.
The Treasures of China exhibition continues until August 1st.
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It would be easy to say that Bucharest’s Botanical Garden is one of the city’s great, overlooked sights: a bit like the Bellu Cemetery. Yet while it doesn’t usually top the list of casual visitors to Bucharest, for locals it is one of the city’s most popular attractions: to call it overlooked would therefore be wrong.
Attracted by its relatively central location, easy parking on surrounding streets, cheap entrance fee and – most of all – by the fabulous greenhouses, the garden is a gorgeous place and is packed on weekends. It’s not without its problems though: more of those later. For starters, let’s concentrate on what we like about the place.
Entrance costs 5 lei for adults, 2 lei for concessions, while the under-sevens get in for free. An extra one leu buys you a map: few attractions in Bucharest (and no museums) offer maps (imagine if the Village Museum published a map of its houses…)
From the main entrance most people head straight towards the greenhouses, for they keep short hours.
Most of the greenhouses have been renovated (or even entirely rebuilt) over the past couple of years, and they look better than ever. They get gradually hotter as you move around them, and the plants within them increasingly weird and exotic. Captioning is good: the origins of each plant are given in almost all cases, and the whole experience of walking through the greenhouse complex is at once pleasant and fascinating. Kids (if ours are anything to go by) will find plenty to keep them occupied, not least the cacti and the rather impressive collection of venus fly traps.
The rest of the Botanical Garden is a vast expanse of various flora, from micro-forests to flower gardens, some more impressive than others, but all with merit. The plants are divided into their geographical areas of origin, be it Romania or further afield: there is a section devoted to the Carpathian mountains, another to Dobrogea, another to the Mediterranean. Captions and display boards are excellent throughout (some are even in English as well as Romanian). Look out for squirrels, and worry not about dogs: we explored more or less the whole garden and saw not a single stray mutt.
The Botanical Garden is also home to the Botanical Museum, which we had planned to visit as we left. Alas on Saturdays it closes early, at 13:00 (during the week it is open until 15:00). Quite why somebody decided that Saturday would be a good day to close up early is beyond us.
We should also point out that it is hard to ignore the enormous factory which lurks behind the garden, so we will not.
Nevermind, museum or no museum, factory or no factory these are small gripes compared with the overall visitor experience, which is overwhelmingly positive. Take a morning, the kids, and go. It’s five lei very well spent.
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