Did everyone see this last night on Pro TV news? The appearance of all sorts of wildlife in the middle of the city, on a huge, abandoned piece of land known as Lacul Vacaresti:
Very much a case of Bucharest doing everything right by doing absolutely nothing.
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Given that last week’s post featuring a 1962 guide to Bucharest was the most popular we’d written in ages, here’s more of the same, only from another book published more than two decades later, in 1985.
Unirea, 1985
Bulevardul Magheru 1985
Not a guide per se, but in fact a monograf outlining the state of the city’s infrastructure at the time, the book is packed with graphics of the socialist kind which highlight the achievements of the regime. Such as the number of apartments built since Nicolae Ceausescu took over from Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej in 1965:
Priorities...
There is also ample space dedicated to leisure facilities in Bucharest, all meant to convince readers (we assume people from the provinces) of how fantastic life was in the city at the time.
Caldura mare
The Hotel Flora: today the Crowne Plaza
The lobby of the Hotel Bucuresti. Today it is the Radisson, and unrecognisable
Those of you (or is it just us?) fascinated by all things Bucharest Metro will be fascinated to know that the book contains a map of how the metro was at that stage projected to take shape.
The line we have (badly) highlighted in red is the 'Magistrala inelara.' Only some of the northern part, from Gara de Nord to Muncii, was built
A Bucharest metro train at Eroilor station in 1985. Two things to note: the shorter trains (made up of just two carriages, to save on electricity) and the fact there are three people in the driver's cab
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As anyone who has lost the will to live and therefore visits these pages regularly will know, we are reasonably big fans of Bucharest’s Village Museum. One of city’s best run attractions, we call it ‘outstanding’ in the write-up we give it over at Bucharest In Your Pocket.
This weekend the museum celebrates its birthday (its 76th, to be precise), and is therefore hosting a bit of a party.
Beginning today, Thursday March 17th, the celebrations last four days and include everything from children’s theatre to film screenings, short plays and zillions of dancing peasants (especially on Saturday, from 12pm, when there are four dancing troupes on stage, including a group of Turkish-Tatar dancers from Medgidia, and the Aromanian dancers above, pictured at a similar event in 2009).
There will also be a craft and goodies market on each of the four days where you can fill your boots with sweets and treats. Look out for Branza de burduf, smoked trout and the obligatory Kürtőskalács.
The full programme of the four days is here.
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Those lovely people at Enel, supplier (sometimes) of electricity to Bucharest, yesterday gave us an invaluable glimpse at what life might be like were a Green Party ever to win an election, form a government, and impose on us their rather frightening policy of energy rationing.
Without power from 8am until gone 6pm, we learnt valuable lessons about the futility of solar power (it only works when the sun shines) as well as finishing a cracking book on the crusades. We also got a hair cut, went swimming, did a spot of shopping and made some chicken soup. It wasn’t a totally wasted day, but given that we have a shed load of work to do, it certainly felt like it.
Anyway, you can now disregard our post about not voting for anyone in the Sector 3 election.
After yesterday’s epic power cut we are now prepared to back any candidate who can bring us a reliable supply of the modern miracle that is electricity.
This is not, after all, the first time we have had to cope with power cuts in our part of Bucharest. (Although yesterday was by far the worst). The electricity supply in our in-laws’ remote village is better. Much better.
Who ever thought reliable electricity would become an election issue in a European capital in the 21st century?
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Last Thursday the phoney war came to an end and the 2012 Romanian local election campaign began in earnest. (Voting takes place on June 10th).
In our part of the country, Bucharest’s Sector 3 (in fact the largest administrative area in Romania), that means it’s time for the two main candidates, Liviu Negoita and Robert Negoita, to ditch the subterfuge and come out loud and proud in their efforts to try and convince us that we should vote for them.
Loud and proud however does not appear to be Liviu Negoita’s approach. The huge posters which appeared last week in Piata Unirii are conspicuous for the fact that the badge of Negoita’s party, the PDL, is tiny, barely visible in the bottom left hand corner:
Spot the PDL
Clearly seeing the PDL as toxic, Negoita is trying to come across as very much his own man, and certainly not one who belongs to the deeply unpopular PDL. We have noticed that the PDL’s candidate for the overall Bucharest mayor’s office, Silviu Prigoana, is trying the same trick.
Alas for them both, it does not appear to be working. The first opinion poll of the campaign appeared yesterday, showing him leading his USL namesake by just three points. While opinion polls are notoriously fickle and often unreliable in any election campaign – particularly in Romania – the simple fact the election is clearly competitive is a major surprise.
Remember, Liviu Negoita took almost 80 per cent of the vote in 2008. To lose this election would be one of the biggest shocks in post-1989 Romanian electoral history, and shows how toxic the PDL brand has become. Liviu Negoita is right to minimalise it.
He is wrong, however, to resort to the kind of gutter tactic that should be below any politician. This is what we were handed by his people earlier today, outside the Bucharest Mall:
The headline, in case you need a translation, is ‘High-class whoremonger Robert Negoita wants to be mayor of Sector 3.‘
Yet as we suggested a week or so ago, we are not particularly keen on the alternative, the (alleged) high-class whoremonger Robert Negoita. Traditionally PNL supporters, that party’s fusion with the PSD to create the USL has meant that in some places there is no PNL candidate to vote for. Robert Negoita for example is a member of the PSD. We do not like the PSD. We will therefore not be voting for him.
So who else is there?
Well, there are in fact a total of 19 candidates. Besides Negoita and Negoita we can choose from:
Catalin Zamfira (PP-DD), Iulian Popescu (UNPR), Gheorghe Ovidiu Emil Stoenescu (PP-PS), Florian Cristache (Partidul Totul pentru tara), Ilie Pepenel (Forţa Civica), Cristiana Matei (Partidul National Democrat Crestin), Tudor Florian Ivan (Partidul Social Democrat al Muncitorilor), Cornelia Lalu (Partidul Verde), Cristian Ciocea (Partidul Poporului), Ion Uta (Uniunea Populara Social Crestina), Ruxandra-Georgeta Lungu (PRM), Marton Illyes (UDMR), Gheorghe Mazilu (Partidul Socialist Roman), Mihael Zorzini (Partidul Alianta Socialista), Gasca Dragos Eugen (Partidul Uniunea Ecologistă din Romania), Parpală Gabi (Partidul Noua Generatie Crestin Democrat) and Dumitrescu Danut Octavian (Partidul Ecologist Roman).
Maybe we will vote UDMR. Or for Dan Diaconescu’s candidate. Or we might just not bother.
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We’ve unearthed some gems on our bookshelves of late.
From an old Romanian grammar primer to a copy of ‘Romanian for foreigners,’ we outdid ourselves yesterday when we came across a guide to Bucharest from 1962 (in Romanian), almost certainly picked up for a song at an anticariat many years ago.
The guide was written by a collective including Dan Berindei, who 20 years later would co-author the equally excellent (though not as thorough) Bucuresti guide we wrote about here.
Clearly a labour of love the book is gorgeous, and in very good shape, the slightly scuffed dust jacket apart. The pull out maps at the back are all intact, as are the lovingly produced seating plans of every cinema, theatre and concert hall in the city.
Bucharest 1962: There were still trams running along Strada Smardan
Seating plan of the 'Infratirea intre popoare' cinema
Running to over 300 pages, the book is one of the most thorough guides to Bucharest we have ever come across. The running order gives an idea of the priorities of the age: History and geography are followed by political organisations, and an in depth run down of the capital’s factories, industrial plants and educational institutions. Only then (from page 134 onwards) do the more frivolous things such as museums get a look in.
We have not read the whole thing yet, but skimming through we have perhaps so far liked the section on taxis best:
A ride in a Volga taxi cost slightly more than in a Pobeda or Moscvici.
There aren’t all that many photos in the book, and all are rather small and black and white. Most (but not all) feature recently constructed buildings and districts:
Bucurestii Noi
One other thing of interest: published three years before Nicolae Ceausescu became the country’s leader, and long before the personality cult took hold, there is not a single photograph of a politician in the entire book. Indeed, so far we have found only one mention of the country’s then leader Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej: a quote in the history chapter from the proclamation of the People’s Republic of Romania in 1948.
Oh, and finally, the picture on the back cover is marvellous, the figures (if not the setting) almost Lowry-esque:
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Last week, when submitting a guide to Bucharest for an in-flight magazine, we had to deal with a copy editor who was insistent that we include the train service from Otopeni – the so-called Henri Coanda Express – in the section on Arriving in Bucharest. We were equally insistent that we should not include the train, given that we only have a few words to tell people how best to get into the city centre. In the end, we prevailed.
Now, in our own guide (where space is not such an issue) we mention the train to and from the airport, but with the caveat that it really isn’t worth taking. We stand by that. The fact that you need to take a minibus from the airport to the ‘station’, which is little more than a halt in the middle of nowhere makes it inconvenient and slow. People who want to avoid taking a taxi are far, far better off on the bus.
Anyway, the company that operates the Bucharest metro, Metrorex, is currently planning the construction of metro line M6 to the airport. It will cost upwards of €1 billion. While we would of course welcome this new line should it ever be built, there are two points we would like to raise about the project.
Next stop Otopeni?
Firstly, the metro branch to the airport will depart from 1 Mai, on the M4 line. This means that to reach the airport from the city centre (Universitate or Piata Romana) by metro will require no fewer than three changes of train, at Piata Victoriei, at Gara de Nord or Basarab, and at 1 Mai. (See the Metrorex map of the proposed new lines here).
Changing trains three times is not exactly convenient for anyone with luggage, and will reduce the attractiveness of the route. Surely it would have made more sense to create a new branch of the M1 from Aviatorilor? (Which was, we understand, the original route).
Secondly (and perhaps most importantly) there is a low-cost alternative to the metro line. We have written about it before, back in 2008. The people at TER have also picked up on the idea. You can see their map of the route (better than ours) here. The only tunnelling required would be the last two and half kilometres, under the DN1 and the airport terminal. Otherwise, upgrading the existing CFR line is all that is needed. The cost would be far lower than tunnelling all the way from 1 Mai to Otopeni.
Ziarul Financiar yesterday asked if the new Romanian government (which should pass a parliamentary vote this evening) should make the metro its priority, or the motorway from Comarnic to Brasov.
We would say the motorway. But if they ditched the metro to Otopeni idea and went for the far cheaper overground option, maybe they could do both.
We should also point out that CFR does have plans to upgrade Bucharest’s orbital railway line (which runs alongside the centura), eventually making it a complete loop, serving up to 25 stations on the way round. Again, this is also part of the TER project (the pink line on this map). A news report earlier this year suggested that some work was already being done on the orbital line, and that at least part (it is not made clear which part) would open by the end of 2012.
As usual, we will believe it when we see it. What is clear, however, is that once again there is little joined-up thinking going on when it comes to public transport in Bucharest. Until RATB – which operates surface transport in Bucharest – and Metrorex become one entity, which is then also handed responsibility for operating suburban CFR trains in and around Bucharest, the Romanian capital will never have a genuinely coherent transport strategy.
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