Don’t know who Alex Galmeanu is, but he has a blog, and a site, which deserve your urgent attention. If I ever meet him I will shake his hand and buy him a drink: these photos of Bucharest in 1964 are (probably quite literally) priceless.
I know not where he got them from (and unless I missed something he is not giving that information away), but I hope they make him if not rich then at least famous. Visit his blog and his site at least.
As for Bucharest circa 1964… How clean it is! How well dressed people are! What fantastic cars! It’s enough to make even progressives like us nostalgic. What we like best of all is the complete absence of outdoor advertising… Imagine blocks without banners the size of Bristol.
Paradise lost…
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Ah, my city before communism and the left ruined it. This was the city before Ceausescu mutilated it’s architecture and leftism ruined the population living in it by killing off all the good people or chasing them away or degrading them. And well, as soon as the money of bourgeoisie ended, so did the nice part.
And it’s obvious why Bucharest is safe. We don’t have hordes of immigrants. Just look at Oslo – all the assault rapes in the last three years and 80% of the rapes in the whole Norway were committed by immigrants.
Parmalat, give me a break. Did your family had relatives at the state security or how did you get food in the 1980s? I mean, the rationed ten eggs and poor quality pound of meat were hardly food for everyone. It was more like everybody was starving just as bad. I won’t even go into how people didn’t have heating during the winter.
About supermarkets, I don’t know, it’s private property, but I agree that taking pictures of anything from public property should be ok.
Bucharestian, Well, that guy was a decent person. . . makes all the difference! My whole perception of Romania is based on these kinds of negative interactions all of the time in Bucharest. If suddenly people are kind and drivers obey laws etc., you as visitor feel a whole lot better.
The guy let the fitze crowd shoot at each other’s idiocy because that is the place’s market. You are an exception for the Turabo (by the way, take it as a personal point, it is all your mistake if you went to Turabo). You were alone and shot at the place rather than at your friends. So the guy got scared and the “this is forbidden” button was pushed. His 3 in 1 ‘logic’ goes like this: what would happen if his boss saw a picture of the cafe on the internet? It would all go on his shoulders…
Again, a coincidence, I spent a few hours today cycling across the city and shooting at a few places I needed the pictures of (well, initially I only wanted to go to Darvari Convent, but then I kept on going on and on). This time there were no incidents, but one: while shooting a picture at a fine facade around Popa Soare Street, an old man happily approached me: “why not take a picture of me too?”. At my replying that I would do that, provided he also had a Neogothic facade, we both laughed and a short, but interesting discussion began. Exceptions occur, and the more difficult Bucharest seems at times, the better the exceptions, I dare say…
@bucharstian, all that you mention are the kinds of responses I get. People never seem to be able to explain why I can’t take a photo, just that is is not allowed. Interestingly, the young serving ladies at a Turabo cafe let the fitze crowd snap pictures of each other with their iPhones but when I went to take a picture just of the scene inside the cafe I was immediately stopped. What’s the difference? The background of the iPhone shots will show the inside of the cafe as well!
I would say the “you cannot do that” / “one cannot do that” issue has a double origin: 1. the society’s being virtually strangled, indoctrinated by a plethora of Middle Age sort of beliefs and habits, some having a religious background, others not; 2. the Communist regime that still prevails in terms of “cannot do this and that”. Ask someone why he/she tells you not to do this and that and let us just suppose you would find someone eager to answer, and not to mock at you, throw things at you, hit you or simply ignore you and walk away. The answer will most probably include the impersonal daily Romanian is full of: “asa ceva nu se face” (En. ‘one’ cannot do that), “este interzis” (En. it is forbidden), “nu este ca lumea” (En. it is not customary). Ask further: who this ‘one’ stands for, who forbids you to shoot pictures and what custom in this world you have broken. Silence (plain or hidden by rage, expressed as you mentioned above).
For an International Herald Tribune assignments last week I almost met my end in the butchers at Piata Matache when a man almost through a meat cleaver at me. I fled the scene cursing! Just crazy. In a marketplace in Paris or wherever else I would have had no problem. Where is the arrogance to tell someone on the street not to do something coming from? I would never go up to someone and say ‘you cannot do that’. I know I obsess about the oddity of life here, but again, there are things that go on here that I have never encountered anywhere else. Romania is unique.
I write only out of personal experience and this is just my opinion, so I might be wrong. But I would say this has nothing (or next to nothing) to do with 9/11. It was the same before 9/11 with this strict “no pictures” policy which most people impose to others without even understanding why they should do this. And if I might understand the reasons for not allowing one to shoot pictures at a military base or at an US Embassy, I fail to see why I cannot take pictures of a school (yeah, it happened, the bodyguard at the school near Nicolae Grigorescu Market) or in a supermarket (yeap, try, get seen by the guard and see what happens), just to mention two situations. This has nothing to do with security or safeness. It has something to do only with idiocy and the narrow-minded society that produced it. With a regime that messed up people to the extent to which they do not dare think for themselves or look you in the eyes for they are afraid they might see themselves and their bad. I wrote a short article on the cannot do mentality. It might explain some issues. But then, as stated above, this is just my opinion.
@Bucharestian. But why is this?! I mean understand since 9/11 that the police are more vigilant worldwide in train stations and airports etc., but am I correct that the particular fear of photography is due to Ceausescu and the fact that Romanians still do not have faith in the state as a protector and as an apparatus that functions properly? The reaction to photography in Bucharest I have to say is quite peculiar. Of course many people all over the world might get annoyed if you are snapping pictures in their face, but in Bucharest there is a very stiff, angry, antagonistic reaction. Actually Cluj, too, is juts like Bucharest. I have traveled widely and no other place is like here regarding photography. Not even elsewhere in Eastern Europe.
Interesting, I was just about to write a reply here earlier today, but did not because I got caught up with something. This morning I was looking at this slideshow and wondered what something similar (of Romania) would look like. Then I realized that nay, it cannot simply happen officially. Officially shooting pictures on the subway train or in subway stations is forbidden. I had a serious argument with the guards in Gara de Nord too because I wanted to have some pictures of some CFR sleepers and send them to Man in Seat 61. Traffic pictures aside, once when hiking in Grohotis Mountains, a shepherd saw me taking many pictures (indeed, I shoot 30 pictures or so at some rocks) and asked me whether I was a SRI employee. In Bucharest, while trying to shoot pictures at various institutions and museums (Kretulescu Palace, the Greek Church, the Choral Temple, even Melic House) for my website, the guards there (or the Jandarmeria staff) denied my right of doing so in the best case, or chased me in the worst. I was lucky a couple of times to be on a bike and flee. A friend which tried to shoot some pictures in the city, was scolded for that by the gendarmes and subsequently sent an official complaint to the Jandarmeria, was answered that the Jandarmeria has no official rule denying one’s right of taking pictures of the buildings its staff protects, but that the staff… “played common sense and did so only to do their jobs best”! And this is an official answer of an institution that wants to be respected. When I wrote a letter to the Ministry of Culture (many museums belong to) and asked, among other issues, why I was not allowed to take (outside) pictures at the Museum of Old Maps and Books or at Casa Melic (among others), they replied that they contacted the staff there, and that the staff was shocked at my accusations. Period.
I was leaping through a great photography website just the other day (Matthieu Paley’s) and wondered for a second whether he could have shot something similar in Romania. No, never. Because, even in the absence of imbecile gendarmes or museum staff, Romanians never look one in the eyes. Noticed that?
I have rested my case with Bucharest and have decided to come back here. I also have upgraded to wordpress myself. I would imagine that many people have family albums with photos from the 1960s, but the unique thing here is that they are publicly available and of course they are in color. It really is interesting to see how Ceausescu sent Bucharest backwards. Who would have thought that the city had Italian cars and was clean like that?! But in the 60s, Romania was much more open. My whole concept of Romania is based upon what Ceausescu wreaked upon it and with good reason since the Bucharest we see today is a direct result of Ceausescu. The absolute fear people have of me, a 31 year-old young man with a nordic ski hat on and a Northface jacket snapping photos on the street with a Canon camera is due to the paranoia that Ceausescu instilled in people through the Securitate. The paranoia was so strong that parents seemed to have passed it on in their genes to Bucharestians in their 20s who hardly ever lived under Communism! People left and right yell out to me and tell me I can’t take a picture of a dog of a building and I’m like huh?! In London, Paris, New York, Prague, Krakow–anywhere else no one notices me, I am just a tourist with a camera. Here in Bucharest it is as if my camera is a gun. I really don’t know what people fear or what they think I will do with the photos I take!? In a word, Bucharest and Romanians in general are very odd people and I DO NOT understand them.
But then, why didn’t you go all the way and like the pictures of the 1980s? Because the same leader had half Bucharest destroyed and these grey apartment buildings raised instead, respectively Romanians messed up to the point where they could no longer figure good from bad. As for achievements: he (himself) paid the foreign debt? What were the costs for that and to whom / what did it serve?
There is this book about Vacaresti Monastery’s demolition, it is just an example, but quite illustrative for a whole decade and a madman’s profile. There was “order” indeed, people did what they were told at the surface, but everything was done just on the surface, there was no quality and people did not believe at all in what they were supposed to do, furthermore, they cheated the system whenever they could. Theft became a national sport, so was lying, spying on one’s neighbour or not caring about anything. Some of these features still prevail. The result is a rotten society the members of which take vice as something smart. Well beyond grey buildings, empty shelves or lousy infrastructure, Ceausescu’s regime (not only him, I agree) messed up a whole country with his paranoia. Praising such a person or his “achievements” is plain idiotic.
Hey, thanks Bucharestian!
Calea Mosilor doesn’t look too good today either, maybe in 1964 it looked better.
But from what I see in my neighborhood (some streets and areas are pretty much the same as they were back then) I could say the city was pretty much taken care of, not abandoned like today.
I don’t know how to explain this… there was a plan, a social order: fences from the gardens of blocks looked the same everywhere, every area had it’s own “Complex” with stores covering most basic needs of people living there, also there were spaces where children could play, buildings looked quite the same or there was a certain order in which they were set up, parking lots covered the needs of people living in that area, I mean people had the feeling that someone is concerned about these things.
Today everyone builds whatever he wants, fences are either broken or stolen by gypsies, playgrounds belong to nobody (stupid mayor Inimaroiu made some improvements in the final months of his term), people park on the middle of the streets, buildings look awful, etc… you could say the city has no mayorship!
I remember the small park where my grandfather used to play ‘table’ (backgammon) with other pensioners when Ceausescu was President and I used to stay with him and watch the game while my grandmother was waiting in line to buy groceries. There was a special corner for pensioners with a few tables so they could play ‘table’ or chess, now those tables are long gone, only the sustaining structures remained in place.
Unfortunately most of my grandfather’s friends are gone too, and today nobody plays table anymore in that park. Sometimes when I pass through I see syringes on the ground and I remember Ceausescu, the Militia, the Securitate and the times that we lived back then.
Maybe there was no heating, no electricity or even no food in the stores from time to time but we certainly were better people. And I firmly believe that Ceausescu would have succeeded in bringing the country back to the status that it had in the 70′s. He paid the foreign debt and he had big plans, he wanted to make a bank together with the arabs in order to give loans to the 3rd world countries, he developed the technolgy that allowed Romania to build nuclear power plants 100% in the country with no foreign components, if he had another 10 years as President maybe the situation was much better right now.
I’ll always regret the leadership skills that Ceausescu had. When Ceausescu said “we do this!” everyone shut their mouths and executed! Today nothing is done anymore, people take the state to court, they hire lawyers, they win, years pass and nothing is done. Ceausescu would have built Basarab passage in 6 months. A leader like him appears once in 200 years.
Have a look here, Andrei.
Wooooow, the city was beautiful back then!!
But still the country and the city was only 20 years from the War, which were 20 years of communism :-s
Ceausescu wasn’t yet in power, those pictures are taken in September 1964 and he came to power in March 1965.
In the 80′s Bucharest looked much worse as we could see from the other post in the blog, but I would really like to take a look at the city in the 70′s and compare it to 1964 :-s