What Danny Dyer would no doubt call a right proper naughty tear up went down at the Bucharest shopping centre Plaza Romania on Saturday evening, when a group of shaven monkeys with muscles, known comically in the Romanian press as the Preda Clan (try saying it without bursting out laughing) decided to get right proper naughty with the security men who guard the place.
It would appear that the Preda boys were angry that the Mall’s security company, BGS, had recently put a stop to their activities (demanding money with menaces from the mall’s shop owners). The Preda boys came for revenge, BGS were waiting… Fisticuffs ensued.
Now, while the fracas was probably frightening for those who witnessed it, we are not talking gang warfare here. Watching Romanian television yesterday however you could have been forgiven for thinking that Bucharest had turned into Chicago circa 1924. It hasn’t. These are low-life, low level, opportunist, petty criminals. Bucharest – more of this in a bit – remains the safest place we’ve certainly ever lived.
Now, the fact that the ‘leader’ of the Preda clan, Eugen Preda – some kind of kick-boxer and reservist policeman – was arrested last year after stabbing and badly wounding someone in a nightclub, before being released by a judge because ‘he posed no danger to the public’ is indeed worrying. It is further evidence that Romania has no normal, functioning justice system. But then we knew that.
What the press is instead focusing on is the ‘fight’ itself and the fact that the capital is controlled by these ‘clans.’
Nonsense.
There may well be, in the deepest, darkest parts of Bucharest’s ghettos, shop owners who pay protection money to gorillas. But the idea that major international companies such as Vodafone, Orange, McDonalds etc. hand over cash from the till every week to these people is an insult to the intelligence. Likewise, the idea that Bucharest is a city of crime is idiotic. The very fact that this minor incident has garnered so much coverage is evidence in itself that very little serious crime takes place here. We have said it before and will say so again: if you stay out of trouble and avoid the ghettos then this is one of the safest cities in Europe.
Our rule of thumb has always been this: while people here will pick your pocket at the drop of a hat, they will not cut your throat to do so. This is a city is which it in still safe for kids to walk home from school at night, often after dark. They can play in the street, go to the park unsupervised. Try doing that in other places we could mention.
No, for all Bucharest’s problems, crime is not yet one of them.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Indeed, I consider Bucharest a rather safe place myself. But it has been worse, there were many gypsies lurking around and doing whatever they wanted after 1989.
Actually after 1988 when a decree came out releasing many criminals from jail and during nighttime the city was not illuminated (to spare the expenses, of course).
However, the event was rather shocking because it happened in public and this is something that most of these gangs won’t do: go public.
There appears to be some sort of mutual co-operation between the organized gangs (not plain gypsies) and the police, something like “yo do your part, sell women, collect taxes etc… but don’t disturb the public order so we can have an easy job ourselves”.
That’s why the police appears to protect these guys.
When orders were traced from the E.U. that we must get rid of organized crime groups – it was no problem – special troops broke Nutu Camataru’s door and arrested him and his brother, also some important clans in Iasi and Sibiu were taken down in a matter of months and placed in jail so the E.U. can see.
There is no will to change things, people prefer to get by in the same way as rats run sticking themselves against the wall.
If there is something bad about the former Communist regime, is this thing: it took away from us the will to get involved and to change things making them as they should be.
Catalin Radu Tanase. What a cock. He and his counterpart on Realitatea (who used to be on Antena and whose name escapes me) are simply the worst of the worst.
I dare say the problem with such pieces of flamboyant news is not the information itself, but rather (most of) the Romanian media. Everything is about panem et circenses, and if it isn’t, is has to get there so that Romanians buy it. Every piece of news has to be carefully packed in the 5 o’clock news or in the soap opera cheezy gift paper. And then, in Romania a guy like Catalin Radu Tanase could turn even a quarrel over a horse pulled cart’s killing a hen into prime news. It is about more than the obvious social problems they show (and Romanian justice’s impotence to solve such problems). Fights like the one you mention and the ado Romanians do around them, debating for hours without any sort of first hand information, only show the extent to which people here need a sort of scandal and a reason for their daily gossip more than they need air or a decent meal. For cheap wine goes nicely with this cheap circus and third hand reports.