What can only be described as Eclipse Fever was gripping the nation when the first Bucharest In Your Pocket was published, at the end of May, 1999. Bucharest was, you see, being heralded as the best place in the world to view one of nature’s rarities: a total eclipse of the sun scheduled for August 11th, and which would darken the sky for three minutes and make stars visible at midday.
Bizarre as it may seem now but many people in Romania were counting on the eclipse kick-starting the country’s tourist industry. Official projections of visitor numbers went into the millions, with Interior Minister Dudu Ionescu telling Reuters in April 1999 that he expected crowds to “overwhelm the capital.” He needn’t have worried. For as it turned out of course nobody – and we mean nobody – came, and the eclipse passed over head without event. Indeed, cloud cover and light drizzle meant that most people in the capital – the majority of whom had assembled on rooftops and balconies wearing ridiculous sunglasses emblazoned with Coca-Cola logos – saw nothing.
Read the full story of the early days at Bucharest In Your Pocket here.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
My question is this: Bucharest In Your Pocket and this blog as well always poke fun at all the oddities of life in Bucharest, but why exactly is Bucharest–and Romania for that matter–so odd? I mean how come the other former Eastern Bloc nations aren't perversely backward and corrupt? Hungary, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Poland. . . they all provide much different experiences–experiences much more normal and closer to a modern, western style of life. This is why I think that Romanians seem to actually revel and being strange, being corrupt and making sure that most things will go wrong. There is something within the very fabric of the society that is just not right and that's why I think Craig you could be here in 20 years writing the same things about Bucharest.
I think the eclipse was the best thing the scus ever organised.
I don't know where you were, but in my side of Bucharest "eclipse day" was extremely sunny and hot, no cloud in the sky, let alone any raid.
On top of the Ringier building in Pipera
I hope not, really. I doubt I will still be here in 20 years by the way; I plan on retiring to the mountains the minute my youngest heads off to university.
yeah, but you'll still be moaning about how the cable cars don't start on time and the waiters don't understand Turp's deepest needs