http://www.bucharestlife.net/2009/05/31/bucharestbudapestabroad-still-confusing-brits/ Capital living in Bucharest, Romania Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:44:38 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 http://www.bucharestlife.net/2009/05/31/bucharestbudapestabroad-still-confusing-brits/#comment-682 Valentin Mandache Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:14:29 +0000 http://www.bucharestlife.net/?p=1291#comment-682 One of the many problems of Bucharest, apart from sounding in name somehow similar with its venerable and illustrious Hungarian counterpart, is that it has grown too big for itself. The city started as a sheep station for transhumance shepherds on a propitious fording place in the area between the Arges and the Dambovita rivers and a bit later, as a trading post between the manufacturing cities from Saxon Transylvania and the great commercial towns of Ottoman Balkans, serving also as the capital of a small country called Wallachia. It has become the “peripheral centre” of a country that now gravitates toward the West, desperately cut off from its hinterland by poor communication links. It is also now the 6th largest EU metropolis, with a very unsure identity with a poorly educated population for EU standards. Bucharest is a bit older than the first European settlements in N America and probably the youngest European capital. A much favourable and less confusing location for a contemporary capital of Romania would be Brasov or Alba Iulia (a 2000 years old city with an illustrious history). One of the many problems of Bucharest, apart from sounding in name somehow similar with its venerable and illustrious Hungarian counterpart, is that it has grown too big for itself. The city started as a sheep station for transhumance shepherds on a propitious fording place in the area between the Arges and the Dambovita rivers and a bit later, as a trading post between the manufacturing cities from Saxon Transylvania and the great commercial towns of Ottoman Balkans, serving also as the capital of a small country called Wallachia. It has become the “peripheral centre” of a country that now gravitates toward the West, desperately cut off from its hinterland by poor communication links. It is also now the 6th largest EU metropolis, with a very unsure identity with a poorly educated population for EU standards. Bucharest is a bit older than the first European settlements in N America and probably the youngest European capital. A much favourable and less confusing location for a contemporary capital of Romania would be Brasov or Alba Iulia (a 2000 years old city with an illustrious history).

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