A week or so late, here is Bucharest Life’s Review of the Year that was 2009.
January
A new government, led by Traian Basescu and Little Emil Boc, installed following parliamentary elections at the end of 2008, introduces, amongst other moves of sheer political genius, a compulsory profit tax for small companies (even those that lose money) which leads to the immediate bankruptcy of thousands of small businesses. By the end of June more than 81,000 companies had closed their doors forever.
February
Romania’s blonda mondena of a Tourism Minister, Elena Udrea, launches a new international marketing campaign designed to persuade foreigners to travel to Romania on holiday.
Complete with a cheesy slogan (Land of Choice) and an even cheesier anthem, the campaign ran throughout much of the summer at great cost on Eurosport and CNN.
March
Bucharest City Council tried to go green with a half-hearted attempt to get the city’s inhabitants to begin selectively disposing of their rubbish. We suggested that a campaign to first encourage the good people of Bucharest to start using one bin might be more likely to succeed.
The council also – to the horror of many – approved the construction of the Dambovita Centre. We have our doubts as to whether the project will ever be finalised.
Skint, the Romanian government was forced to put its cap in its hand and head off to the International Monetary Fund to ask for a few pennies to see it through until pay day. The IMF agreed to a loan, though at great social cost: it demanded massive redundancies in the public sector, and a freeze in pensions and salaries. It was the first of many U-turns.
April
In a visit to a Hungarian-dominated area of Romania (part of the Szekelyfold, where Hungarians are in the majority), president Traian Basescu said that the Szekelyfold would never enjoy any kind of autonomy.
Later in the year the main Hungarian political party, the UDMR, would join Basescu in forming a government.
Romania got some international press, including an awful ‘isn’t poverty wonderful‘ piece that appeared in the Austrialian daily WA Today, and two woefully inaccurate stories about Bucharest in the Independent.
May
The city partied all month to celebrate Bucharest In Your Pocket’s 10th birthday.
June
Bucharest Life got its five minutes in the spotlight when an editorial published in Bucharest In Your Pocket (in which we had lovingly nicknamed Tourism Minister Elena Udrea as Romania’s Pitzipoanca-in-chief), was discussed on a political chatshow on Realitatea TV by a hysterical Andreea Cretulescu and her guests.
Cretulescu’s show was ditched by Realitatea later in the year (the two events were not connected).
We also in June officially backed the wrong horse in the Romanian presidential election.
July
Romanian footballer Adrian Mutu is ordered by sport’s highest international court, TAS, to pay €16 million to former club Chelsea for breaching his contract by taking cocaine in 2005.
Bucharest Life took a holiday, but not before finding a real gem of a Bucharest travel guide (and accompanying map of the city before the bulldozers) in the attic.
Metrorex renamed a Bucharest metro station that does not actually exist.
August
The Basescu/Boc government decides that in order to save money, all civil servants (including teachers and medical sector workers) would have to take ten days compulsory unpaid leave before the year’s end.
September
RATB, the company that operates Bucharest’s surface-level public transport services (trams, buses and trolleybuses) celebrated its 100th anniversary with a parade of vintage trams. Though a success, the event could have been even better had RATB told anyone about it in advance.
October
After a creditable 0-0 draw in Paris against France, Romania’s football team lost a crucial qualifying match against Serbia, in Belgrade, 5-0, thereby missing out on qualification for next year’s World Cup in South Africa. Coach Razvan Lucescu pledged to build a new team, without rapidly fading star Adrian Mutu.
November
The Bucharest metro celebrated its 30th anniversary just a few days after its workforce – amongst the highest paid non-skilled workers in the country – had staged a three day strike for higher pay that caused chaos and brought much of the city centre to a standstill.
December
In the presidential election Traian Basescu narrowly defeated challenger Mircea Geoana in a run-off. So narrow, in fact, was the margin of victory, that Geoana had initially declared himself the winner, after three exit polls had shown him to hold a two point lead over Basescu.
Indeed, Basescu won fewer votes in Romania than Geoana. The difference was made by the Romanian diaspora, which voted in huge numbers for Basescu. More than 100,000 people voted for the president abroad (and less than 30,000 for Geoana). Basescu’s final winning margin was less than 70,000 votes.
Basescu immediately disappointed many of his voters by appointing Little Emil Boc to once again be his muppet of a prime minister.
Elena Udrea (whose Land of Choice campaign was such a disaster that the number of foreign visitors to Romania actuall decreased by more than 25 per cent in 2009) was given an enlarged ministry, now including the regional development portfolio, which will oversee the distribution of more than €4 billion in EU funds.
Ker-ching!
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
There is NO Hungaryan-dominated aria in Romania. We love E.U. (Elena Udrea)!
Then I will rephrase: area where Hungarians form the majority.
O felicitam pe dna ministru pentru tot ceea ce face. We support her in every way!