Thanks to Jackie Kirkham @Flickr for the photo

Remember the census carried out by the INS last year?

Well, preliminary results were released yesterday. You can browse them at your leisure here.

Edited highlights:

The population of Romania has fallen by more than two and a half million since the 2002 census. The current population of Romania is now just 19,042,936. It has not been this low since 1966. (Romania’s population peaked in 1992, at 22,810.035).

The population of Bucharest has fallen to 1,677,985, down from a peak of over two million in 1992.

Romania remains a mainly urban country, but only just: 48 per cent of the population still live in the countryside.

The government has been quick to say that something must have gone wrong with the census. The ruling PD-L is scrambling to ensure that party leader Traian Basescu, president since 2004, does not go down in history as the president who oversaw The Great Exodus.

These are indeed preliminary results, but they look reasonable enough (the biggest question mark is probably over the Bucharest number), and given the huge numbers of Romanians who have emigrated (to Spain and Italy especially) we do not expect any huge changes in the numbers when the final figures are released.

Looks like us immigrants could soon be the only people left.

Bucharest In Your Pocket issue 75 is done and dusted and at the printer. Here is the cover:

Features this issue include a look back at the Bucharest earthquake of 1977, books about Romania in English (including some reviews first published here, as well as a cracking new sketch of Paul D. Quinlan’s Carol: The Playboy King by Chris Lawson) and Bucharest’s tallest buildings.

New venues to look out for include Mircea Dinescu‘s restaurant Lacrimi si Sfinti, on Strada Sepcari, and what is perhaps our new favourite bar, Laboratorul de Cocktailuri.

We would also like to point out that the guide includes a listing for Malagamba, which is very much open! It was closed for a few days in January following an overzealous visit from the financial guard, but has since reopened and is as good as ever. Alas it seems news of the reopening has not spread as quickly as the news of the closure did.

It was almost two years ago now that we asked the question: Where can you find the best mici in Bucharest?.

The response was almost unanimous: La Cocosatul.

Now, as those of you who follow mentions of Romania in the foreign press might well know, one of the owners of La Cocosatul (the name means Hunchback) hung himself in December, apparently in the attic of the restaurant. You can read the full story here.

Anyway, we went to La Cocosatul with the intention of eating a ton of these now world famous mici, only to leave the restaurant less than 30 seconds after we had gone inside: it was too cold to stay. Seriously, even with our coats on it was freezing.

As we had no desire to eat in the cold, we instead nipped around the corner to La Cocosatul’s big rival, La Gil.

We can report that not only was it much warmer at La Gil, but the mici were rather good too. Very good in fact.

We also rather enjoyed the highly graphic menu, which included photos of absolutely everything, from ciorba to steak to the most basic of supplements (sic), such as cucumbers. We have seen a few menus with pictures in our time but nothing rivals this:

Very helpful

We assume that even the most ill-informed of visitors to Bucharest Life is aware of the fact that former Romanian prime minister Adrian Nastase was sentenced to two years in prison on Monday for corruption. Nastase remains a free man for the time being, pending an appeal. Here is the Reuters report on the matter.

Anyway, The Economist’s man in these parts posted this on the Eastern Approaches blog last night. It is a very good assessment of the case.

We particularly like the line:

The president has a reputation for seeking to bring corruption charges against his opponents.

As someone suggested to us this morning, the post must have taken ‘some serious lawyering.’

Oh dear

One of the funniest travel books ever, Playing the Moldovans at Tennis, has been turned into a film. It has been written and produced by – and stars – comedian Tony Hawks, who wrote the book. It will be released in the Spring of 2012.

The premise, for those of you not aware of it, is simple: Hawks bets a mate that he can play and beat the entire Moldovan football team at tennis.

Here’s the trailer: