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When crossing the road in Romania, it’s best to be quick

Here’s a heartwarming story of a Romanian policeman for once doing the right thing and helping out his fellow citizens…

Last week, in the small town Calarasi, south east of Bucharest, an off duty policeman stopped at a pedestrian crossing to allow a man to cross. (A selfless and all too uncommon act in itself).

However, as the pedestrian was crossing too slowly, the policeman decided to take action, and administer immediate punishment: after calmly parking his car he preceded to beat up the pedestrian so badly that he is still in hospital, and will not be walking too slowly across pedestrian crossings any time soon. That will teach him.

We should of course be thankful to the policeman that this menace to society is off our streets and that journey times in Calarasi have been reduced by 1.5 seconds.

A day or two after the incident, a four year old girl was killed on a pedestrian crossing in the same town. We assume she had not been walking fast enough.

While we are on the subject of pedestrian crossings in Romania, here is another way of dealing with people (especially old women of 75) who cross too slowly, this time as demonstrated last week by a young driver in the northern town of Iasi:

Bucharest’s finest, now fighting crime on horseback

Spaga now payable in straw and sugar cubes?

Bucharest is falling down

Follow enough Romanians on Twitter and it becomes all too apparent all too quickly that unreliable internet connections are one of the great gripes of the country’s twittering classes. There is little point in Romania having the fourth fastest average internet connection in the world (true: read more here) if you can’t use it for hours at a time. It’s like having a fast car you can’t drive at anything like its full speed because of the awful state of the roads. (So not the kind of problem people around Bucharest would know anything about).

Yet the reason that internet connections keep coming and going in Bucharest is not complex, or highly technical. No. There is a very simple reason internet connections come and go: it’s because the city’s cable so-called infrastructure is falling down.

This – for example – is (or was) and probably will be again somebody’s internet connection:

Bucharest internet infrastructure 1

Bucharest internet infrastructure 2

Yesterday however it was just a load of cable strung across a busy pavement (outside Tineretului metro station) that nobody appeared to have any great desire to pick up and repair.

Scenes like this are common. In the Tineretului area alone we were yesterday able to take these pictures of Bucharest’s cable infrastructure:

Bucharest's cable infrastructure

Bucharest cable internet infrastructure

We of course use the term ‘infrastructure’ loosely. The companies that own it do not. One of our favourite moments of the past year was the boss of a cable company boasting of his firm’s investment in this infrastructure, as though slinging some cables from tree to tree took barrel loads of cash, special skills and know-how.

For some time we were ourselves reliant on a muppet-run organisation for our internet. The cable that delivered us a fairly quick (when it worked) connection was slung from a tree to a garage roof, then over a car park and in through the window of the kitchen. All very hi-tech. It used to go down (quite literally) at least once a week, usually because a lorry or tall van had been into the car park and cut it. It would then take hours for a highly trained brigada de interventie (usually a couple of tataie with duck tape and super glue) to come and sort it out.

In the end we saw the light and signed up with Romtelecom. Using existing telephone lines (which are still basically wires strung from pillar to post, just strung in a far better way) the service never goes down. We instead have other gripes with Romtelecom, mainly their refusal to take more money from us.

We have said before that the one thing which – more than any other – gives Bucharest that Third World-look is the amount of overhead cables the city has. And though we hear that they are being buried in some areas of the city, progress is slow, even for Romania. Those of you still using cable internet should expect plenty of down time for the foreseeable future.

(Hopefully not until you’ve finished reading this of course).

Romania’s most expensive Coke*

A couple of days ago we went to meet Mrs. Bucharest Life at Otopeni Airport, and while waiting (the flight was late) we got thirsty.

Being an airport we knew we would be paying over the odds at the kiosk in arrivals, but even so, we were shocked by the price they were asking for a can of Coke… 8 lei. Almost €2 for a can of Coke. Obscene.

Even the most fitze clubs in the city don’t charge that.

Fortunately, underneath arrivals at Otopeni is a small Billa supermarket, selling food and drink at (almost) regular prices.

May the kiosk in arrivals go out of business very soon.

*Do let us know if you’ve spotted an even more expensive Coke in Romania.

Bucharest Life favourite places: Carturesti/Gradina Verona/Gradina OAR

Bucharest In Your Pocket, like all In Your Pockets, isn’t meant to have favourite places. As objective observers – swayed neither by personal preference nor the filthy lucre of an advertiser – we say what we see and leave the conjecture to our readers.

That’s one of the reasons we started Bucharest Life. For while the editor of Bucharest In Your Pocket couldn’t possible divulge his favourite places in the guide, he can do so with impunity in an unofficial capacity over here on these pages.

And one of them is Carturesti/Gradina Verona.

In a large house (an historic monument, built in 1883) set back from the bustle of Bulevardul Magheru, Carturesti is Bucharest’s best attempt at a bookshop (we have commented on the poverty that is the bookshop scene in Romania elsewhere). Books are arranged – by and large – in the correct way, and are everywhere: on the stairs, on the floors, on the windowsills; like all good bookshops you get the feeling that they simply do not have enough space (compare with branches of the dreaded Diverta).

They also sell a vast range of CDs – there must be thousands of them – though we have to ask: who is still buying CDs in Romania?

The children’s room is a winner too: a good range of children’s books, good children’s toys and an area for kids to play in, and to read without being told off.

Then there is the cafe. Carturesti has had a cafe for years (it was one of the first Bucharest bookshops to serve coffee), joined in recent times by a garden and courtyard out back. This year serving a decent lunch on weekend afternoons, it is a genuinely nice, cut-price alternative to the awfully overpriced brunches at the big hotels.

And there’s more…

Just down the road (not two minutes walk away) is one of those places that Bucharest does not have enough of: Gradina OAR.

It’s hidden – with only a highly-understated sign pointing to its existence – discrete and quite lovely.

A cafe/cocktail bar for thinkers, there’s not a pitzipoanca in sight. Why would there be? Nobody sees you here. It’s for people of good taste. It is such a shame it is only open during the summer. Enjoy it while you can.