Nicolae Ceausescu

Ci-Co; Romania during communism

by Craig Turp July 22, 2009 Bucharest

 The Romanian History Museum (MNIR) recently launched a major new website, www.comunismulinromania.ro, the front-end of a project designed to look at the communist period in Romania in a ‘serious, objective way.’ Mainly a photo archive, we liked the communist-era adverts the best. It’s good to know that if Bucharest In Your Pocket had been around [...]

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Map of Bucharest, 1979

by Craig Turp July 13, 2009 Bucharest

 We cleared out the attic and dusted off a few old books at the weekend, including an absolute gem: a tourist guide to the capital written by Dan Berindei and Sebastian Bonifaciu, published in Romanian in 1979. Thankfully lacking the usual homage to Romania’s president at the time which blight so many works of the [...]

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Little Emil and a little bit of motorway

by Craig Turp July 13, 2009 Bucharest

 Romanian newspapers are reporting this morning that Prime Minister Little Emil Boc yesterday promised to have a 30km stretch of the of the Bucharest – Ploiesti motorway finished by the end of this year. Truth is, in a rare moment of lucidity, Little Emil said no such thing. What he actually said was ‘we have [...]

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Opening of the Bucharest Metro, 1979

by Craig Turp May 20, 2009 Bucharest

 As we explained a couple of weeks ago, our six year old is currently obsessed by metro trains, and in his quest for knowledge now spends the two hours he is allowed each day on the computer scouring You Tube for videos about metros. Yesterday he came up with a gem. An original report on [...]

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‘TV screens desecrate the façades on every thoroughfare’

by Craig Turp April 16, 2009 Bucharest

 Roger Scruton may be a bit too fond of a time when people worked the land for 18 hours a day before dropping dead at the age of 30, but he’s right about the desecration of Bucharest’s facades. Roger Scruton on Romanian wine in the New Statesman

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Happy Birthday Mr. Former President & An Opportunity Missed

by Craig Turp January 26, 2009 Bucharest

 Today would have been the 91st birthday of Nicolae Ceausescu, still the first name that springs to most people’s minds when Romania is mentioned abroad. This year of course will also mark the 20th anniversary of the Romanian Revolution of 1989. To celebrate, struggling newspaper (well, they’re all struggling) Jurnalul National is publishing a four [...]

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