Romania

Much ado about nothing

by Craig Turp January 15, 2012 Bucharest

 There was a mini-riot in Bucharest last night. A lot of fuss over nothing. You can read a BBC news report of the events here, and there is video from Reuters here. Anyway, two quick points. 1. If you are not happy with a government, you can choose not to re-elect it at the next [...]

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Bucharest Life 2012: It’s all about politics

by Craig Turp January 1, 2012 Bucharest

 One thing will dominate Bucharest Life this coming year, and it’s not Elena Udrea in latex. No, having taken a year’s holiday, Romanian politics is back in a big way, with two sets of elections scheduled for 2012, the first since the controversial presidential election of 2008. As things stand today, the loose and unholy [...]

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The SSEES archive online

by Craig Turp May 18, 2011 Books

 Rejoice and prepare for some serious amounts of time wasting: SSEES – the University of London college where Bucharest Life once learnt Romanian – has placed much of its documentary archive online. You can access it here. The official blurb: UCL SSEES Library is very pleased to announce that almost all the library’s content digitised [...]

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Evenimentul Zilei: First with the news

by Craig Turp February 18, 2011 Romania

 It would appear that the phenomenon we reported on a year ago (see here) of Romanian banks phoning the neighbours of bad debtors to chase money is becoming more and more common. Local daily Evenimentul Zilei (always first with the news, a year late) has a report on it this morning. (It is illegal, though [...]

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Selling countries: Some ideas about how to do it well (and how to do it very badly)

by Craig Turp February 4, 2011 Bucharest

 We read this (and then this) with the usual mix of fear and dread this week, not simply because we have little faith in the TV ads Romania’s creative types will come up with, but perhaps far more because of the outcry we know we can expect from self-appointed experts in tourism and marketing who [...]

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By popular demand: Curent

by Craig Turp January 24, 2011 Romania

 We’re now officially doing requests. And the first… well, it has to be… curent. As anyone who has ever tried to open a window on a hot, steamy, Romanian train in the middle of summer will know, curent (translated, amongst other things, as ‘draught’) is that all purpose bad guy which causes colds and which [...]

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Carcotasi talk Bucharest In Your Pocket

by Craig Turp December 16, 2010 Bucharest

  Looks like the Carcotasi have been reading our guide. Click this link to hear them discussing our comments on corruption in Romania… One point of order: we did not write that the general population supports corruption (as Huidu mistakenly translates). We in fact said that the general population tacitly accepts corruption. There is a [...]

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