Erstellt am: 10. 10. 2014 - 06:00 Uhr
Bucharest is Blooming
“If you come to Bucharest, you have to expect the unexpected,” says Raul Pavel, a bearded philosophy student, who I meet in a book shop “Bucharest is one of the most hip and alive cities in Eastern Europe.”
Chris Cummins
The Romanian capital was know as the “Little Paris of the East” in its glamorous interbellum heydays, partly because of its bohemian, cosmopolitan and rather raucous social life and party because of the broad boulevards inspired by Haussmann.
The days of such flattering comparisons are long gone, but Bucharest is slowly shedding its reputation as a grey, monotone and depressing East bloc city of popular Western prejudice.
The New Berlin?
Romania's capital currently is abuzz with an infectious mildly anarchical creative spirit. “Now we are more like Berlin,” says Raul.
It's better than that. It is like a pre-Selbstverliebtheit Berlin where visitors are welcomed rather than scorned. In Bucharest tourists are made to feel like special guests and the locals are delighted at outside interest in their rapidly changing capital.
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Epitomising this spirit is a free service called Bucharest Greeters in which locals volunteer their own time to show new arrivals around their favourite spots in town and share their thoughts on Bucharest’s past, present and future.
"A Modern Loveable City"
The service was launched by Irina Botnaroi just three months ago and already they have hundreds of volunteer guides.
“The idea is to show the authentic Bucharest. People often come with very strange ideas about our city," she says. "We are trying to change the preconceptions. We are trying to help people enjoy Bucharest and see it as a modern, loveable city. A lot of young people love the city, and we want to promote an alternative way of getting to know Bucharest.”
Chris Cummins
Protest With A Smile
Such is the enthusiasm to show off their city, I am relayed between three "Greeters" Mihaila, Oana and Calin. I tell them I am interested in art and that I want to be surprised and within minutes we have left the traffic-choked boulevards and entered a leafy, modern city with an undercurrent of optimistic energy. Bucharest in 2014 defies the clichés of the city of "great melancholy" recently described by the American travel writer Paul Theroux who called it "a city of sullen, desperate vice".
Theroux passed through, briefly, six years ago, and either his observations were lazy or much has changed since. Guided first by Mihaela, a local photographer, I find myself exploring city where Wifi is omnipresent, and cafés are full of creative types on laptops. There's a feeling of a new, futuristic Bucharest evolving as you watch.
On Strada Mihai Eminescu, fans of ARS Electronica will be enthralled by the permanent exhibitions promoting cyber art at the 15 Digital Art Gallery Meanwhile street art has turned central side-alleys into humorous and colourful statements of protest. A vivid mural depicts us, Matrix-like, as slaves of the oil industry
Chris Cummins
Much Maligned
Bucharest has been insulted as grim and ugly for years and many people feel wounded by this negativity, but the image problem is hardly a surprise.
The Bucharest of "cracked windows, the broken streets,
the bakeries where every pastry looked stale" is still evident at Gara Nord and my first impression are of traffic-choked streets where taxis menace pedestrians on the zebra-crossings. There are still crumbly soot-line concrete blocks and, on a street corner a surly looking man sells plastic half-litre bottles of brandy, tuica, for 5 lei - or just over one Euro.
Chris Cummins
But if Bucharest doesn't invite love at first sight, it is worth staying to peer around the corners.
“The real Bucharest is hidden behind these concrete blocks that the communists built,” says Calim Prodea, who joins us in Eden, a shady beer garden with fixie bikes tied to the trees. Organic juices are mixed freshly by glamorous young Bucharestis and groups are playing ping-pong on tables infront of walls adorned with street-art. It's a place that has the vibe of Vienna's Museumsquartier transported into a verdant forest.
"It's blooming."
“Bucharest is a city of contrasts,” agrees Oana Hristea, another Greeter who has just completed her studies. “It’s blooming. There is a mixture of the old and the new and it is constantly changing. It is fascinating to watch it evolve. The only challenge is finding the time to see it all”
You'll still see the old remnants of 19th century architecture, some are sad and crumbling and barely noticed by the stream of traffic speeding by on the boulevards. But some have found a new life, embellished with a mushroom head of glassy architectural invention, and morphed into the cityscape of a forward looking energetic new generation.
Oana's favourite spot is a tiny brick Anglican church that hosts sweaty jazz concerts.
Chris Cummins
I'm having a great time with my Greeters who are by now taking me to a busy circus-like Kebab shop called Dristor that, with an army of servers and columns of meat, has become an institution for anyone requiring the energy for a long night out. But what is the attraction for my hosts, who refuse to even accept drinks as a token of gratitude? “It’s a great way to meet new people,” says Calin, who during the daylight hours is a civil engineer.
"I want people to get to know Bucharest better,” adds Oana. “I love my city and I wish people understood it better.” The young Bucharestis I meet are sad at the negative image of their city abroad, but here is a lot of work to be done until Bucharest enjoys a more positive image abroad.
Haunted by Ceausescu
Chris Cummins
Yet the scars of the rule of communist autocrat Nicolae Ceausescu, both visible and psychological, still haunt the city. It’s nearly 25 years since the summary executions of Ceausescu and his wife Elena, who were placed against a wall on Christmas Day 1989 and shot in the snow but his ghost looms large
By the time of his downfall, Ceausescu had destroyed the economy to such an extent that Romania is still playing catch up and disfigured the capital became a by-word for graceless grey ugliness. “On an architectural level the city has been destroyed,” says Oana. Ceausescu razed Bucharest’s most seductive neighbourhoods to build the monumental eyesore of a wedding-cake that he, without irony, named the Palace of the People.
“It makes me so sad when I think of what he ruined,” says Calin.
The psychological scars remain too. Oana says that 20 years, the shadows of the old autocrat remain. His brutality left a cowed populace. “The people have become submissive. We let the politician get away with too much.”
Chris Cummins
The Romanian Autumn
That might be changing. Last year the “Romanian Autumn” protests broke out, environmental demonstrations that over the weeks morphed into a broad social movement calling for a change in mentality. Oana says the private media, dominated by industrial interests, tried to depict the protestors as anarchists but it didn’t rub. “The spirit was incredible. They were giving tango lessons at the protest sites.”
The protests were sparked by a government decision to allow a Canadian company to exploit and opencast gold mine at Rosia Montana that environmentalists fear will poison the local environment with cyanide.
Chris Cummins
“We were shocked,” says Oana. “They were telling the people it will give them a good salary for five to ten years, but they don’t think about the long term consequences. Do we want to sell our future for absolutely nothing.” In the end the government backed down and shelved the plans.
“I hope that the future belongs to the young people now,” says Calin, “We have so much energy.” A new, youthful, freethinking, defiant and optimistic Bucharest is growing."
Cărtureşti
To demonstrate this they take me to Cărtureşti, the giant bookshop where Raul works. It is housed of several floors of a city centre mansion once belonging to a 19th century aristocrat, a Boyar, and the under stuccoed roofs there is a warren of small rooms selling books, English-language DVDs as well as cubby-holes showcasing innovative design and a terraced tea-room. In the basement you can explore new ideas in Romanian architecture.
Cărtureşti is a hub for local creative talent. “If you paint you can put up your art here, if you design you can display your work here,” say Oana “They are trying to give young Romanian talent a bit of a boost.”
Chris Cummins
“Everything is on the move in Bucharest,” says Calim. “Because it is a university there are always new waves of new young people arriving in the city. I love living here.”
Low Wages
But if the city is going to offer its young a future, things will have to change dramatically.
For all of their energy, all the revelry, many of these people are unable to find decently paid work. Including Oana who finished her master's degree a few months ago and can’t find a job offering much more than the minimum wage, which equates to around 250 euro a month.
“I am so proud of my country. I think we could have everything. Sometimes I get frustrated,” says Oana. “Things have to change. We have to change them. I think we can. Young people have such energy, such creativity. We have to turn things around. What other choice do we have?”