Romania (1) Bucharest

A Brief Look at Romania’s Capital

25-June-2023

Arrival and a Spot of History

Romania

Bucharest

Bucharest is a 3hr flight from Luton – about the same as our annual journey to the Algarve - but it is an east-west flight so instead of landing in the same time zone, there is a two-hour time change, and the prevailing westerlies mean it takes longer to get home.

Bucharest, "București" to the locals, is Romania's capital, and with 1.7 million inhabitants, its largest city. It is situated in the south of the country in the historical Province of Wallachia.

Bucharest, Romania and its position in Eastern Europe

The oldest existing reference to the ‘Citadel of Bucharest’ dates only from 1459, when Vlad the Impaler established his court there. Under Ottoman suzerainty, Bucharest became Wallachia’s permanent capital in 1687.

The city has had a difficult history. Ottoman dominance was punctuated by periods of Hapsburg and Russian control. In 1813-14 a quarter of the population died in an outbreak of bubonic plague, and in 1847 a third of the city was destroyed by fire.

In 1862 Wallachia combined with Moldavia, and Bucharest became capital of the new Principality of Romania. Complete independence from the Ottomans was achieved 1878 and the new Kingdom of Romania treated itself to an Arcul de Triumf. With undue modesty they built their arch of wood.

Arcul de Triumf, Bucharest, 1936 edition

When a much larger Romania emerged from WW1, a concrete arch was clearly necessary. The over-elaborate stucco embellishments fell victim to the weather and a more durable arch was built in 1936. I would expect such an important structure to be more centrally positioned, but it is on the route into Bucharest from the airport, so most visitors get to see it.

The late 19th/early 20th centuries brought boom time to Bucharest, which became known as "Little Paris" because of to its elegant architecture and cosmopolitan atmosphere.

After World War II, under communist rule, Bucharest underwent rapid industrialization and urbanization.

Communism lapsed into the increasingly erratic rule of Nicolae Ceaușescu, which ended with the 1989 revolution. Since then, Romania has joined NATO and the EU and made rapid strides socially and economically. It is not a wealthy country, but if it used to look impoverished, it does not now.

Settling In

The drive in to our central hotel showed us neither a ‘little Paris’ nor a city of decaying tower blocks, indeed I failed to form a coherent first impression of the city. Our hotel had a strange Stalinist feel, a four-square building designed and decorated with the minimum of imagination, but our room had a comfortable bed and a functioning bathroom, which was enough for us.

Hotel decor, Bucharest

One side faced a park and some self-important buildings, the other three were embedded in the old town, a maze of cobbled, largely pedestrianised streets lined with pavements bars and restaurants.

With the temperature around 30°, a seat in the shade and a cold beer was an appealing idea. Opposite the hotel entrance was a bar clearly reaching out to a young and trendy crowd – not really our demographic any more (perhaps it never was) but I was attracted by the promise of craft beers on draft. Sadly, the nicely labelled taps were just for show, so we resorted to bottled.

A Man in need of a beer, Bucharest

Despite its Hungarian name Csíki Sör, is craft beer brewed in the small Transylvanian town of Sansimion. Transylvania was part of Hungary for 1000 years and 7% of Romanians speak Hungarian as their first language. Csíki Sör means beer from the Ciuc region and, as the label claims, such beer has been brewed since 1540 (at least). The brewery that made this beer, though, was founded in 2014. It was not a memorable brew, but it hit a spot at the time.

After a nap we wandered round looking at restaurants; there were many though they offer little variety. Having missed lunch, we were peckish and eventually settled on a place that looked cheap and cheerful. Lynne had sausage and chips – Romania. we would discover, has a remarkable variety of sausages….

Sausage and chips and a jug of Merlot

…while I had a slab of pork. It did not look much, but it was full of flavour and I particularly enjoyed the pickled courgette. We drank a jug of local Merlot, which was cheap, and slipped down very easily.

Pork and chips, Bucharest

We even had space for dessert, a pleasing combination of pastry, blackberries and sour cream.

Kilkenny Pub, Bucharest

Only when I saw the bill did I realise we were in the ‘Kilkenny Pub.’ Irish pubs can be found all over the world, though few are truly worthy of the name, and this one made less effort than most - being Irish requires more than a Guinness advert on the door and a shamrock on the wall. I can recommend the Kilkenny Pub to anyone in Bucharest searching for an inexpensive dinner, but would advise those wishing to discover the very real magic of Irish pubs to take a trip to Ireland, not Romania.

We headed back to our hotel for an early night. On reaching the door I discovered I no longer had my camera, so I turned round and with unaccustomed haste, made my way back to the restaurant. Our waitress saw me striding up the street, greeted me with a smile and returned my camera without me needing to ask. Later I discovered she had donated me a photograph of her boyfriend.

Waiter at the Kilkenny Pub

26-June-2023

Breakfast

In 2018 we visited Moldova. Although Romanian speaking, Moldova became part of the Russian Empire before Romania was formed. It did join Romania from 1919 to 1945, but once part of Russia, always part of Russia (according to the Tsars, the Communists and Putin) so Moldova was claimed by the Soviet Union in 1945. It became independent in 1989 and its continued independence probably relies on Ukraine's success against Russian aggression. Moldova may be a poor, lost fragment of Romania, but they eat well. I was hoping to reacquaint myself with the breakfast delights of clatite, pănănaşi and salty, crumbly ewe’s milk brânză (see link above), but breakfast in Romania never ventured far from cold meats and cheese, unfortunately neither of any great quality,

After breakfast we met our guide for the next week. Affable, knowledgeable and with excellent English, Vlad, a thick-set 1.93m (6ft 4ins) was always easy to spot in a crowd, a good trait in a guide.

He folded himself into his Dacia and drove us round to the Palace of Parliament. We were too early for our pre-booked tour, so we had a quick visit to the Monument of the Heroes of the Fatherland.

The Monument to the Heroes of the Fatherland

The Carol I National Defence University is a five-minute drive away. While the possibility of Romania re-installing its monarchy is vanishingly small, Carol I, Romania’s first ever king, remains something of a hero. I certainly prefer the current name to the 1869 original ‘Higher War school.’

The memorial outside the university consists of a statue….

The Monument of Romanian Heroes

….and a curving concrete frieze bearing a version of Romanian history.

Here I am, taking the photo above, with part of the curving frieze to my right

Both are in the style approved by East European communist regimes and the overlong inscription below the statue, (translated as Glory to the Romanian troops, inheritors of ancient heroic traditions, undaunted fighters against fascism for the fatherland's liberty and independence), confirm a date of late 1940s/early 50s.

The monument is not actually in bad repair, but it looks unloved - the fate of many relics of this age.

The Palace of Parliament

Nicolae Ceaușescu, 1965

Nicolae Ceaușescu became General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party in 1965, after the death of the previous incumbent Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej.

Elena Ceaușescu

Ceaușescu’s criticism of the 1968 Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia and subsequent development of an independent foreign policy made him, for a while, the west’s favourite communist ruler. In 1978 he made a State Visit to the United Kingdom; he may not have been the worst human being Queen Elizabeth II was required to shake hands with during her 72-year reign, but he was a contender.

Cocooned by their secret police, the Securitate, Nicolae and his wife Elena had drifted further and further from reality as they started to believe their own propaganda. Western politicians eventually noticed their increasingly repressive domestic policy, driven more by their admiration of Kim Il Sung (and of themselves) than any sane policy objectives.

Bucharest had nowhere big enough to house their outsize combined ego, so they decided to build it a home. They had seen Kim Il Sing’s Kumsusan Palace  (we visited in September 2013) in North Korea and wanted one like that. 

Architect Anca Petrescu won the design competition aged only 28. Her neo-classical modernist monstrosity was grand enough to please the Ceaușescus, who also gave her responsibility for much of the interior design.

The Palace of Parliament, Bucharest

Anca Petrescu

The Palace of Parliament, as it is now called, was started in 1984 and left unfinished when the Ceaușescus died in 1989. There is, allegedly, as much below the ground as above, including a nuclear bunker, which may explain why it often called the world’s heaviest building – though at 4.1m tonnes it is in reality a lightweight beside the Great Pyramid of Giza (5.8m tonnes).

Most of the expense had been incurred under the Ceaușescu regime, so rather than own the world’s largest white elephant, the palace was finished off by the new democratic Romania. The House of Deputies took up residence in 1994, and the Senate in 2004. Ironically, Anca Petrescu worked here as an elected deputy for the far-right Greater Romania Party 2004-8. She died after a road accident in 2013

The palace also houses three museums and an international conference centre. Despite all that activity, 70% of the 1,100 rooms remain unoccupied.

Vlad drove us round the back where our tickets allowed him to drive us up the entrance. After passing through airport-style security in the entrance hall, we joined an English language guided tour.

We saw theatres ...

Theatres

...impressive chandeliers, ...

Impressive chandeliers

..Grand Salons...

Grand Salon

..endless corridors...

Lengthy Corridors (not actually endless)

.. and sweeping staircases...

Sweeping Staircase, Palace of Parliament, Bucharest

After almost fifty years of marriage, the palace was a strange setting to discover something new about my wife: she habitually counts stairs. ‘It’s strange,’ she observed though not precisely in these words ‘that the staircases have 19 or 17 steps, instead of the usual 13 or 15.’ I replied with a blank look, but the guide was more forthcoming, ‘Ceaușescu had short legs, so the stairs were made shallow.’ Allegedly some completed staircases were torn down and rebuilt when he found them unflattering.

Other oddities include the tall windows in the stairwells, meaning the palace has the world’s longest curtains.

Long Curtains, Palace of Parliament, Bucharest

Schematic maps of the palace are dotted throughout the marble floors. Petrescu was encouraged to use expensive materials, including a million cubic metres of Transylvanian marble.

Schematic marble maps of the Palace of Parliament, Bucharest

A balcony at the front overlooks Bucharest’s ‘Champs Elysée,’ a long straight road with fountains down the middle. Ceaușescu probably intended to make speeches from here, but the only person ever to use this balcony to address an adoring crowd was Michael Jackson. He walked out, surveyed the masses and shouted ‘Hello Budapest!’ As the guide said, rather generously, ‘he was not the first to make that mistake and he will not be the last.’

Looking down the 'Champs Elysée' from the Palace of Parliament, Bucharest

The wedding chapel has also been used once, for the 1997 marriage of gymnast and national hero Nadia Comăneci to American Olympic gymnast Bart Conner.

We returned the way we had come, re-passing some of the Ceaușescus' art collection. They particularly liked the works of Sabin Bălaşa, a patronage that did little for his artistic credibility. On display were ‘Apotheosis’ - are these people in ecstasy? Are they dancing? Are they underwater? What is the relevance of the potato? Who cares?

Apotheosis by Sabin Bălaşa, Palace of Parliament, Bucharest

And a little gem which I take to be a depiction of Nicholae and Elena's assumption into heaven.

Another work by Sabin Bălaşa, Palace of Parliament, Bucharest

Though maybe I have misunderstood.

It was an interesting and unusual tour. the guide being visibly torn between pride in Romania's vast and, in places, very elegant buidling, and embarassment about the way it came into being.

Calea Victoriei

From the palace, Vlad drove us some 3km north east, on a roundabout route through dense (but moving) urban traffic. Some streets perhaps hinted at Bucharest’s ‘Little Paris’ soubriquet of the late 19th/early 20th centuries.

Central Bucharest

Carol I Equestrian Statue

Calea Victoriei did more than hint. The street is named for the victorious struggle that freed Romania from the Ottoman Empire in 1877-8. On one side is the former Royal Palace, now the Romanian National Art Gallery.

Romanian National Art Gallery, Calea Victoriei

Staring across at his old home is King Carol I, Romania’s first and most successful monarch. The equestrian statue, by Romanian sculptor Ivan Meštrović, was unveiled in 1939. A raised hoof usually indicates the rider was injured in battle (two raised hooves - death in battle) but here it indicates qualities of leadership and a commanding presence. Carol fought hard for Romania, but never on a battlefield.

King Carol I on his horse

Behind him is the Carol I Central University Library.

Revolution Square and the Final Days of the Ceaușescu Regime

Next door to the library is Revolution Square. It is mostly a car park in front of what is now the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but it was formerly the headquarters of the Communist Party. It was here that some of the most dramatic moments of the 1989 Romanian Revolution were played out.

Revolution Square, the car park of the Ministry of Internal Affairs

In 1989 the communist parties that had ruled the Soviet Union’s obedient Warsaw Pact allies for some 40 years finally realised they had lost the support of their people. One by one they folded up their masterplans, left the office keys on the table and slithered off into history.

By November only Czechoslovakia and Romania (which had left the Warsaw Pact in 1964) remained. On the 24th of November 1989, the XIVth Congress of the Romanian Communist Party confidently re-elected Nicholae Ceaușescu, for another five-year term.

On the 10th of December the government of Czechoslovakia resigned. Despite unrest in Timișoara and Bucharest, Ceaușescu was apparently confident he had the love and support of his people. On the 21st of December he felt the need to steady the ship. The usual supportive crowd was rounded up and he addressed them from the balcony of the Communist Party Headquarters.

The balcony of the former Communist Party Headquarters

On the 21st August 1968 Ceaușescu had given a speech from this balcony condemning the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and vowing that Romanian foreign policy would not be dictated by the Kremlin. It was met with cheers. This time he listed the successes of his government and blamed the unrest on hooligans and foreign agents. Expecting cheers, he was visibly shocked when the crowd started booing. His attempts to calm them only made them worse so eventually Ceaușescu ordered the Securitate to clear the square and retreated inside to consider his next move.

Only an idiot would repeat such a humiliation, so next day the Securitate rounded up another crowd, Ceaușescu went out onto the balcony but this time told them about a huge increase in the minimum wage. There would have been more goodies had the people been prepared to listen, but they were not. The Securitate hustled him up to the roof where a helicopter was waiting to fly Nicholae and Elena Ceaușescu to safety.

But there was no safety, they were handed over to the army, tried by a hastily arranged court and sentenced to death. After the peoples' heroic defiance in the square, a kangaroo court and a Christmas Day firing squad, was a squalid finale. But had they been alive, then the Securitate might have fought harder in the unpleasantness that followed, so maybe the Ceaușescus’ deaths saved lives.

On the Calea Victoriei side of the square, next to a grove of trees, is the Memorial of Rebirth, inaugurated in 2005. Having such a memorial is uncontroversial, but the design has not been a critical success, the memorial often being described as a potato on a spike.

Monument of Rebirth, Revolution Square, Bucharest

It is also unclear what the figures behind the memorial signify.

Base of the Monument of Rebirth, Revolution Square, Bucharest

Lunchtime Ciorbă

Lunchtime had arrived and Vlad drove us a short distance to Vatra his recommended restaurant. A beer and maybe a bowl of soup in a pleasant garden seemed a fine idea…..

Varta restaurant, Bucharest

...but my bowl contains ciorbă, not supă, though to the non-Romanian eye they look identical. The key to ciorbă is borș (Romanian is a Romance not a Slavic language, so borș has nothing to do with Russian beetroot soup). Wheat bran or flour are mixed with water to create a paste. After sitting at room temperature for several days the paste ferments to become borș and is then added to supă to create ciorbă. Unsurprisingly borș is sour and ciorbă is usually translated as ‘soured soup.’

Vatra offered a choice of six ciorbe, Lynne chose ciorbă de fasole cu afumătură, soured bean soup with smoked ham-hock, which she described as ‘hearty’ while I went for one of the defining dishes of Romanian cuisine, ciorbă de burtă, soured beef tripe soup with crème fraiche.

Ciorbă de Burtă, Varta, Bucharest

It enjoyed it. The sourness was not aggressive, but just enough to poke the taste buds into life, and although tripe disappeared long ago from British butcher’s shops (though, I am sure it is still used in sausages and faggots) it looked and tasted unthreateningly beefy.

Lunch over, Vlad drove north towards Sibiu and the next post

Romania

Romania: An Introduction
Part 1 Bucharest
Part 2 Cozia Monastery and Sibiu