2023-10-15 07:28:26
Oh, you wonderful Bucharest – how should one describe you? As a metropolis of contrasts, a city of puzzles and small oddities? Everything is true and yet it sounds helpless.
You walk along noisy boulevards, past magnificent Art Nouveau facades, Art Deco hotels and socialist apartment blocks. Small flower shops at large intersections bring color to this ocher city. “Technoimport” is written on a brutalist tower. A club? Just a residential building with a shop.
Many corners in Bucharest seem unfinished, as if left halfway. For example, you simply walk into a city palace, there is a dozing security guard outside, there are tables with white covers inside, but not a single guest. And wonders what kind of place this is supposed to be.
Next to St. Joseph’s Cathedral is the Cathedral Plaza, 19 floors, 75 meters. A court declared the construction of the high-rise office building illegal in 2011 and ordered its demolition. But no one saw themselves as responsible. The tower still stands there today, unused.
Next to St. Joseph’s Cathedral stands the 75 meter high Cathedral Plaza, which is still unused today
Source: dpa-tmn
In the old center, nice cafés have filled the gaps on the ground floors of dilapidated houses. Two streets away: casinos, sex shops, dubious shops with messages like “Bitcoin Buy and Sell”. In the shop windows, the advertising has faded like nostalgic memories. Even the pigeons, it seems, fly up melancholy.
Prague and Budapest are undoubtedly more beautiful
During your visit, Bucharest will be hit by intense, continental summer heat, which makes you a bit sluggish, but also frugal. The air conditioning units hang on the houses like caterpillars. Only the cars are racing.
The branch of a large café chain in the old town is closed in the middle of the day. An oasis of peace opens up in many a backyard. You sit under trees away from traffic and can while away the morning with cake and lemonade. In Bucharest this appears to have less consequences than in other major cities in Europe. A fantasy, of course. But isn’t that why you travel?
Nightlife district and historical center at the same time: the old town of Lipscani
Source: dpa-tmn
Now it could be said that Bucharest is underestimated, even an insider tip. But is that true? Not in a tourist sense. Prague and Budapest are undoubtedly more beautiful. And to claim that the brittle and rocky has its own charm is legitimate, but a cliché.
Sights – but none of world class
What makes this city so difficult to explain? Is it because Bucharest is not yet dominated by mass tourism, which inflates the number of visitors and prices in restaurants?
That as an out-of-town guest you are not yet a vehicle for city marketing? That you can let yourself go without the fear of constantly missing something? There are no world-class sights waiting here that you “have to see once”.
The Athenaeum dates back to the Belle Époque, when Bucharest was considered the “Paris of the East”.
Source: dpa-tmn
Bucharest is of course not without attractions. The Athenaeum with its magnificent concert hall dates back to the Belle Époque, when Bucharest was considered the “Paris of the East”. The Arcul de Triumf north of the center, which was only inaugurated in its current appearance in 1936, fits in with this, based on the well-known Paris model. There is a National Art Museum and exhibition spaces such as the Storck Museum in the former home of a Romanian artist couple.
A former bank first became a general store and then the Carturești Carusel bookstore
Source: dpa-tmn
The bookstore is in the nightlife and old town district of Lipscani Carturesti Carousel Worth a visit, formerly a bank and later a general store. The listed building „Gasthaus des Manuc“ Although it attracts many tourists with its inner courtyard, it is better to eat somewhere else. Pasajul Victoriei is considered the “most Instagrammable spot”. The alley is overlooked by colorful umbrellas. Oh well.
Das Erbe von Diktator Nicolae Ceaușescu
However, the city’s most important sights have to do with the dictator, Nicolae Ceaușescu (1918-1989), who shaped Bucharest like no other. And with the fall of the communist regime, which brutally oppressed the Romanian people.
After a devastating earthquake in 1977, Ceaușescu saw his chance: he had large parts of the old town demolished in order to replace them with a new center with monumental buildings. Megalomania, many say. Strategic calculation, some historians claim.
The Chamber of Deputies still meets today in part of the Parliament Palace in Bucharest
Source: dpa-tmn
At that time, the ruler ordered the construction of one of the largest buildings in the world. 700 architects and 20,000 construction workers were involved in creating the Palace of Parliament, a 330,000 square meter monster of cement, steel and marble. The dictator grotesquely called it the “House of the People.”
The Chamber of Deputies still meets in part of the complex today. Guides lead visitors through the state halls. Cherry wood on the floor, gilded stucco and crystal chandeliers on the ceiling. The largest hangs in the Rosetti Hall, a theater with 600 seats; it weighs more than a ton, as tourist guide Stefania explains.
Exploding construction costs in poor Romania
It shows a marble staircase that supposedly had to be built four times because Ceaușescu was not satisfied. “A visitor who was one of the workers himself confirmed this to me,” says Stefania. No wonder construction costs exploded. It is said to have been three billion US dollars, but no one knows for sure. Romania was a poor country.
Inside the Palace of Parliament: Today you can enter what the ruler calls the “House of the People” during guided tours
Source: dpa-tmn
The highest hall measures 22 meters. Ceaușescu wanted to hold parties here and hang a large picture of his wife Elena. “But then he was afraid that his guests would rather look at her than at him,” says Stefania. Ceaușescu also wanted to wave from the balcony of the hall. But that didn’t happen anymore. The Ceaușescu couple were convicted and shot in a show trial during the revolution.
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The dictator gave his last speech on December 21, 1989 on a balcony of what was then the Central Committee building, which can now be seen on Revolution Square. The next day, the Ceaușescus fled from the roof in a helicopter. Her fate was already sealed.
Der Luxus der Ceaușescu-Villa
The luxury in which the couple lived can be found out on a tour of the Ceaușescu villa in the wealthy north of the city. There you walk over mahogany, past silk wallpapers and tapestries from Persia, Louis XV-style furniture, Japanese vases and Venetian mosaics, gifts from heads of state. Congo’s dictator Mobutu, for example, brought ivory statues with him.
You can find out how the dictator lived with his wife by visiting the Ceaușescu villa
Source: dpa-tmn
Here, too, a guide has curious anecdotes, for example about the chessboard: “It was said that Ceaușescu was the best chess player in the country. But no one dared to play against him.” Humiliate the most powerful man in the country? Unthinkable. Ceaușescu brought peacocks with him from Japan. “His favorite birds.” Their descendants still walk through the garden of the residence today.
The golden bathroom in the Ceaușescu villa alone is a testament to luxury
Source: dpa-tmn
The property was built between 1960 and 1965 and was expanded in the 1970s. “Elena always had the last word,” says the guide. And expensive taste. The golden bathroom is famous. There is a winter garden with a tangerine tree and a pool that was probably never used by the Ceaușescus. “Both were afraid of water and never went in it.”
Life returns with color
The Romanians shook off the dictatorship, the Eastern Bloc collapsed, and the peaceful 1990s began. Things went up, slowly.
“Bucharest has changed a lot in the last 15 years,” says Elena Mușat, who offers street art tours. “It is more developed today, people are more aware of the consequences of their actions. And it has become a safe city.” There is less garbage and thieves and, at least in the center, hardly any street dogs.
During the revolution, they spray-painted the lines of the national anthem at the university, says Mușat. The spirit of freedom still clings to graffiti today; many images speak of utopia. There is an NGO that wants to breathe new life into abandoned buildings with street art. “They bring back the colors and therefore life.”
Many pictures tell of utopias: street art in Bucharest
Source: dpa-tmn
The future could be great. “But it’s up to us,” says the Romanian. “People are still strongly influenced by television and the church.” This is exemplified by the construction of the controversial Cathedral of the Redemption of the People, a lavishly expensive major project.
Transparency instead of secrecy
Other powers have long disappeared: Where the Securitate secret police once sat, the Romanian Architects’ Association is now housed, in a glass building on the ruins of the old headquarters. Transparency instead of secrecy.
So you walk through Bucharest and are always amazed at strange-looking places that initially pose a mystery. “The walls have ears and many stories to tell,” says Mușat.
In Bucharest you still have time to sit down and listen. Because the streets are not overcrowded, at most in the evenings in Lipscani, in the few tourist alleys, and there is no busy sightseeing program. But that’s probably just my imagination.
Like any travel destination, Bucharest is a projection whose impact has more to do with the visitor than with the place itself. While chatting in a café, a young Romanian woman declares that she is done with this city. She has to go somewhere else. You can understand that too. As a tourist, you have the privilege of only staying for a short time – and being inspired during this time.
Source: Infographic WELT
Tips and information:
Getting there: There are direct flights to Bucharest from several German airports, for example with Lufthansa, Ryanair and Romania’s national airline, Tarom.
Entry: Romania belongs to the European Union. Entry is possible with a valid identity card.
Money: The national currency is the Romanian Leu (RON). Cash is available at ATMs and exchange offices. Credit cards are widespread everywhere.
Information: visitbucharest.today
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