Night Lights Light Nights Of Bucharest
Sometimes glowing colorfully in the dusk air, as doors of museums open up for late visitors, or, some other times, its dark sky flushed by lasers for white nights of entertainment, Bucharest often begins to live and breathe anew after sundown. White NightsNow that the
Gambrinus Ale House, A Stylish Ruin
Peeled off plaster, broken windows, rats scuttling at ease day and night. And above all, the filth. Complete and utter filth reigning supreme over a piece of downtown Bucharest. But also over a piece of our past. The only part still living is the sign above the door, reading
Nature And Architecture: The Parks And Gardens Of The Capital
Cismigiu gardens, Icoanei park, Kiseleff park (see also The green within in Gallery). Many of Bucharest’s gardens and parks, which no longer exist because of extensive urban reorganising, were shaped as the aristocracy tastefully redesigned the open space around their
Little Paris
top row: Lipscani diggings, Unirea shoping center, house in Romanian Peasant Museum yard, National Museum of Contemporary Art bottom row: Collections Museum on Calea Victoriei, University Sq. , dilapidated building on Lipscani St. , old house on Mantuleasa St. It seems
The 20th Century - The Century Of Avant-Garde
The year 1900. Europe's countries are divided on the question: does the 20th century begin in 1900 or in 1901? Some opt for 1900, by virtue of the change in the figure of the hundreds. Others are partisans of 1901, for reasons of more sophisticated arithmetic. Particular
The Art Of War
excerpt1 Day was a-dawning sluggishly on Saints Eusignius, Nona and Fabius, a Saturday as it happened; like unto a blunt blade scraping at the gloom caked all over our bodies did the daybreak appear, and impotent, too. The bells tolled half-heartedly and a thin film of
R.E.M.
excerpt I am going to tell you of things that happened back in 1960 or 1961, when I was still a little girl, no more than 12 years old. I was living with my family in Moşilor Street, in one of those queer houses, with the second floor protruding a little, with two very
Chronicles Of An Optimist
excerpts NOISES OF THE CAPITAL For reasons I cannot exactly explain, the flow of ideas circulated by the independent press has strikingly dwindled to a mere trickle. One can only put it down to the times of fatigued irritation we are living through as we wait for the much
Magic Lantern Projections: A Dialogue With Octogenarian Actress Dina Cocea, Honorary Citizen Of Bucharest
The oldest recollections of actors of your generation used to begin with the scene of a provincial school festival: the future star winning a well-known, sympathetic audience made up of parents, grandparents, family friends, touched aunts. The memory of past reality is overwhelmed
Traveling To Bucharest Between The Wars
A French historian said once that the work you would best like to dedicate your time to is the one that seems to compel you to do so. This is what happens to me right now. Urged by a real passion for knowing the events and forerunners that once lived in this place, I have
Empty Bottles
Emptyyyy bottles! Buyyyyyyyyin'! This dramatic call, like that of the ancestors, which we have all heard at one time or another in Bucharest slums, reminded me of what happened to a friend of mine – it could be a comic thing, if it was not tragic – who went to Sovata
The Soccer Match
The match, said the propaganda secretary, ought to represent the clear expression of the class solidarity of the Vintileasa agricultural workers with all the peoples of the world. And the match between the teams of Impetus-Vintileasa and New Road-Ţifeşti, decisive for