Surrogate Animals
When I was little, during Ceausescu's time, I was lucky to have a godmother in Germany whose mother, Oca, not only was an ideal nanny but she also used to send me wonderful things, which went far beyond a socialist child's imagination. That is how, for my sixth
The Pig Way
see Gallery The Story of the Pig is one of Ion Creanga's loveliest stories. The story of the pig in contemporary Romanian art is, in its turn, one of the most exciting. The image of the pig in current art ranks, unexpectedly, among the most significant and consistent
Icebergs Ahead!
an interview with Cristian LASCUCristian Lascu is editor in chief of National Geographic Romania, a speleologist and researcher. His CV features a variety of activities and awards: he is a national judo champion, scuba diver, founder of the Group for Underwater and Speleological
Organized Noise
A fiend with a multitude of mouths, which beget sounds that range from hissing to groaning, as it becomes every respectable monster – this is today's Bucharest, not only a city with traffic, alarms, and decibels of construction sites, but also a place with voices.
Smells Of Bucharest
from left: rundown houses on Lipscani and Mosilor, Dimbovitza river from Hasdeu bridge, street in Cotroceni Bucharest smells exquisitely during the time of lindens and rain. Vigorously soaked for a half hour, the city heals even from the stenches that make you ill. Under
The History Of Nothing: Contemporary Architecture And Public Space In Romania
Richard Rogers Partnership proposal, 1996People's House (Parliament) After 1989: Methods of researching the built environmentResearching Communist architecture is a tricky endeavor in contemporary Romania, where some major actors of that era are still alive, some even
Memory And Strolls
If you read travel notes by simple tourists or people on journalistic, cultural or political assignments, from the 1920s or 30s, if you peruse recurrent images about a Bucharest imprinted with evil or good charms, equally decrypted and encoded, moving and repulsive, you
Alone In The Shower
excerpt You haven't the slightest idea what sound the stopper makes when you hit it with that DAMNHUGEBOLT. Yes, that's the bolt I'm talking about, the bolt I'll never forget, as long as I'll live 'cause it was damn necessary to stop it without
Alexandru
excerpt The second time I went to Alina's parents', the neighborhood seemed too familiar not to imagine that my memory was playing a prank on me, and not a nice one. I had got off the tram a few steps away from the barber's called The Merry Whiskers, which
Turks, Germans, Americans... And Other Nationalities
An event that happened several years ago and has turned, in time, into an urban legend, goes like this: the employees of a German-owned media trust had become lazy and unruly, would come to work when, and if, they felt like it, and would actually work only between two coffee