Tapp's Travels

From our mooring spot at Russe we were coached a convenient 90 minutes NW to Bucharest, the capital of Romania.  The countryside en route could be described as “not hilly”.  But that would be a dreadful under-exaggeration. It’s just plain flat – or should I just say it’s a flat plain. The country villages are clearly really poor in a desultory, grey sort of way.  There are many more deserted factories all over the place.

Arriving in Bucharest, the huge apartment blocks rose up on either side of the approach road.  Hundreds of them!  These were all built to the same plan – probably to save architects fees.  They were originally all grey.  All with open balconies.  With the passing of the old regime, people have started glazing in the balconies,  adding external insulation and air conditioning units.  And, perish the thought, painting them colours other than grey!

To be fair we did approach from the poorest side of town.  Once we got to the centre we found a lot of lovely buildings that had escaped the worst of the ravages of the “Soviet era” even if some of the best architectural gems are still occupied by the Ministry of Information and other branches of the Secret Services.  And it’s true that many had been carefully renovated.

We were taken for a bus ride round the outside of the palace built by Ceauçescu for his private residence.  Lucky we were in a bus – it would have been a long walk!  It is, apparently, the second largest building in the world.  Second only to the Pentagon with it’s 17 miles of office corridor!

It is now the Palace of the Parliament – the seat of the Parliament of Romania.  It has a height of 84 metres, a floor area of 365,000 square metres and a volume of 2,550,000 cubic metres.  It took 13 years to build from1984 to1997 at a cost of 3 billion Euros.  The president then built a similar huge but rather smaller edifice for his wife.  She of no significant education but 10 doctorates from many institutes!  This was to be her office across the street from his place!

There had been an earthquake in 1977.  Ceauşescu used this as an excuse to demolish large tracts of old buildings.  He then replaced them with a suite of more or less single-styled buildings bordering broad boulevards.  The principal one is styled on those found in France, especially in Paris (hence the name, Paris of the East).  However, while it looks like the Champs Elysee, it is built 12 cms wider!  And with lots of fountains!  In my photo, the boulevard is NOT clearly visible running from behind the fountains to the palace in the background.

The president named it the “Boulevard of the Victory of Socialism”.  The people extended it’s name by adding “Over Us”!  Reasons for constructing these wide avenues include, obviously, self-agrandisment as well as making it easier for our bus to navigate the city.  However, the main advantage to Ceauşescu was the easy access for tanks and the relative difficulty for the people to build obstructive barricades to.keep them out.

In addition to his boulevards, Ceauşescu added an Arc de Triomphe to his city plan.

But you try getting a photo of the Parisian original with just one car in the foreground!

The old city area was fairly compact and contained some interesting buildings. There was an interesting “new and old” view of the National Gallery of Arts on Calea Victoriei (Victory Street).

And then there was the Birth of the Virgin Mary Church.  With it’s iconostage…

… and its little courtyard.

There was also a fascinating place just opposite the church.  Caru’ cu Bere.

A lively (packed, actually) restaurant with live music, lots of tourists, lots of noise and very useful toilets!

Here we are with one frothy drink each…

Now some more history…  As I understand it Nicolae Ceauşescu tried to suppress the popular uprising by giving everyone guns, ordering them to attend a rally and encouraging the ethnic groups to start shooting at each other.  That didn’t work out as planned, so he then commanded the army to shoot at the crowds.  They did that briefly, but then they saw the writing on the wall and promptly switched sides.  They decided to arrest the president.  He was captured, carted away by helicopter from this building… (the spiky monument is a memorial to all the innocent people who died in the uprising – many of them in this exact place)

Ceauşescu was tried and executed over a period of just a few days in 1989.  (Obviously, it was the arrest and trial part that took the “few days”!)  This was done before he could implicate any of his cronies.  There’s a surprise!

It’s a complicated story – and I may have been getting the wrong stick of which to hold the wrong end…

… But now it’s time to cast off and move on down towards the delta of the Danube.

TBC.