Smashing Bucharest Stereotypes

Bucharest is one of those cities that rarely ever seems to get any good press, from violent street demonstrations to extreme poverty and squalor, but after spending nearly a month there, to paraphrase the late great Mark Twain, ‘reports of Bucharest’s death are greatly exaggerated.’

First off, I was in Bucharest during the summer, with near wondrous sunshine every day, and highs of 30 degrees. I have a feeling if I went during the depths of winter, this post may be slightly different. I don’t deal with the cold very well. Also, interestingly Bucharest is one of the only cities in Europe that has seen a population decline over the last twenty years, so my opinion of the city doesn’t seem to be shared by the majority of its residents.

Now, in Western Europe, Romania has been the butt of a lot of negative stereotypes, as a sort of backward part of the EU, with extreme poverty and an unhappy citizenry who just can’t wait to pack their bags and move to the even duller United Kingdom. Yes, there might be a bit of truth in this, but happily, like most stereotypes, they’re greatly exaggerated.

One of the first things you’ll realize when you arrive in Bucharest is that the city centre is completely different from what you imagined. Unless you imagined the city centre would look like Paris, in that case, well done you, help yourself to a typical Romanian lunch. The heart of the city was a massive surprise to me, I expected some sort of communistic type centre, (yes, even the best of us fall for stereotypes.) Instead, I was greeted with wonderful old cobbled streets, wondrous historical buildings, and a small church straight out of the bible. On first glance, Romania was nothing like what the news had led me to believe.

Stepping out from the city centre, you’ll find plenty of parks to while away the hours in, most of them include super-fast free wifi as well, which is a nice bonus. Actually, Romania is probably one of the most wifi friendly countries I’ve been to. Sat in a lovely park, under the shade of a nice large tree, with 100mb/sec free open wifi to play around with, is my idea of paradise.

The two main parks are ‘Youth Park‘ and ‘King Mihai I Park (Herastrau)‘, which is next to the ‘Arcul de Triumf,’ and has a nice 6km path going around a clean and pristine lake, perfect for cycling, running or walking the dog. On this theme, I also found Bucharest a weirdly livable city, plenty of 24-hour shops and little bakeries serving everything from pizza to freshly baked croissants.

To be honest, for the first couple of days I was there, I felt smitten with the city, I was staying in a nice part of town, near Piața Romană all the streets around me were lined with large impressive looking homes, and there were plenty of small parks where I could relax and while away the day. Just around the corner, there were plenty of restaurants and cafes, I was just a ten-minute walk from the heart of the old town, and I really couldn’t understand why so many people had left the city, and why so many wanted to leave.

This is where I did most of my work, from the Parcul Lumea Copiilor, where they had little bandstands with benches, perfect for a laptop and a kindle.

Compared to other cities I’ve lived in, like Barcelona for example, there seemed to be a distinct lack of beggars and rough sleepers. The streets felt pretty safe, either day or not. Also, I didn’t feel the need to constantly check my pockets on the ultra-modern metro. But something was niggling away at me, I wanted to understand why so many people had left a city I was slowly falling in love with.

It certainly wasn’t for lack of cultural exploits, as on my first day I encountered a large display, involving a horse, a giant, some really cheesy jokes, and a crowd cheering them on. Picking up a pamphlet I saw the whole of July was full of cultural exhibits, from outdoor theatre to street art exhibitions and performance art.

Encountering a large demonstration against corruption was my first clue, that all was not well in Romania, also, things didn’t actually seem that cheap. I would say only 10%, 20% cheaper than Spain, which was surprising, when I googled the average wage in Romania is just around €500 a month, compared to the average wage in Spain which is over a €1,000 a month. Spain certainly isn’t twice as expensive as Romania. It also occurred to me that most of the people eating in the nice fancy restaurants seemed to be foreigners and tourists.

Deciding that may be wandering around the wealthier parts of Bucharest might not be giving me the most overall picture of what it is like to live in the city I jumped on the metro and headed off into the suburbs. Now for those of you that paid some attention in History/Geography, it will not surprise you that Romania, right up until 1989, used to a communist country. Communist, in my book at least, weren’t exactly concerned with beauty, ‘let’s just stick up a bunch of poorly built identical flats, then return to our nice rich palaces.’

So, it was here, on the outskirts of Bucharest, where I quickly realized why so many Romanians had left their city. As, for as far as my eye could see, there was row upon row, of rather dilapidated 1960’s tower blocks. The buzz of the old town had been replaced by shop windows with big bars across the front of them. This was the Bucharest, the Romania I had seen on the news, I was less than ten minutes from the heart of the old town with its pedestrians streets and wonderful terraces, but I could have been on a different planet…

I write this post, not to disparage Romania, but to make the point, that as tourists we only ever really see the nice parts of a city. The parts that have been done up for us. Even though I was living there for a month or so, unless I had decided to take a trip into the suburbs I would have been left with a very warped view of Bucharest. Maybe if I returned in the middle of their brutal winters, I wouldn’t have had such a rosy view, certainly wouldn’t have been able to while away my time in the nice parks, writing these posts…

Also, the old ladies, babushkas I think they’re called, seemed frigging miserable, not one of them I encountered broke even part of a smile. It’s as if someone hasn’t told them communism has ended, and that they can smile now. :)