Bucharest, Romania

Thursday, May 22

This morning, we set off on a walking tour with a young local guide and a small, multicultural group of visitors to the city. We began in the busy Unirii (Union) Square, where we had a view up the broad boulevard that runs to the Palace of the Parliament, which we learned today has been bumped down to number three on the list of the world's largest buildings -- though it's still the heaviest!  In his zeal to reshape the city, Ceausescu leveled 30,000 homes over an area the size of Venice to clear the land for the building then known as the People's Palace.  Having heard that Paris' Champs Elysee was the worlds greatest boulevard, he dictated that the Boulevard Unirii be a kilometer longer and two meters wider, and in a bid to physically and figurative lessen the stature of churches in the area, he ordered the construction of typical Soviet-style (ugly) apartment blocks that stood taller than neighboring religious edifices.  The thriving local covered market was destroyed to create Unirii Square and the Dambovita River, which traverses the city, was diverted so the square could be built above it.

We spent a good deal of time in the old town, stopping first at Halul lui Manuc, the city's only surviving caravanseri, or inn for merchants traveling on the Silk Road.  Its rectangular form, centered on a courtyard (now the site of a restaurant) is typical for these structures, and similar to a caravanseri we visited in Turkey.  

Also in the old town, we stopped at a couple of notable churches:  St. Anthony, the first church in the city, and the Stavropoleos Church, with its beautifully decorated exterior, wooden interior, and lovely courtyard, a small oasis in the busy old town.  We revisited both churches this afternoon, as we didn't enter them on the tour. 

A couple of notes here about the Christian Orthodox churches we've seen throughout this trip: they are richly decorated with frescoes or murals covering every surface, including high domes; religious visitors venerate the icons, stopping to pray before multiple representations, cross themselves (backwards, for us)  and kiss the images, which are often embellished with silver, gold, and jewels; the faithful also purchase candles to light and leave inside the churches in special holders.  Candles lit in memory of the dead are placed lower than those meant to honor the living, and here, in the old town, we've seen special oven-like metal enclosures for the lighted candles placed outside the churches.

While in the old town, we also passed through the heart of the financial center of the city.  Many of the banks are housed in beautiful neo-classical or highly-decorated French-inspired buildings.  We'd noticed that the currency here has a very smooth feel and is unwrinkled, and, today we learned that it's actually made of a polymer, not paper.  During the 1990s, visiting leaders of the International Monetary Fund recommended that Romania would benefit from greater use of "plastic money"; the locals, not understanding the colloquial reference to credit cards, took the suggestion to heart and, adopted plastic bank notes!  Incidentally, the 1-RON bill costs more to produce than its monetary value!

The tour continued up the historic Calea Victorei (Victory Lane) to Revolution Square, where Ceausescu gave his last speech before fleeing in a helicopter from the roof of the Communist Party Headquarters and ordering  military to fire on protestors gathered in the square.  The striking Rebirth Memorial, a monument to those who gave their lives in the the only bloody revolution in the 1989 breakup of the Soviet Union now occupies the square.

 

When our tour ended at the beautiful Atheneum, we walked over to the university area for lunch and then back into the old town.  The architecture throughout features many lovely institutional and public buildings that are reminiscent of the lovely and graceful central Paris, or the monumental Vienna.  Of course, Soviet-era "design" is also well-represented, and a spattering of contemporary architecture, though we haven't seen as much of that here as we did in Sofia -- perhaps we'll see more as we exit the city tomorrow.

Our last stop this afternoon was at the Patriarchal Cathedral, the center of the Romanian Orthodox Church.  As always, the church was lovely, and it occupies a small hill overlooking Unirri Square.  Once the tallest building in the city, it has, of course, been dwarfed by surrounding Ceausescu-era apartment blocks.

With that, we called it a day, and headed "home" to our own very nice apartment in just such a building!