We’re back, Romania – 104 years later

It was surprisingly emotional to drive across the Danube border point between Bulgaria and Romania, realizing that I’m returning to the country that my entire family had fled by 1919. I’ll never know exactly why they fled, but I can tell you that my great-uncle Abraham, who left Romania in 1917 and lived in New York, filed his petition for US Naturalization on January 30, 1933 – just 28 days before Hitler came to full power in Germany. I’ve always assumed that he acted to make sure that his ties to Europe were severed and he could not be called back somehow.

His mother – my great-great grandmother – had her tombstone inscribed with thanks to the Hirsch Foundation – which was devoted to rescuing Eastern European Jews from their difficult circumstances and getting them to the US.

And now that we’re here in Bucharest, I see what an amazing city it is! It was immediately clear that the architecture and the standard of living is much higher here. Bucharest is known as the Paris of the East.

In case the architecture upgrade was not clear to me, though, we made a brief stop at the Little Paris Museum of Bucharest, thinking it was one of the house museums I love so much. But what it was, instead, was a lair of sorts – a small group of renovated rooms above the main pedestrian street where the owner/employee/tour guide waited for…anyone…someone…if only he had some visitors…and BAM, there we were.

He didn’t greet us so much as he accosted us, first kind of friendly…where are you from, do you like Bucharest…but soon, he was using his entire forearm (too excited to grab some paper) to write out the Romanian alphabet (with pronunciation tips), and making me sound it out, and asking us to list every city we are seeing in Romania. Then, he needed the listing and discussion of every city we had seen in Bulgaria and he was BESIDE HIMSELF that Odysseys Unlimited had paired the two countries into one tour as it’s apparently an affront to the entire Romanian empire.

His succinct and disdainful assessment of Bulgaria is that it’s the Mexico of Europe. Note: When I asked him if he had ever been there – it’s 30 miles away – he said no.

Off to my right, I could see Grace slowly falling apart, trying not to laugh at this aggressive lecture as I tried to follow his wide-range of topics. At some point he decided that we were extremely close friends and he cast off all personal space boundaries, holding his phone in front of my face so we could peer…together…at the Black Sea port cities, while my entire body was covered in so much stress sweat that Grace said she could see it across the room.

The only reason we even got out of there is that some other unsuspecting tourist group came in the door and the lunatic museum guide had to look away for a moment to greet them. Here’s a quick look at his curated offerings, so you can avoid going in if you’re here:

So you are warned: DO come to Bucharest, but watch out for Little Paris.

Romania was under the strict influence of the Soviet Union after World War II until 1964, when Nicolae Ceausescu became the leader. He was a horrible and murderous dictator, with a secret police force called the Securitate, which was known to be extremely brutal – even compared to other Soviet Bloc standards. All freedom of movement and speech was suppressed. Gas, heating oil, and food was rationed. Romania had the highest infant mortality rate in Europe due to malnutrition. There was only two hours of TV programming a day – with 90 minutes of it basically praising Ceausescu.

Our Odysseys group got to meet with Edmund, who was 15 in December of 1989 and lived through the fall of communism. He was present at the December 21 revolution and shared his story with us. Here he is with a flag he has carried since that December.

On December 21, Ceausescu addressed a crowd of about 100,000 people in Bucharest Palace Square. His goal was to downplay protests that had started up north in Timisoara but when he got up to give his speech – telling the crowds that the protests up north were from out-of-country instigators who wanted to hurt Romania – the crowd starting jeering him. And then there was fireworks or gun noise and the Romanian Revolution had started – right in front of Ceausescu.

He and his wife, Elena, tried to flee Bucharest via helicopter on December 22nd, were captured 50 miles away, and put on trial by December 25th. They were convicted of genocide and abuse of power and were both executed that same day – December 25th, 1989.

We had a chance to tour the Parliament building – built by Ceausescu to honor…himself. It is 4 million square feet. Seriously. It was 70% built by 1989, when Ceausescu was executed, and the new government decided to finish it because so much money and time had been expended. The only bigger government building in the world is the Pentagon. The Parliament is the work of 700 architects and 20,000 workers. It took 13 years to build – 1984 to 1997. 40,000 Bucharest citizens were displaced and evicted from their homes to open up the building space.

Here’s the exterior:

The interior – we were allowed to tour 5% of it – is just a lot of regal pomp. Grace felt she would have been happy to see 1%. It’s pretty distressing to walk around and think that Ceausescu had this thing built- 24 hours a day of workers toiling – while his citizens starved. But, here you go – a picture of an inside room:

Bucharest really does have some gorgeous buildings. Is it more rundown than the core of Paris or Vienna? Absolutely. But to see how far the country has come since 1989? It’s really excellent…and has a true European feel with endless cafes, thousands of people out strolling, and a lively nightlife. Here’s a few shots from our wanderings:

Here’s the Stavropoleos Monastery – from 1724:

And I’ll leave you with this – further evidence of the sublime loveliness of Bucharest. It’s our hotel shower! There is a full door, it’s got a flat entry, limitless hot water, and no water flows out into the bathroom.

And then these, in the continuing series of bathroom signs:

A bilingual pep talk on exactly how to pee, courtesy of the Bucharest Starbucks:

And a Cyrillic instruction of some sort, which Grace and I don’t understand, but feel confident that it’s related to biological functions: