Stranded in Bucharest

Seven weeks (not sure actually anymore) into my prolonged business trip to Romanian capital and I still feel a bit unfamiliar with Romania. Maybe it’s because I have not seen the country yet and my stay is so far limited to Bucharest. Maybe it’s because it is truly country on periphery of Europe where various cultures mixed over past two millennia. Or maybe it’s because it is true that as you travel east you travel back in time as well (right now it is Czech Republic and Slovakia in early 1990’s all over again). Anyway for those who are not ready to read long long post here is short summary: a) the more restaurants you visit the better chance you have eating actually well (shotgun approach recommended), b) dogs travel in packs and look alike but locals love them anyway, c) cars are everyone’s best friend, d) Bucharest is one city in need of London’s congestion charge, e) second dustiest city of Europe I had pleasure to visit, f) aah those woman :) Below comes the long version.

Eating
We had ‘pleasure’ to try number of restaurants around the city. Although all of the restaurants showed some flaw, average Joe would be satisfied in couple of them. Local cuisine is a bit heavy but all eateries offer variety of fish dishes on their menu which is positively awesome after beer and pork diet of Czech counterparts. Oh yeah, and there is that lemonade.

Among the best we had pleasure to dine at were; Le Bistro at Centerville complex (a bit pricey and got worn out after third visit) which can be found at the back of Radisson hotel, Harbour (with slightly overpriced dishes when considering quality) – an expat joint at Piata Amzei and French restaurant opposite to Dirty Harry’s pub at pedestrian city center. Nice trendy atmosphere can be found in local Hard Rock Cafe at city’s biggest park whose name I do not dare to guess.

Definitely best location to go out for dinner, couple of drinks and summer / spring walk is pedestrian zone between National Bank and Piata Unirii – also known as Old Town. In there you can find Irish pub on every corner and cocktail and cafe bars in between. All of the restaurants have summer gardens prepared as soon as the weather permits with the staff and overall atmosphere (of hip youth) making you feel that the legends about Paris of the east were actually right.

Wine
Hm, where to start? Coming in I did not have much expectation for tasting or even drinking any wine but as usual I was completely wrong :) Seems like winemaking in Romania is fairly big and as hopeful future winemaker (more on this in next posts) I felt obliged to try as much of local wine as possible. Of course business dinners helped greatly :)

Anyway, I have to admit that Romanian wine (especially Prince Matei merlot) is the second biggest positive surprise I stumbled upon here (the biggest are undisputedly women). Especially reds are wonderful and fully rounded (still talking about wine, for girls see below) to such an extent that they reversed my recent obsession with whites.

Cars and congestions
Completely different story is traffic in Romanian capital. Seems like every citizen feels urgent need to invest his lifelong savings into some new / old big / small piece of metal. And when doing so, he needs to notify everyone around and honks as much as possible, making streets noisy like a true jungle.

Truly to the free spirits of buccaneers, these pirates on wheels use traffic rules more like a guidelines than actual rules. Instead of facilitating traffic flow, local drivers and their driving style (every green light results in formula like acceleration only to break as hard as possible 100 meters farther) make awesome ground for enormous congestions Bucharest has to deal with every day. Congestions happen despite unusually wide boulevards with three or even more lanes in one direction.

I have to admit, there is unusually large number of fancy expensive cars (from Porsches to Bentleys and everything you can imagine in between) for a city with buildings literally falling apart. My thorough research into the matter resulted in various answers but clear theme emerged, stating that Romanians like to show off and the best way to do that is by buying a car. Of course, I did not understand why would anybody need to show off so much and especially when 80% of old grand villas in the city centre are falling apart piece by piece. Why not to invest into real estate? Here the answers were not that clear and ranged from: real estate is expensive and out of reach for ordinary man, to: in past we did not have enough cars and now we can buy it so we buy it, or: to show off is in our Balkan nature and we are who we are.

My friend (also Romanian and owing already two cars with his wife) asked me what I think Romanian man would do with EUR 20,000 which he won in lottery. My answer that he would immediately buy a car was incorrect. He would borrow another EUR 20,000 and buy a BMW :) Other people added that he would buy BMW and still continue to live in his crappy old apartment from 70’s.

Dogs
As you have already heard (I hope), Romania and especially Bucharest are well known for their dog population. This is just to confirm that all the rumours are true and not at all exaggerating. So called community dogs roam the streets either alone or in packs and citizens do not complain. Even more, they enjoy their company. Any attempt to get rid of these dogs met stark resistance (e.g. one of past majors tried to do that and now he ended up as a president). Local people feed them resulting in obese population (mainly in city centre) compared to outskirts shanty town cousins of industrial district. As killing them is deemed inhuman they are left to reproduce and multiply.

Girls, women and ladies
This is another rumour I can completely confirm. Girls in Romania are one of the most beautiful in the world. Dark haired, flirty and never far away from laugh, they are the one good thing which make anyone like show off nature of Balkan people. In this case it means they dress more carefully and with greater sense.

Dust and everything else
Besides passion for red fountains (no clue why) citizens of Bucharest enjoy flowers above all. I guess this is to enliven dusty environment they live in. After Moscow, Bucharest is the dustiest city (besides those desert towns around Taklamakan) I have pleasure to visit. Unexpectedly, without any desert in sight and flushed in rich Danube estuary, Bucharest is covered in veil of dust.

Most of my observations are affected by the fact that I have not been able to get out of the city and stayed for past two months within city proper. Even receptionist at our hotel expressed hope for me to “see other parts of Romania which are by far better than Bucharest” :)