The she wolf in the snow

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Last October I've told you the story of the well-traveled she wolf. Here is a new shot of the she wolf enjoying the snowfall.

Reflection series #6

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It's snowing heavily outside. There's already a lot of snow on the ground and it's been announced that schools will be closed tomorrow. For these reasons I decided to post a photo taken last November to remind us of a sunny time when everything was not colored in white. Not to talk about the fact that this decision spares me from going outside :) So here it is for you to admire another addition to the reflection series. The apartment building that's the subject of the reflection was built in 1936 by architect Nicolae Cucu.

The cellar of the museum

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In the cellar of the Museum of Romanian Peasant there are two small rooms dedicated to the "collectivization" of agriculture in Romania which took place in the early years of the communist regime. Started in 1949 the project sought to force the peasants to bring their land into collective farms. Aside from the persistent propaganda, violent means like intimidation, beating, arrest and imprisonment were used to convince peasants to join. According to the wikipedia article, by 1962 a total of 96% of the country's arable surface and 93.4% of its agricultural land had been included in collective structures. To achieve this 80.000 peasants were taken to court, 30.000 of which were judged and found guilty in public trials. The effect of the small rooms is rather chilling. The first room is wallpapered with old newspapers clippings while the second room looks like one used for a party meeting, where "traitors" were brought forward, accused and asked to self-criticize. In the photo you can see the entrance to the first room where one corner is occupied with a collection of busts from that era.

The Bank of Romanian Credit

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Today's photograph shows the building of the former Bank of Romanian Credit (Banca de Credit Român in Romanian), located on Stavropoleos Street next to the monastery with the same name. Nowadays the building serves as the headquarters of various public institutions. At the end of the 19th century Bucharest met with a rapidly growing economy and in order to cope with this development lots of banks were founded or opened offices in the streets around the National Bank of Romania, an area bordered by the Calea Victoriei, Stavropoleous, Smârdan and Doamnei Streets. This way a banking district was created within the perimeter of the Old Town, a place that was until then reserved for merchants, inns and monasteries.

Posters

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I'm not sure if Bucharest has a law about sticking advertisement posters in public places, but if there is one, it's being safely ignored ;) In Bucharest you can find posters stuck on everything: on recycling bins or newsstands (as in today's photograph), covering windows and glass doors of private buildings, on electrical panels and poles, on garbage cans, on bus stations, on all types of walls, on trees and fences. And the list can go on :)

Living the corporate life in Bucharest

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On bike lanes

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Between two and three years ago Bucharest got its own bike lanes. And it wasn't an easy birth :) First the City Hall tried to ban bicycles in Bucharest using as an excuse the fact that there weren't any bike lanes! Yes, we're talking about the most polluted capital in Europe, where every citizen breaths in the air filled with the exhaustion fumes spewed by approximately 1.5 million cars. They met with protests, somehow things got to Brussels, who send back a notification, the authorities removed the ban and started to create bike lanes. And, of course, they did it like nowhere else in the world :) Instead of creating the bike lanes in the first lane of traffic, they drew the bike lanes on the sidewalk, taking from the little space pedestrians had. Two years later, people have still to get used to the presence of bike lanes. Pedestrians walk on them, cars are parked on the bicycle lanes, trees block the way. Still, in my opinion, based on the exact and reliable method of visual observations :) I can tell that the number of bicyclists in Bucharest grew compared to a few years ago. It looks like we're slowly going in the right direction.