Today is Theme Day at the City Daily Photo community, a monthly event that happens the first day of every month, when all participating blogs will post a picture that relates to the theme day’s description. Today’s theme is: Postcard-Worthy. Click here to view thumbnails for all participants
For today’s theme I picked a shot taken in the Macca-Vilacrosse Covered Passage, which is located in the Old Town area and is one of the most popular places for going out with friends in Bucharest.
Today is Theme Day at the City Daily Photo community, a monthly event that happens the first day of every month, when all participating blogs will post a picture that relates to the theme day’s description. Today’s theme is: Reflections. Click here to view thumbnails for all participants
I like today’s theme, in fact this blog has a whole series on reflections (just click on the reflections tag and you’ll see). Today’s photo shows the lake in Alexandru Ioan Cuza park (former IOR park) and some of the tenement blocks that surround the park.
Today is Theme Day at the City Daily Photo community, a monthly event that happens the first day of every month, when all participating blogs will post a picture that relates to the theme day’s description. Today’s theme is: Statues. Click here to view thumbnails for all participants
I had great plans for this theme day. I was to go and photograph some statues that would fit in both with theme day and with the May Day aka International Workers’ Day (which celebrates the legal establishment of the 8-hour working day, something that we today hold as a given but which wasn’t always so). I know a few statues in Bucharest that can be used to express both these ideas. But … I got stuck in the house with a bad cold so instead of what I planned I’m giving you Atlas, sitting among flowers in Cişmigiu Park. The only thing I’m not sure about is if this qualifies as a statue or it’s better defined as a sculpture.
Today is Theme Day at the City Daily Photo community, a monthly event that happens the first day of every month, when all participating blogs will post a picture that relates to the theme day’s description. Today’s theme is: Red. Click here to view thumbnails for all participants
I’ve spotted this red truck a few days ago while strolling through Cişmigiu Park on a sunny day. I’m guessing it’s being used for the park’s spring cleaning.
Today is Theme Day at the City Daily Photo community, a monthly event that happens the first day of every month, when all participating blogs will post a picture that relates to the theme day’s description. Today’s theme is: Passageway. Click here to view thumbnails for all participants
The covered English Passage is one of Bucharest’s historical passages linking Calea Victoriei with Academiei Street. It was built in 1885 and took its name from Hotel English which stood at one end of the passage, on Calea Victoriei. Some of the hotel rooms were located inside the passage. A few years later the hotel was converted into a luxury brothel (!), very famous at the times. The brothel lasted until 1947 when it was closed by the communists and the building was changed into apartments building. As you can see from the picture the passage is in really bad shape, even though I’ve read somewhere that it’s on the list of historical monuments. I hope the money to repair it will be found soon, before the passage is lost forever.
Today is Theme Day at the City Daily Photo community, a monthly event that happens the first day of every month, when all participating blogs will post a picture that relates to the theme day’s description. Today’s theme is: Wood. Click here to view thumbnails for all participants
If you feel tired after walking through the Museum of Romanian Peasant for an hour, you might feel inclined to sit down on the chairs shown in the photograph above. This wouldn’t be advisable, as you might end up being chased around by the army of attendants, who as you can see from the photograph below, have all different kinds of weapons at their disposal 🙂
Today is Theme Day at the City Daily Photo community, a monthly event that happens the first day of every month, when all participating blogs will post a picture that relates to the theme day’s description. Today’s theme is: Changes. Click here to view thumbnails for all participants
Once again I will tell you a story that has to do with the communist dictatorship that has ruled over Romania for over 40 years. I know this topic shows up a lot in my posts but that’s only because it’s part of recent history and it left marks on Bucharest and its people that are still visible.
When the communists came to power in 1945 they took down all the statues of kings and famous politicians in an attempt to erase the memories of a past that was not linked to their ideology. Most of them were destroyed, melted away. But the wheel of history rolls on, and eventually it came the turn of communists to give up power and to have their statues removed from public display. The statue of Lenin that you can see in today’s theme photo was taken down in 1989 when the communist dictatorship came to an end, and these days is slowly degrading behind the summer kitchen of Mogoşoaia Palace, located 10km northwest of Bucharest. It once stood in front of the House of the Press, called Casa Scânteii during communism, now the House of the Free Press. I would call this quite a change of location 🙂 The other statue that you see in the photo is of Petru Groza, the first communist ruler of Romania.
First of all sorry for the late posting. It took me some time to decide on today’s photo. I will tell you why in a minute. Today is Theme Day at the City Daily Photo community, a monthly event that happens the first day of every month, when all participating blogs will post a picture that relates to the theme day’s description. Today’s theme is Waiting. Click here to view thumbnails for all participants
I have to say that today’s theme posed quite a dilemma for me, the reason for it being the fact that December 1st is also the national holiday of Romania. Which means I was faced with the question: should I post something about the national holiday or should I just go with the “waiting” theme? I also thought of somehow linking the two events but after thinking a lot about it I couldn’t come up with something interesting. December 1st 1918 marks the day of what we call the Great Union, when the provinces of Transylvania, Banat, Bessarabia and Bukovina joined the Romanian Kingdom. The Romanian government is always celebrating this event with a military parade which is not really my cup of tea (and as I’m traveling at the moment I can’t take pictures of the parade even if I wanted too). I already showed the Romanian flag (twice if I’m not mistaken) and posted a picture of the Triumphal Arch which was built to commemorate the creation of Greater Romania and couldn’t think of other national symbols that I could show in this context. I also thought of “waiting” in the context of contemporary Romania and I came up with something along the lines of “waiting for Romania to become a true democracy”, “waiting for corruption to end”, “waiting for my country to find its way to prosperity”, “waiting for the standard of living to grow and for the medical system to become better”. But these thoughts, true as they may be, seemed more like criticizing, and it seemed harsh to criticize with the occasion of a celebration. In the end I couldn’t decide, so for today I’m giving you three photos. The first is a simple “waiting” photo, which I would have posted if today was any other day of the year, showing people waiting for the subway at the Titan subway station. The second one is a graffiti which goes along the lines of “waiting for corruption to end” of contemporary Romania. And finally, the third one is the celebratory one, showing today’s front page at google.ro, marking the national holiday.
Today is Theme Day at the City Daily Photo community, a monthly event that happens the first day of every month, when all participating blogs will post a picture that relates to the theme day’s description. Today’s theme is Doorways. Click here to view thumbnails for all participants
This style of doorways, covered with glass awnings in wrought iron frames became very popular in Bucharest at the end of the 19th century. You can still find many houses in the historic quarters of Bucharest that have these French inspired style doors with awnings. The most flamboyant glass awning in Bucharest is the one at the Cantacuzino Palace which I already introduced in a post in September.
This is the first time I’m taking part in Theme Day of the City Daily Photo community. Theme Day is a monthly event that happens the first day of every month, when all participating blogs will post a picture that relates to the theme day’s description. Today’s theme is Big. Click here to view thumbnails for all participants
I decided for a straighforward treatment of this theme and just photographed the biggest thing I could find in my city. I don’t know if you’ve heard but Bucharest holds the dubious record of having the biggest Parliament building in the world, which is also the second largest administrative building in the world after the Pentagon. It truly is as big as a dictator’s ego. Bucharest’s Palace of Parliament was built during the Ceauşescu’s regime and it was designed as the seat of his political power. He also intended to use the building as his personal residence. Construction began in 1984 and at the time of Ceauşescu’s death in 1989 it was not completely finished. He never got to move in.
The Palace of Parliament was and still is a controversial building. Some people think of it as shameful, an architectural horror while others are proud of its records and consider it the biggest tourist attraction in Bucharest. I tend to side with those who don’t like the building, which in my eyes represents the peak of Ceausescu’s megalomania. Many old beautiful buildings were demolished to make way for this pointlessly massive “house” (Parliament’s Palace used to be called The House of the People during the communist regime). To quote wikipedia, “much of Bucharest’s historic district, including 19 Orthodox Christian churches, six Jewish synagogues, three Protestant churches (plus eight relocated churches), and 30,000 residences” were demolished to create the space necessary for this project. I remember a joke that was going around at the time: the boulevard that ends with the Parliament Palace was to be called “The Victory of Socialism”. The joke’s punchline was that in fact the name of the boulevard is “The Victory of Socialism against Bucharest”.
Unfortunatelly I read somewhere that this building is indeed the biggest tourist attraction in Bucharest. Seems like people like records of this sort. I visited the building once, when they opened it for public in 1990; I remember some huge rooms, the dimensions being so excessive that nothing else was noticeable. Today the building houses the Romanian Parliament, as well as the National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC) opened in 2004 inside the west wing. It can be visited by guided tours.
