Upon arrival to Romania, you are promptly met with what can only be called the "cocktail" of Bucharest because of its combination of the new and the old, the west and the east, and the Latin and European influences. The streets are surprisingly clean and well kept with bike paths intertwining the parks and streets. The prevalence of recycling also suggested a society that was moving beyond subsistence living to the life of plenty. The modern, classy storefronts suggested the same. I am still unsure of what I was expecting per se, but I was pleasantly surprised by my findings in Bucharest.
One thing that I really enjoyed about the visit to Bucharest was getting to learn about history hands on. After taking the quiz in class, it was really beneficial to be there to fully understand the significance of certain people, places and events in historical, communist and modern terms. For example, the statue of King Carol I, who was Romania's first modern king "imported" from Germany, appears to recognize his greatness. His reign was fairly successful in that he helped ensure Romanian independence from the Ottoman empire, increased prestige, and developed the foundation for a free market economy. Given these accomplishments, one would expect his monument to be accurately depicted. However, the statue is riddled with errors, such as the horses feet indicating a death in battle and the extremely disrespectful depiction of the horse's tail position. Whether intentional or not, the mistakes demonstrate the Latin side of the culture despite their German leader. For Romanians, good enough is just that, good enough and there is no need to make it 100% accurate.
The Palace of Parliament is another historical legacy that we had the fortune of visiting. Unlike King Carol's statue, the building was perfected down to the last intricate detail. The size of the structure speaks to the the size of Nicolae Ceausescu's ego. Inspired by a visit to North Korea, The Communist leader's narcissism and megalomania dictated his need to construct one of the most expensive and expansive building projects of all time, with the building still claiming the title of 2nd largest in the world. The building took 700 architects and over 20,000 workers working in 24/7 shifts to complete the building in 6 years. The project was and remains hugely controversial because of the state of the Romanian society during the final years of the Communist regime. While Ceausescu spent millions on the creation of an impractical building, his people were starving from lack of purchasable goods and dissenters lived in fear of their lives. Despite the painful history, the Parliament remains in use today and serves as the house of the current government, though much of the building remains unused. I personally couldn't fathom what I was seeing because it was so large and so extravagant, it seemed implausible that it would exist in a country that until recently couldn't achieve basic economic indicators of success. I can only imagine how people who lived through the horrors of the Communist regime regard Ceausescu's masterpiece. 
The final historical monument that caught my eye was the Memorial of Rebirth. Another monument that is reviled by many Romanian's for its ugliness and muddled symbolic meaning, I actually found the aesthetic rather appealing. It was extremely eye-catching which made the foreign bystander stop and gawk at its strangeness. Though not visually beautiful, the captivating nature makes people stop and wonder about what happened and why it is there. That is the point of a monument, especially those which commemorate great loss and triumph, to get people to stop and remember or learn about what happened. While I fully understand that the Romanian people do not find it to satisfy the true elements of the revolution, I think an artist would have been hard pressed to
The above images illustrate howe the history of Romania and Bucharest is a cocktail of stories and ideologies. But a cocktail that I found even more bizarre and notable was the mixture of architectures. Inspired by their Latin counterparts, the early developers adapted many elements of French architecture so much so that Bucharest has been referred to as the "Paris of the East." After the emergence of the Communist party, architectural preference switched yet again to combine any style which suited communist extravagance. Now, some buildings lie decrepit, others' full glass walls glimmer in the sunlight and some you just aren't really sure who built them, when or why. Calling Bucharest a beautiful city was always on the tip of my tongue, but I just couldn't quite make sense of the mismatched visual that I was confronted with every time I turned the corner. Though not beautiful, it was certainly visually fascinating and I have included some photos below to illustrate the uniqueness.
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| The facade of a historical building wraps around a cubical, modern glass building. |
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| The national bank, inspired by delicate French architectures alongside a modern bank |
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