The Pearl of Past Times: Bucharest

In the rush of the modern lifestyles how many of us stop to recall the glory of the past? Do we all live by the motto “what’s gone is gone and what’s done is done” or do we somehow manage to learn from the past, to understand its values and to understand that there would be no today without yesterday? In the chaos of the present do we still have room to look back at the time that made today possible or is our past forgotten on a bookshelf in an old library covered by dust?

I think it’s time for me to reach out to that shelf and wipe the dust off of what once was the pearl of Europe: Bucharest. I was born in Bucharest and spent over 20 years of my existence in the Capital of Romania. I never liked its mad rush, the trash and the noise, the architectonic style of the blocks of flats that are common to all former communist countries in Eastern Europe. My moments of joy were spent walking down the streets of what was once the heart of the old Bucharest. The former glory of the city is still there waiting to be seen by those who have the eyes to see it and by those who have the hearts to feel it.

The University of Bucharest

St. Gheoorghe Square

Lipscani Street

Sturza Palace

For my contemporaries living in Bucharest today the places you see in these images are part of a daily routine. These buildings are still there but somehow seeing what they used to look like in the city’s glorious past brings the former glory I was talking about closer to our hearts. Many Romanians and certainly many foreigners don’t even know their value and if you run a survey one in one hundred will probably know that Bucharest was the first city in the world illuminated with lamp oil. This happened in 1856. Three years later Vienna followed and then the other major European cities.

Can you imagine that Bucharest was one of the richest cities in the world back then? Can you imagine Paris and London following the trends coming from a city that today is not even mentioned in the most important travel atlases?

At the dawn of the 19 century Bucharest was called the Little Paris and for the travelers who visited the City of Lights and later Bucharest the resemblance is obvious. The influence of the French architecture is still there in the buildings that guard the central boulevards.

Arch of Triumph, Bucharest

Once you leave the center of the city you enter a world of concrete where the scenery is often sad, monotonous and colorless.

Blocks of flats in Bucharest

This is the result of 50 years of communism. There is another reminiscence of the communist influence: the Palace of Parliament (Palatul Parlamentului also known asCasa Poporului) - world’s second largest building, after the Pentagon.

Palace of Parliament - Casa Poporului

That Bucharest was the first city in the world illuminated with kerosene is no surprise if we consider that Romania was the first country in the world with an oil production. United States, Italy, Canada and Russia followed - these are facts attested by The Science of Petroleum in 1938.

Consequently, the world’s first refinery is attested in Romania too (Lucacesti-Bacau) and for the sake of the argument in 1900 Romania was the first country in the world which exported gasoline. We have the Second World War to blame for stealing the thunder from the Romanian economy. Romania never recovered after this event and today the Romanians still struggle to come out of the economical crisis imposed by the collapse of the economy after the Second World War and by 50 years of communism.