This is Victoria Passage, linking Calea Victoriei with Academiei Street. It appeared a lot in the news in the summer of 2008 when the press got word of plans to demolish two of the historical buildings located inside the passage. It was the same story as always, such a piece of real estate in downtown Bucharest would sell for a small fortune. So far the buildings are still standing.
Apparently there’s a simple explanation for the fact that this building on Lipscani St. is in danger of collapsing. See below.
To all those who celebrate it, I would like to wish you Merry Christmas and a happy holiday season spent with your loved ones. Thanks for your support and encouragement over the last six months.
December 24th turned out to be a nice and sunny day, with clear blue skies as you can see from today’s photo. It looks like we’re gonna have a partially white Christmas as the snow from last week’s snowfall has melted away and created ugly mountains of snow and mud.
Same spot Friday last week (December 18th)
Same spot Monday last week (December 14th)
Because this year we celebrated twenty years since the Romanian Revolution, the media bombarded us with anniversary shows, images, articles etc, related to the subject. Twenty years have passed but unfortunately many Romanians feel that there are still unanswered questions related to the Romanian Revolution like who was responsible for shooting at the revolutionaries and what happened after Ceausescu fled. Many people believe that the revolution was the hijacked by the “humane” communists (as Mr. Iliescu who came to power after the Revolution tried to picture himself) and a few go as far as saying that it was more coup d’etat than a people’s revolution. Still 1104 people died for their believes, many of them anonymous and heroic citizens of Bucharest, and for this I will continue to call it a revolution no matter what happened at the top. But it is frustrating, the impression that you don’t know what really happened back then.
Today’s photo shows one of these commemorative events, an exhibition titled “This is what is was like in Bucharest… 20 years since the Romanian Revolution” taking place in the University Square underground passage. The exhibition contains photographs and short films from the streets of Bucharest December 1989, trying to capture the atmosphere of those days.
In an effort to draw customers inside, many stores have joined in the holidays spirit and decorated their facades with lights, Christmas trees and ornaments. Such is the case of the store in today’s photo, the Victoria Department Store on Calea Victoriei. Department store is a bit of a misnomer because last time I was inside it the store looked more like an chaotic indoor bazaar rather than a shopping mall. Once upon a time Victoria Department Store was called Galeries Lafayette, a modern store modeled after the great Parisians stores. When it was built, the idea of a “universal store” (as it was called at the time) was a new one in Bucharest where people were used to the small shops that stood right nearby on the area called Lipscani. It was built in 1928 in Art Deco style after plans made by architect Herman Clejan. Under the communists the store’s slogan was “Victoria Department Store, 50 stores in one” and this inspired one of the most famous jokes of the regime about a salami that was also called Victoria, whose slogan said the joke was “one salami in 50 stores” hinting to the lack of basic food during that time.
21st of December 2009 marks the twentieth anniversary of the Romanian Revolution, the popular uprising that ended the communist dictatorship. On December 21st 1989 the citizens of Bucharest joined the protests started in Timişoara on December 16th and, as they say, the rest is history. It was a day that changed the rest of my life and for which I am and always will be grateful.
Today’s photo shows a sign posted in the little square featured in my first post on this blog. The sign reads “They died here for liberty/21-22 December 1989” (it’s an approximate translation but I can’t think of a better one).
I’m back online after more than 48 hours of absence. No, the snow didn’t reach the first floor window 🙂 but the server’s hard drive, bought and installed last June, crashed. It took my husband two days to recover all the data (the backup was ten days old) and to install a new server. I hope my karma has changed now and this won’t happen again.
My first photo after this break is a straightforward shot of the building whose tower was featured in last post’s reflection. As I said in that post this is an office building build in modernist style in 1936-1937 by architects Rudolf Fraenkel, Teller and Dem Săvulescu. It is known as “Adriatica building”. By following this link you can see a photo of the building dating from late 30s.
As I said in one of my previous posts, I’m a sucker for reflection photos. I believe that in photography reflections can bring out amazing effects and make us look at things through a different perspective. So here is another one of my tries at getting a nice reflection photo. This one was taken in downtown Bucharest and it shows the tower of the modernist Adriatica office building (1936) reflected at sunset in the Novotel Hotel.
My words (“Let is snow!”) from three days ago were taken way too seriously 🙂 It’s been snowing since Tuesday and it keeps on snowing as I write this post. I wanted a white Christmas but I didn’t bargain for this. I want to be able to leave the house 🙂 I’m actually starting to worry that my fridge is empty 🙂
