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Walking the World: Bucharest

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Re: Walking the World: Bucharest

#41

Post by leto_ii »

paganel wrote: post #11

As a Bucharest resident I must say this is so cool on so many levels, especially glad that the author realised this: > and a poorer southern half, so I focused on the south, because wealthy neighborhoods, no matter the country, are pretty much the same. pretty early on, it took me a few years of living here to actually notice that difference, I used to be blind to it for one reason or another. Also, for the people th…

> As a Bucharest resident I must say this is so cool on so many levels

Here here! I was really pleasantly surprised to see Pardon cafe mentioned, it's one of my favourite places.

Re: Walking the World: Bucharest

#42

Post by leto_ii »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #27

Wow he's really been around. I visited Bucharest a lot for work and as always on business trips I love walking around and exploring every night. And not just the center. I love seeing how people live and travel, to use local transport systems instead of sitting in the hotel at night and using taxis. The metro in Bucharest is much faster and probably safer than taxis anyway :) However my local colleagues always cautio…

> But perhaps even locals don't visit these areas much so they might not know what they're really like? It does certainly look like a place that would make most people turn around.

I think that's mostly the case. Ferentari is not really dangerous, just depressing and maybe dangerous-looking. I've felt significantly more unsafe in the banlieues of Paris.

Re: Walking the World: Bucharest

#43

Post by darksaints »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #27

Wow he's really been around. I visited Bucharest a lot for work and as always on business trips I love walking around and exploring every night. And not just the center. I love seeing how people live and travel, to use local transport systems instead of sitting in the hotel at night and using taxis. The metro in Bucharest is much faster and probably safer than taxis anyway :) However my local colleagues always cautio…

I lived for 6 months in what was easily the most violent neighborhood, in the most violent city, in the most violent country in the world at the time. After a while I came to an interesting insight: as a outsider, you don't really have to fear for your life. You might get robbed, potentially with a threat of violence, which can be a scary experience, but you won't get randomly stabbed or shot. This is simply because random violence is incredibly rare...almost all violence has a motive, and as an outsider, you're too disconnected from the world you're visiting for anybody to have a real beef with you. You're simply not anybody else's drama.

There are some places which are definitely unsafe as a tourist. In particular, post-colonial countries where your appearance might connect you to a long-held grudge, or places where the prevalent politics are threatening to people of your nationality, or active warzones where you might get caught in the crossfire. And admittedly, I experienced this as a male, and might feel completely differently as a female. But for the vast majority of places with violent reputations among the locals, you can visit for short periods of time without incident.

Re: Walking the World: Bucharest

#44

Post by A_non_e-moose »

jacquesm wrote: post #31
vladharbuz wrote: post #6

I'm from Bucharest, and I've always felt like, if you ask Romanians whether they're happy to be Romanian, most will reply in the negative, and describe being born in Romania as a misfortune. There's a popular song from a while back that goes “we weren't born in the right place”. [0] The author describes the feeling of unity amidst unfortunate circumstances as bringing the Romanian people together and giving them “a s…

Agreed, it sounds like a romanticized version of what the author would like to be true. A bit like the 'noble savage' myth. Life in Romania can be pretty harsh. I lived for two years in Bucharest, have seen most of the larger cities and a good bit of the countryside as well. Romania has some incredible wealth, a very rich culture but also terrible poverty and with every change in government things seem to oscillate b…

For countries neighboring west so much, particularly Germany, neither Poland nor Czechia seem to have capitalized much. I find it more impressive how Romania progressed, given the cards it was dealt.

Re: Walking the World: Bucharest

#45

Post by jacquesm »

A_non_e-moose wrote: post #44
jacquesm wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, it sounds like a romanticized version of what the author would like to be true. A bit like the 'noble savage' myth. Life in Romania can be pretty harsh. I lived for two years in Bucharest, have seen most of the larger cities and a good bit of the countryside as well. Romania has some incredible wealth, a very rich culture but also terrible poverty and with every change in government things seem to oscillate b…

For countries neighboring west so much, particularly Germany, neither Poland nor Czechia seem to have capitalized much. I find it more impressive how Romania progressed, given the cards it was dealt.

Yes, that is a good point, the further East the smaller the amounts of investment made. Of course Germany had its hands full with the reunification, which is effectively still continuing today. But Poland definitely benefited from its German proximity and Czechia to some extent (though less) as well. In part this is historical, the German territory used to run all the way to the Baltics (not quite voluntarily, Poland was frequently and heavily fought over by both the Russians and the Germans who used it as their personal stomping grounds).

Re: Walking the World: Bucharest

#46

Post by Chris_arnade »

Thanks for posting this and all the comments. To those who thought I should have walked into the wealthier parts of Bucharest, that isn't really my thing. I try to treat each city I walk the same. Which is to just walk across town and usually end up in parts that many people live in, but few visit.

Chris Arnade (the author of this piece and a guy who likes to walk a lot)

Re: Walking the World: Bucharest

#47

Post by bernardom »

Chris_arnade wrote: post #46

Thanks for posting this and all the comments. To those who thought I should have walked into the wealthier parts of Bucharest, that isn't really my thing. I try to treat each city I walk the same. Which is to just walk across town and usually end up in parts that many people live in, but few visit. Chris Arnade (the author of this piece and a guy who likes to walk a lot)

Chris, I’m surprised to see (on your Twitter feed) that you didn’t know HN. You’ll like it, sometimes.

Dignity was a lovely book and a really nice counter-narrative to the Trump vs Dems story that was (is?) dominating the news.

Re: Walking the World: Bucharest

#48

Post by Chris_arnade »

bernardom wrote: post #47
Chris_arnade wrote: post #46

Thanks for posting this and all the comments. To those who thought I should have walked into the wealthier parts of Bucharest, that isn't really my thing. I try to treat each city I walk the same. Which is to just walk across town and usually end up in parts that many people live in, but few visit. Chris Arnade (the author of this piece and a guy who likes to walk a lot)

Chris, I’m surprised to see (on your Twitter feed) that you didn’t know HN. You’ll like it, sometimes. Dignity was a lovely book and a really nice counter-narrative to the Trump vs Dems story that was (is?) dominating the news.

Thank you so much.

And this will sound a little weird, but these type of forums (like reddit, with nested comments and listing of stories) I have a hard time reading. There is something about the layout that scrambles my brain & overwhelms me.

I want to like them, it is just hard for me to follow.

Re: Walking the World: Bucharest

#49

Post by bernardom »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #27

Wow he's really been around. I visited Bucharest a lot for work and as always on business trips I love walking around and exploring every night. And not just the center. I love seeing how people live and travel, to use local transport systems instead of sitting in the hotel at night and using taxis. The metro in Bucharest is much faster and probably safer than taxis anyway :) However my local colleagues always cautio…

I think part of it is practice and part is being a big dude.

Check out his book, Dignity. Super good. He does this in the US, hanging in the “worst” neighborhoods. So he has lots of practice.

Re: Walking the World: Bucharest

#50

Post by GekkePrutser »

bernardom wrote: post #49
GekkePrutser wrote: post #27

Wow he's really been around. I visited Bucharest a lot for work and as always on business trips I love walking around and exploring every night. And not just the center. I love seeing how people live and travel, to use local transport systems instead of sitting in the hotel at night and using taxis. The metro in Bucharest is much faster and probably safer than taxis anyway :) However my local colleagues always cautio…

I think part of it is practice and part is being a big dude. Check out his book, Dignity. Super good. He does this in the US, hanging in the “worst” neighborhoods. So he has lots of practice.

True, I'm also a 'big dude'. Some of my colleagues are often terrified when I tell them I walked late at night through an unknown city :)

But I don't scare so easily and I think I have a decent 'radar' for situations that are really not OK, from working in bars for a long time. Of course the first time I'll be proven wrong about this I'll regret this. But anyway. I need this to make me feel free on a business trip, when so much of my schedule is already set in stone.

Having said that I have seen some heartbreaking stuff in Romania. I saw a woman with a baby sleeping on the street (thankfully in summer). Another time one woman approached me offering sex just so she could stay in my warm hotel room (it was -15C at the time). I felt so bad she had so little she was willing to go that far (she was clearly not a professional, those tend to dress differently). Of course I didn't take her up on it but I gave her some money though I didn't have a lot on me. It really made me sad to see this.

And another time there was an old lady in the subway begging for money, with the usual accoutrements like a shopping bag with blankets etc. I gave her some money and spoke to her for a while and to my surprise she had excellent English. Turned out she wasn't homeless at all but she was a school teacher who was cheated out of most of her state pension by some privatisation scheme imposed just before she retired, and really needed money for her husband's medical treatments.

Sure she could have been scamming me but she was razor sharp and she could tell me exactly what was going on in the world. Not a typical homeless person on the booze. She told me a lot about how old people are getting the short end of the stick right now in Romania and young people get all the opportunities. She also didn't try to ask for more money at any point (though I did give her more after we'd been speaking so long as I felt really bad for "blocking" her chance of collecting more).

What shocked me a lot is that the benefits of joining the EU seem to be exclusively falling to young people and the old are completely left out. Right beside our fancy office tower there was a block where some people had plastic bags for windows. I would stand there at the coffee dock trying to look away. So sad. I think when they joined the EU we should have made more point of the benefits being spread fairly.

You can see the same on the streets. Brand new $100.000 Mercedeses and Audis among Dacias that have clearly been built during communist rule. There seems to be almost no middle class, with the exception of the upcoming young generation.

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