Weekend in Bucharest

If you are looking for a hotel that feels just like home, Hotel Opera is the place. Reopened in December 2002, Hotel Opera is perfectly placed in a central cultural and business area of Bucharest in a really quiet corner close to the Cişmigiu Garden.

Paintings depict the city during the previous century, and silver objects and porcelain add a distinctive note to each room. Warm colours and the quality of personalized services transform it in a unique executive business hotel that combines the glamour of the beginning of the 20th century with today’s comfort standards.

The rooms offer modern comfort in a traditional manner perfectly suited both for business and for leisure. On the seventh floor there is a conference room and a business lounge, as well as a place for playing games and relaxation.

It is a small hotel of only 33 rooms:

- 4 executive rooms with the names of operas: Aida, Boema, Tosca, and Travita

- 3 junior suites with the names of operas: Rigoletto, Nabuci, and Carmen

- 20 double rooms

- 6 single rooms

All rooms are air-conditioned and have a bathroom/shower, hair dryer, a mirror for make-up, cable and satellite TV, high-speed Internet access, a minibar, international phone-calling opportunities, a coffeemaker, and some rooms for people with special needs.

The hotel does not have its own restaurant, but many excellent restaurants, including fast food, are within walking distance.

Manuc Mirzaian is one of the most interesting and controversial characters of Romanian history. Born in 1769 in Rusciuk (today in Bulgaria), he found his way with the Turkish officials, receiving the Moldovian throne in 1808.

The important inheritance that he received after the death of his father helped him greatly. He bought some land near the Old Princiary Court, which was auctioned at the beginning of the 19th century, and built an inn between 1806 and 1808. The inn was built on three levels, including 15 vaulted cellars, several shops, deposits, dormitories for servants, kitchens, and dormitories and office rooms. The inner court housed a cafe.

After his protector, the great vizier, fell into disgrace and was murdered, Manuc left for Vallahia and went on the Russian side. After 1810, Manuc made himself useful to both sides, both Turkish and Russian.

Invited to Constantinople and not honouring the invitation, Manuc leaves Vallachia, and in 1814 he reappears as a state counsellor in Russia. As such, he is being approved of making a new commercial town in Bessarabia (today’s Republic of Moldova), buying in this sense a piece of land at Hancesti. The project soon comes to an end, without anything being done, as a result of his mysterious death on June 20, 1817.

After Manuc’s death, his inn in Bucharest has different roles. Thus, in 1861 it becomes a hotel, and in 1916 and around World War I it serves as meeting place of all political parties, while nowadays travellers see it restored to its initial functioning as a hotel with a restaurant and a wine cellar.

It's nice to have a coffee break here, but service needs improvement. Just go on and take a look!

Built in the 1880s as a posh restaurant and hotel, the Restaurant Capşa has become internationally reputed. Shortly after Romania’s entry into World War I, half of the country was under occupation. Well, Capşa became an important meeting club of the occupation army, a sort of club of the superiors of the said army.

Stories of the old tell how a general of the occupation army, a regular guest of the restaurant, having his coffee after lunch, spits on the floor to his right. The waiter, not saying a thing, brings a silvery bowl and puts it on the table for his guest’s convenience, on the side where he had previously spit. After a while, the guest, the general, spits again, now on his left. The waiter duly takes the bowl and moves it on the other side of the table. The general, really annoyed, told him, “If you don’t take that thing immediately away, I’ll spit in it!” not realising the bowl was intended exactly for this purpose.

The building (restaurant and hotel) has the very French look that was so modern at the end of the 19th century in Bucharest. The restaurant is highly specialised in French food and also serves some Romanian dishes. For a three-course meal, including drinks, one should count on around spending $20. The hotel itself re-opened in 2003 after a rather long break and offers the usual services of a five-star hotel.

I recommend it anytime to anyone wanting a special dinner out in town. The staff at Capşa can actually do the dinner special for you.

It is seemingly the oldest intact building in Bucharest--from the Old Court only ruins can be seen. Built from 1558 to 1559 by Prince Mircea Ciobanul on the place of an older one (14th century), it resembles the church of the Monastery of Cozia on the Olt Valley, which was at the time Princiary Necropolis. It was finished, however, by his son, successor to the Valahian throne, Petru the Younger. It was the latter who brought some minor changes and finally painted it.

 

As the Church of the Princiary Court, it had a place of ointment of the ruling princes. This procession included the sacrificing of two young ox at the entrance in the church. Following tradition, the ruling prince, when going through the ox’s blood, became brave and ready for war.

 

Ştefan Cantacuzino brought some changes about in 1714 and 1715. The entrance portal was changed, he brought down the wall between the nave and nartex and repainted the church on the inside, while the outside was painted white.

 

Some further changes were brought about in the 18th century. However, the Big Fire that caught Valahian in 1847 destroys many of the changes made to the Church of the Old Court. From 1849 to1852, the architect J. Schlatter tried to get the church closer to its original state by undoing the changes of the 18th century and restoring the painting. He, however, added a tower and an exonartex to the church. Beginning with 1928, a series of renovation works began to get the church as close to its initial outlook as possible.

The old St. George’s Church was raised in 1562 on the location of a smaller wooden church by the Minister of the Interiors Nedelco Bălăceanu, counsellor to the ruling princes Mircea Ciobanul, Petru the Younger, Alexandru II Mircea, and Mihnea Vodă. Thirteen years later it was rebuilt by Minister of Finances Nedelcu-Mitrea.

 

Its importance in Romanian history is great. Especially if we consider that it was, for 30 years, the Valahian Mitropoly during the 15th and the 16th century. Moreover, the church had an important role in the history of the teaching in Bucharest. Brâncoveanu had made a School of Writing and Romanian language, beginning in 1687.

 

Destroyed by Sinan-Pasha in 1595, when he put fire to Bucharest, burnt down in 1718 and 1847, it has been restored each time. In 1875 it was demolished, only to be rebuilt in 1881. Its latest outlook includes an iconostasis in the Ukrainian baroque style and paintings after Gh. Tattarescu, one of the greatest Romanian painters.

 

In 1705, this church became quite small, and the need for a new one was evident. So, building works at the New St. George’s Church began with the initiative of Dosthei, Patriarch of Jerusalem. It was begun by Panaiotache Nicusios and Antonie Vodă and finished by Constantin Brâncoveanu, the ruler of the country. The plan of the church reproduces the plan of the church of the Hurezu Monastery (see the journal on Wonderful Oltenia). At the time people found it really nice, understandably so--paintings are made by Pârvu Mutu, one of the greatest church painters of the time.

 

The importance of the New St. George’s Church is also great: after the execution of Constantin Brâncoveanu and all his sons in Constantinopolis, Lady Maria, Brâncoveanu's spouse, brought the head of the Valahian ruler and buries it here in the church. Nothing indicated the burial place but a small candle, on the opposite wall to the place, placed by Lady Maria to light on “the bones of the happy ruler.” The candle was found 1914 by Nicolae Iorga, an important Romanian historian, 200 years after the death of the ruler.

The church was built in 1656 by the ruling prince Constantin Şerban the Snub-Nosed and Lady Bălaşa on the foundations of a wooden hermitage, but it was finished by Mihail Radu Mihnea III. It has its festivity on the day of the Saint Emperors Constantin and Helen. It was the same period the Mitropoly’s Palace was raised, a palace that has been widened during the 17th century.

In 1688 it took over the title of the Valahian Mitropolitan Seat from the Old St. George’s Church. In 1886 the church was repainted by Gh. Tattarescu. From its original painting remains only the icon of its festivity, the icon of the Saint Emperors Constantin and Helen.

In 1744, Russian General Saltâkov brought from Rusciuk (today’s Bulgaria) the relics of the Saint Dimitrie Basarabov, with the intent to bring them to Russia. He was convinced to leave them to the Mitropoly, and the saint became the protector of the city. During World War I, the Bulgarian army stole the relics. The Prefect of Bucharest intervened, asking a German detachment to catch up with them and bring the relics back. They duly accepted and the relics were brought back to the Mitropoly.

In 1678, the Metropolitan Bishop Varlaam installed a second publishing house at the Mitropoly. The first book printed here was The Clue of Meaning. Other books followed in several languages (Greek, Slavone, Arabian, and Turkish, the first book printed in Turkish in Bucharest). Of utter importance to the Romanian language was the Bible, printed at the Mitropolitan Seat of Bucharest.

In 1925, when the Romanian Orthodox Church was raised to the level of a Patriarchy, the church became the Patriarchal Cathedral Romania’s, alongside Valahia’s Mitropoly.

Also on the Patriarchy’s Hill, the place of the meeting room of the Divan (the first form of Parliament in Valahia) and the meeting place for discussions of the Union of Moldova and Valahia in 1859, the Parliament’s Palace has been constructed in 1907. It is proven too little by 1996, when the one of the chambers of the Parliament moves to the House of the People (now Parliament’s House) and the building is taken over by the Patriarchy.

In 1679, the Ruling Prince Şerban Cantacuzino started a princiary school at the Monastery of St. Sava, a school that soon became the first renowned Romanian school.

 

In 1695, Constantin Brâncoveanu developed a high school that became known as the Romanian Academy. Beginning with the 18th century onwards, the school was lead by the Patriarchy of Jerusalem. It is in this period it got a well-defined status through the “The Order of the Teachers of St. Sava of Bucharest,” an order that was put together by the Patriarch of Jerusalem.

 

At first, Greek was the teaching language, but in 1818, G. Lazăr opened another school at the Monastery of St. Sava, the teaching language in Romanian. Yet, until 1821, the two schools worked simultaneously. Students read about logic, rhetoric, physics, “About the Sky,” “About bearing and passing over,” “About the Soul,” metaphysics, Greek classics, history, poetry, and the new Greek. The students were mainly the ruling princes and their family, as well as the nobles of the time, both from the country and from other countries, always only men. All were interns, and the poorer ones received even bursaries from the state, no matter if they were citizens or from overseas. Altogether, there were 150 to 200 students, numbers that included overseas students.

 

The school had its own publishing house, which split in the 19th century into the State’s Publishing House and Monitorul Oficial, the latter publishing all statutes issued.

In 1679, the building of the Cotroceni Monastery began--the location was in middle in the thick forests to the west of the capital. The palace of the ruling princes, attached to the monastery, belonged to it, though the prince had the right to use it as a residence. Works ended around 1682, when the prince dedicated the monastery to the Holy Mount of Athos (Greece).

 

The Cotroceni Monastery was by far not the only one dedicated either to the Mount of Athos or to other Greek monasteries. That is, they actually belonged to the Greek monasteries, together with their entire possessions, which were substantial in most cases. In 1863, after the personal union of Moldova and Valahia through Alexandru Ioan Cuza, the Prince nationalises the possessions of the monasteries on Romanian ground. After this date, the relation between the monastery and the princiary houses changes. The latter become residences with a political character, while the church becomes a simple church of court.

 

Carol I, the first Romanian king, used Cotroceni also as a residence but brought some changes about through the French Architect Paul Gottereau. In 1888, HM gives the Palace to Prince Ferdinand as a permanent residence. In 1940, the palace suffers because of the earthquake.

 

At the beginning of the communist rule in Romania, the Cotroceni Palace belongs to various ministries, becoming in the end the Palace of the Pioneers, a sort of meeting place for children, where they were taught and carried out different activities. In 1984, the church was being destroyed, and 80 square meters of its frescoes are now seen in the Arts Museum of Bucharest.

 

From 1974 to 1985, under the Romanian dictator, the palace underwent vast restoration and reconstruction works. It got a Southern wing that became the presidential residence. This Southern wing is still used as the presidential residence nowadays. Most of the rest can be visited. Taking pictures or filming is not allowed, while mobiles with cameras need to be deposited with all cameras at the entrance.

We have been talking about now about Constantin Brâncoveanu, the Valahian ruler who managed to introduce a most particular architectural style in his country. It was he again who, in 1692, made a new road, “The Mogoşoaia Bridge.”

 

The new road started at the Brâncoveanu Palace at the Dâmboviţa River and led all the way through to the ruler’s possessions in Mogoşoaia (see article on Castles around Bucharest: Mogoşoaia Castle). At that time, on the main roads of the Capital, oak bridges were built, employing 25-30cm-thick and about 8m-long oak trunks that were laid across the road, with two oak foots, one on each side. Between the 2 feet, a ditch of bricks of 50 to 80cm was built, with cesspools at every 150m to collect the rain water. This made walking more pleasant when raining, not having to walk through mud.

 

It was this road that was to become one of the most important roads of the city. Residences of the higher classes were built here, along with churches, luxury shops, hotels and inns, restaurants, and public institutions. More so, after the Independence War, the victorious Romanian armies marched down this road, giving its new name, Victory Road (Calea Victoriei), a name that it keeps today.

At the beginning of the 18th century, the Greek monk Ioanikie Stratnikeas of the Goura Monastery in the Greek Macedonia started a journey to collect funds for Greek churches. We need to consider that many Valahian (and Moldovan) churches and monasteries of the time were dedicated to Greek monasteries (being also of Orthodox faith), including important pieces of land and properties in the country.

 

While in Valahia, between 1722 and 1724, he built an inn, the Stavropoleos Inn, and next to it a chapel that had to become a church in 1724. Two years later, Stratnikeas becomes Mitropolite of Stavropoleos.

 

The church became famous because of its valuable carvings in stone and in wood, which must be seen to be believed. Small and highly decorated with its carvings, it makes a good impression on each traveller’s eyes--it will be one of the buildings of Bucharest you will never forget. And that is quite understandable. This church was one of the richest ones in whole of Valahia, a fact that it does not forget to show.

 

In 1733, Ioanikie dedicated the church, the inn, and the house to the Goura Monastery in Greece. Less than 10 years later, he dies and is buried in the church.

 

In 2005 I found the church under renovation that hopefully will not alter the look that made it famous.

At the 2005 George Enescu Festival, we attended the concert given by the Schubert Ensemble at the Romanian Athenaeum. Brilliant performers and the nicest concert hall of Bucharest is what we got.

 

The birth of the Romanian Athenaeum was around 1865, during the period of the unification of Moldova and Vallachia to become Romania. The idea started with three people: V. A. Urechia, Constantin Esarcu, and Nicolae Kretulescu.

 

It is first in 1886 that the scientific society receives its legal personality, a body holding conferences on different issues of the time. This is the moment when the Athenaeum is given, by law, a piece of land in Bucharest, on which it should build its office. Problems arise, as it has too little money.

 

When inside, one will wonder at its architecture: a round hall. The reason for building it so came less because of acustics, but rather because before the ground being given to the Athenaeum; it was planned to build a circus here. The foundations were already in place and it was imposed on the Athanaeum to keep these foundations. This imposed the whole architecture of the halls. Being short of space, the four stairs from the entrance hall leading to the first floor are in a snail form, with a break in the form of a rounded balcony with a view on the central part of the entrance hall, bordered by 12 columns covered with an immitation of rosa marble. The round form of the main hall proved, however, very good for conferences and concerts.

Its facade was inspired by the Erechteion Temple in Athens, while the circular middle, with its cupola, was inspired by Lysicratos’ Monument in Athens.

 

The Athenaeum was used first only for academic conferences until after World War I, when it was used by the government. It was here that the unification of Transylvania, Basarabia, and Bucovina with Romania was voted at the session on December 29, 1919. Now it functions as the most prestigious concert hall of the Romanian Capital.

In 1891, at the 25th anniversary of his reign, Charles I of Romania donated the necessary money to build a university close to his royal residence. Some 4 years later, the institution was ready for inauguration.

Among the objectives HM set for the university was building a library, which initially hosted 3,400 volumes, most of which were donated by His Majesty himself (this being the first university library); facilitating the study for undergraduate and for postgraduate degrees; providing bursaries for poor, though brilliant students; and also printing students’ works and PhD thesis. While in the beginning there was a pretty high control from the side of His Majesty, after gaining some experience, the institution also gained more independence.

The number of students grew steadily, so by 1914, a second building, the one in today’s University Square, had been bought. Both buildings were designed by the French architect Paul Gottereau, an influential architect in Bucharest of that time (his are also the plans for the headquarters of the Economies’ House).

It is the achievement of HM Charles I that up until World War I, the University of Bucharest was able to make ends meet within its budget, as the Royal Family in fact administered its finances and made sure to keep it without the reach of political parties. Charles I dies in October 1914, and his successor, a nephew of his, Ferdinand, decides under the pressure of the political parties to enter the war. Just a few months later, Bucharest and half of the country sees itself occupied by the allied armies of the Austrian empire and Bulgaria. The University of Bucharest had to stop any teaching and research activity during these times. After the war, the national currency was strongly devalued and the university could not maintain itself from its own budget, so it needed subsidies.

The planning of the House of the People, as it was called during Communist times, started in 1982, involving several hundred architects. Two years later, some 25% of the whole budget of the executive was invested in order to start the building of the grandiose palace. Needless to say, the economy of the country became worse each year, culminating with the revolution in 1989.

To build the House of the People and the Research Institute nearby (intended for Elena Ceauşescu, the dictator’s wife) and the whole complex of ministries, institutes, and flats for the leaders of the country and for the members of the Communist Party, a whole part of the city was destroyed, just to build it all on the most seismic stable hill of Bucharest. It is said that one sixth of the city was destroyed during Communist time, the biggest ever destruction in times of peace.

It should have been the second biggest building in the world in terms of the surface it occupies (the Pentagon in the US is bigger than the House of the People) or the third biggest building in terms of its inner volume, just after Keop’s Pyramid. Its function: an administrative building, with facilities for press releases and meeting the press and holding conferences. Its advantages went further: it had a balcony for speeches to the masses, which overlooked a square where some 600,000 persons could gather, double the size of the square in front of the former Central Committee (now, Square of the Revolution), where Ceauşescu held his last speech in December 1989. Ceauşescu could not use it, however. By the end of 1989, only half of the building has been finished (while thousands of workers worked in three shifts, which meant they were working 24 hours a day). The first person to talk from the balcony was Michael Jackson in 1994, who upset his fans from Bucharest by greeting with, "Hello Budapest," the capital of the neighbouring country, Hungary.

Now the building is about 90% finished and can be visited. A visit is worthwhile to see luxuriant rooms. Some two rooms are used presently by the Parliament, while various rooms can be rented for various events.

January 21, 1941, a rebellion of the legionaries of Romania broke out, lasting for some 3 days. At that moment, a pogrom against the Jews was started. Soldiers were burned and citizens mistreated, and much more happened in the streets of and in the woods around Bucharest. The nightmare lasted for some 60 hours. Of the 236 people who died, 118 were Jews.

The Jewish Museum in Bucharest has been organised in a synagogue as soon as 1978. It is located in the old Jewish quarter of the city, downtown in Bucharest. Here, some 60 years ago, this was the place where much of the commerce of the town took place. Now the area is enclosed by a circle of blocs of flats, built during Communist rule. It is hoped, however, that this part of the city will shortly rise again.

In the very centre of the museum there is a statue of the Holocaust, a symbol of the dead of all pogroms. The statue has no head and it is hollow inside. Leading to it is a so-called “Road of the Death,” on which one can recognise footprints. All prints seem to lead only one way, in the direction of the Holocaust, as there is no return from death. The visitors learn that two former Auschwitz prisoners were asked to walk barefoot on the symbolic road to the death. In front of the statue there are six light bulbs switched on for the 6 million dead of the Holocaust.

Except the frightening statue, there are in the museum various objects to show the history of the Jews on Romanian grounds. There are reasons to think that the first Jews arrived in this area shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem. In the Roman Army that conquered Dacia, the ancient country that covered the area of today’s Romania, under the emperor Trajanus, there should have been a Jewish corpus too.

The fact is that the doctors at the princiary courts were Jews, especially in Moldova. Between the 15th and 18th centuries, there are plenty of documents attesting the presence of Jewish doctors at the courts of Stefan the Great, Vasile Lupu, and Nicolae Mavrocordat. Even in the army of Mihai Viteazu, who succeeded around 1600 to unite the Romanian principalities the first time after the Roman period, there were Jewish soldiers. Many cities have been made by Jews, especially in Moldova, where Jews were brought from other countries by the rulers or by the nobility to get the economy in a better state. Despite this, the Jews did not get any political rights in the Romanian principalities; even though they got commercial privileges, they were not recognised as citizens. The revolution at 1848 wanted to give all the inhabitants of Romania the right to claim citizenship. From 1877 to 1878, some 4,000 Jews were fighting alongside Romanians in the Independence War of the country. After the victory, they were made Romanian citizens. As late as 1918, all inhabitants of the country were given the right to Romanian citizenship, a time when the Romanian national state was founded. Since, very little time has elapsed.

Not everyone agreed to this right of citizenship given to “foreigners.” So right afterwards, the Iron Guard was formed. It followed the rebellion of the legionaries and the Communist regime that suppressed the scandal, without bringing it to an end. That was the issue of a free and democratic Romanian society that was built after the downturn of Communism in 1989. To a greater extent, we may say that has been solved.

Bucharest was alternating with Curtea de Argeş (the first capital) and Târgovişte during the second half of the 16th century and the first half of the 17th century as the capital city of Valahia. The main residence of the ruling prince was directly dependent of his politics--a filo-Turkish approach (Bucharest was the option), or an intent of independence (Curtea de Argeş was, in this case, the option).

In1632, a traveller through Bucharest wrote that it was a city "without any fortifications, laid in a region that is rich in grains and full of cattle of all sorts, of grapes and fruits; fish is abundant, the Danube being not far, at some 30 miles, and many lakes even closer to the city. This city has, on all streets and squares wooden bridges, as, being in a plain, when it rains, it gets muddy, and horses, carts and people alike walk the streets and squares on these bridges."

 

And indeed Bucharest has grown to a cosmopolitan city. It has had a Protestant church since 1574 and a Catholic church since 1637 in an Orthodox country. However, its economy entered a boom during the Fanariot period (1715-1821), when the Turks appointed the Rulers from the members of the Greek community of Constantinople, today’s Istanbul. It was a period of high corruption (in order to get things done), when Bucharest took advantage both of a sudden increase in population and of the underground economy, just like in recent years, after the downturn of Romanian communism.

 

During communist rule, Bucharest suffered the most--a grandiose one-sixth of the city had been destroyed, the greatest destruction of a city in times of peace. From the architectural point of view, Bucharest itself does look in a pretty good state, despite the great destruction of communism. It mainly takes a few steps beyond the modern buildings to get to see the nice old centre. If you have done so, you will find a complete image of Bucharest: buildings date as far back as 1558, many from the 18th and 19th centuries and some of a more recent date, including some important ones built during the communist rule.

 

In more recent times, Bucharest has grown considerably in size, reaching 2.5 million inhabitants, more than 10% of the country’s population. Quite understandably, people from other Romanian cities do feel overwhelmed when trying to get at grips with the whole hectic aura of the capital or when trying to make their way through the very Latin-style traffic here.

 

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