Grand Bucharest

Bucharest has many parks, but Herastrau Park also called King Michael I Park of Romania is the most celebrated. With 463 acres of land on the shores of Herastrau Lake it is not only the most varied and largest park in the capital city, but also the largest park inside any European city.  Its ample space causes it to seldom seem crowded.  Visitors can take a boat ride on the lake, walk through the Japanese gardens, and visit the Herastrau Aquarium.  Kids can romp in a spacious playground, and young lovers and well as us older ones can picnic or find a shady park bench to just sit a while. 

While I am confident the park is spectacular in the spring and fall, this summer’s heat and several year-long droughts have taken a toll on the park.    Everything is parched, what little grass is left, is brown and withered, many conifers stand dark, having fallen dead to dryness and pests, the Japanese Gardens have no water nor koi fish under its arched bridges or in its pools, and the usually clear lake is green and stagnant looking.  Normally the tall buildings in the city across the lake are reflected in the lake’s waters, but not this year.   Certainly though, the park will be restored to its usual splendor when the rains finally come.  And they will come.

What we found most interesting in the park is the Dimitrie Gusti National Village Museum.  It is a huge open-air space where houses, barns, work sheds, and other out-building used in Romanian peasant villages in the 18^th and 19th centuries have been physically relocated to this spot from various parts of the country.  Most of the up to 300-year-old houses and barns had been constructed from unimaginably large logs and boards.  Some houses were made of boards 2 feet wide, and 15 feet long taken from first-growth oak and fir trees from the forests of The Carpathian Mountains, Transylvania, and Moldova.  Imagine the strength and manpower it might have taken to fell the trees, chop out the notches, and plane boards smooth to build these beautiful homey structures.  Oddly, nearly every building was also decorated with faded painted folk art and elaborate carvings that looked very similar to home and farm decorations in Scandinavian peasant communities.  Some of the 272 authentic houses and farm buildings were moved to this spot nearly 100 years ago in 1936 when this park was founded.  As we walked past some of the houses and peeked inside, I sensed a hard-working, peaceful, romantic family life, one that had I been born in this country during those times I would feel satisfied.

Michael Jackson performed here in Bucharest during his 1992 Dangerous World Tour. He greeted the roaring crowd of 90,000 people and those listening and watching in 60 countries around the world with “Hello, Budapest!” The people didn’t care. Madonna and Metallica did the same thing! He returned for another sellout performance in 1996 in his final HIStory World Tour. After his death in 2009, the city erected a small monument in his honor at the Charles de Gaulle entrance of Herastrau Park, near the Arcul de Triumf. Still the King of Pop.

It is blistering hot here.  The high temperature often hovers around 105 degrees.  The locals say it feels humid but to this Arkansas girl, it is dry.  I cannot imagine this heat coupled with the kind of humidity we know in our deep south.   Although Stan and I try to get out early, about four hours out there is all we can endure.  The cloudless sky and its heat are draining and take away the fun.  Even the locals are having a hard time.  Restaurants cannot sell food.  It is too hot to eat.  They cannot sell coffee or wine.  It is just too hot for that, but they CAN sell beer.  Beer and bottled water are hot commodities.

Stan planned our 4-hour day recently and cheers to that man!  He enlisted the help of the GPSMyCity App which took us to the most beautiful parts of Bucharest.  We started out early.  It was a relief to forget for a while the suffering this country has endured over the years and to simply relish and appreciate the grandeur that seemed to be prevalent here in the late 1800’s.   Some of the most beautiful 19th-century buildings, opera houses, museums, and military buildings one could imagine are along Calea Victoriel or Victory Avenue, a long street just a block from our apartment.  It is the city’s oldest, most charming, and most important street, and if a person can only see one part of Bucharest, this is the place to see.  Because we visited on a Saturday the broad boulevards ordinarily busy with traffic were blocked off for pedestrians only.  How civilized it was to walk this grand area in peace and serenity.  Block after block

The jewel on this grand street is the Romanian Athenaeum concert hall.  It hosts the biggest classical conductors and soloists in the world.   An important musical festival is launched in Bucharest this week.  It celebrates a Romanian composer, George Enescu.  I don’t know much about him or his music, but I would love to be in the grand Romanian Athenaeum concert hall to hear a famed philharmonic orchestra.  This prestigious landmark concert hall is a spectacle to see.  Opened in 1888, it is a building that should not be and cannot be missed.  Its French-designed, neo-classic architecture commands awe with its massive columned entryway, great dome, enormous chandelier, and elaborately carved arches and marble staircases.  It is the showcase building in one of the most beautiful parts of the city.   While it is important to see and feel, understand, and remember the tragic history of Romania, it is likewise necessary to see and appreciate the country’s grandest moments.

It is unheard of to leave Bucharest without a tour of the Palace of the Parliament, once known as the People’s House built by the communist leader of Romania until he was overthrown and killed following a 1989 revolution. It is the icon of Bucharest. We joined a guided tour group so we could see the best parts and also save time. Still visitors can only see a small portion of this tremendously big building. It has hundreds of rooms, three museums, and an international conference center and is the seat of the two chambers of the Parliament of Romania. Offices for Parliament members and Deputies of the Chamber representatives and their support staffs are housed in the great structure, yet 70% of the building remains empty. After our tour, Stan and I remarked, “Check done!”

A moment about where we are.  Both Poland and Romania border the Ukraine.  They have a kinship; they are neighbors and, in some cases, family.  The war is real and raw here.  While it may have become second-page news in other parts of the world, fierce battles take place in eastern Ukraine every day.  We saw this most keenly in our visit to church last Sunday.  We heard testimony from families who just left their homes in Ukraine.  We heard stories from missionaries currently serving there and we heard tearful prayers for the people.

Maybe I can put this into perspective.  Imagine Texas is Russia (no offense, Texas; please pardon the analogy).  Now let’s say that Texas invaded Oklahoma and is bombarding its towns with gunfire, missiles, and bombs.  Oklahomans are being killed as communities, schools and services are being destroyed.    Imagine living in one of the states that border Oklahoma.  Do you have friends and relatives in Oklahoma?  Is your family and business in danger?  Could Texas invade your state? 

A destructive, murderous situation is happening in Ukraine, children . . . children are included in the fatalities.  Ukraine’s neighboring countries feel the threat of danger.  Their future and the future of their children are in jeopardy.  Today’s war is just that close to the people here.  Bombs kill.  Let us not become jaded.  This is real and it is happening to people very much like ourselves.

Enough!  I wish I had an answer.  I wish I had an answer for many things . . . welfare, world hunger, war, greed, bombs, automatic weapons, peoples’ rights, women’s rights, the lack of access to higher education in America, the cure for cancer and heart disease.

I just wish.

P.S.  We bought ourselves two tickets to last night’s performance of the Orchestra Simfonica WDS Din Koln at the Romanian Atheneum Concert Hall, with Romanian conductor Christian Macelaru and German soloist, Matthias Goerne, both famous in this part of the world.  The audience sat rapt in the moving, magical, and powerful performance.  As if he both physically attacked the music and then soothed it into submission, the conductor led the orchestra with great passion.    The musicians were like waves on the ocean; choirs of violinists, violists, and base violinists moved together in perfect precision as they felt and reacted to each note they played.  Percussionists patiently waited their time to clash the cymbals or to fill the room with a dramatic roar of the snare drums.  While Stan and I may not often attend a symphony performance in lieu of a Smokey Robinson concert, this was a highlight of our trip.

Farewell to Bucharest.  We are off to the cool air of the mountains tomorrow, Brasov, Romania.