Timpuri Vechi
THE WAY IT USED TO BE
From Raggle-Taggle,
by Walter Starkie, 1933
Bucharest always had for me something of ancient Baghdad’s appeal and I imagined it as a miniature city of the Arabian Nights. Travellers who had visited it came back with tales of Oriental luxury and brilliance that eclipsed Paris, the city of light. How could it help being a dazzling city when it combined the rich colours of the Turk with the classical elegance of the Greek? In the folklore of the Roumanian villages the fairy city is always Bucharest, and in my wanderings among the peasantry and the Gypsies they would draw for me fantastic pictures of unbridled luxury and exotic vices that recalled Imperial Rome.
When I
arrived in Bucharest Station...I was unable to see any beauty...and
I only saw dirt and squalor everywhere ... At the end of the Calea Grivitei we turn onto the Calea Victoriei, which is the main artery of the capital. |
 |
| So important is it that it has given rise to the proverb | Calea Victoriei in the 1930
from Bucuresti Interbelic |
''Bucharest is the town of one street, one church and one idea.'' It is a
curious straggling street and for some reason brought back to my mind the
Calle de Sierpes of Seville. Like the Sevillean street, it attracts all the
picturesque loungers of the city, but the crowd is cosmopolitan instead of
being regional. In fact the Calea Victoriei irresistibly suggests the Paris
boulevard in miniature. There is the same clear atmosphere and the same bright
buildings. Even the motor horns make the same squeaking sound and the cars
bustle noisily through the streets. The people on the footpaths are more voluble
than the Parisian flaneurs and the ladies are so smart that I imagined
I was gazing at the gayer Paris that we used to know before the War ...
One of the first sights that interested me was a group of Gypsy flower-sellers
hawking their fresh blooms everywhere ...in restaurants and cafes these Gypsy
girls and street vendors are a great nuisance, for every moment they want
the harried guest to buy their wares and the waiters allow them to persecute
with impunity. I have seen men in white robes and wearing the fez of the Turk
come in to sell penknives, photographs of naked women, brooches, Turkish carpets
and embroideries.
The colours of Bucharest too exercise a siren’s charm upon the foreigner.
The houses glistened white and gold under the sun and later in the afternoon
became touched with pink. The sky was so blue that it resounded like a clarion
on my brain ...
In my long progress along the Calea Victoriei, and during my initiation to
the haunts of Bucharest luxury, I hardly saw a woman who had not a good figure…
Of course, the smart figure and fashionable appearance is only obtained by
a quasi-religious dedication on the part of the Bucharest lady, and in no
city have I seen so much powder and paint. Some people say that such aids
to beauty are necessary because the Romanian woman’s complexion is her
weakest point, but I do not agree with them; the golden pallor of many of
these women looks more beautiful when it is left au naturel. When it is whitened
or rouged the face becomes the thin mask or loupe, common to Berlin,
London, Paris or New York, and we are left with only the consolation of those
wide, dark eyes.
The higher I advanced up the street, the more imposing the buildings became,
until I reached the Chausee, where the smart people of Bucharest meet. I passed
the Royal Palace, the fine University building, and then the National Theatre
with its majestic entrance. On all sides I saw luxurious hotels and restaurants.
Now that the sun was sinking the lights began to shine in the windows and
a greater crowd began to fill the street. It is said that at this hour of
the evening you may meet every diplomat, every cocotte and every Gypsy. Every
nationality seemed to be represented in this crowded pageant, and I heard
French, German, Italian, Hungarian, Russian as well as Roumanian in the space
of a hundred yards.
