We are in Piata Romana — Roman Square. Traffic swirls around us, funneled into and out of the circular intersection by six converging roads. This is modern Bucharest: shiny vehicles shuffling for space, ornately European commercial buildings framed with gaudy advertising billboards, crowds of purposeful pedestrians milling at every crossing.
Cualquiera que sea el camino que elijamos aquí, nos llevará en un viaje no sólo a través de la capital de Rumania sino también a través de una sección transversal de la historia de la ciudad.
Los giros en sentido antihorario del tráfico en este concurrido cruce son apropiados: en el transcurso de un viaje de 30 minutos retrocederemos en el tiempo.
Let's go south, along General Gheorghe Magheru Boulevard. If this broad, tree-lined avenue reminds you of Paris, the French planners commissioned by Romania's King Carol I in the 19th century did their job. Under their guidance, a haphazard patchwork of medieval neighborhoods was flattened and replaced with a sophisticated layout of mansion-lined streets and leafy parks. It was not the last time that a ruler stamped his mark on the fabric of Bucharest.
The boulevard passes within a couple of blocks of Revolution Square, where four decades of communist rule came to an end 22 years ago. We pass the distinctive skyscraper housing the InterContinental Hotel, then cross University Square, the scene of some of the heaviest fighting during the 1989 revolution. Look carefully and you'll see that some of the buildings are still bullet-pocked.
The revolution culminated with the execution of the country's communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu. Nearly a quarter of a century later, his ideology has been comprehensively swept away by free-market economics, but his memory stubbornly lingers in one of the greatest follies of 20th-century city planning.
As we drive south, we cross an avenue designed on a monumental scale. The receding lines of the road, with neatly planted trees and ranks of stone apartment blocks on each side, converge in the hazy distance at the foot of the world's second-biggest building (after the Pentagon), Ceausescu's "House of the People."
One-sixth of Bucharest was bulldozed in the 1980s to make way for the avenue and the mammoth marble edifice at the far end. Around 70,000 people were relocated from their condemned homes, while 26 historic churches, three monasteries and two synagogues fell victim to the wrecking balls.
The project was on too grand a scale to undo after the fall of communism, so the city has had to make the best of the deceased dictator's overblown architectural legacy. The House of the People (which, in fact, was intended to house Ceausescu and his wife as well as the Communist Party headquarters) has become the seat of Romania's democratic government.
Seguimos adelante, pasando entre las sombrías hileras de bloques de apartamentos de hormigón que delatan la verdadera cara de la antigua Rumanía. En los suburbios, los bloques de apartamentos se intercalan cada vez más con pintorescas casas de madera detrás de vallas.
With a final flourish of brand-new industrial buildings and a vast French-owned supermarket, the city ends and the countryside begins. Centuries of development and political upheaval are left behind. We pass through villages that appear timeless. Elderly women in traditional dress amble along the roadside. Horse-drawn carts loaded with hay trundle along the highway. Signs warn of crossing livestock.
While Bucharest has already marched into the 21st century, its rural hinterland is only just beginning the journey. The percentage of the Romanian workforce employed in agriculture (30 percent) is nearly 10 times the average of most European countries, yet the contribution of agriculture to Romania's gross domestic product has halved in the past five years and continues to decline.
Desde que Rumania se unió a la Unión Europea en 2007, la modernización del sector agrícola del país ha sido una de las principales prioridades, con un total de 14.500 millones de euros de inversión prometidos hasta 2013.
In terms of population and land area, Romania is the seventh-largest country in the EU, and yet it currently produces the lowest yields for important crops such as corn, wheat and sunflowers. There is huge potential for agricultural growth, with both foreign investors and local farmers standing to reap the harvest — literal and metaphoric.
Already there are signs that the green revolution is beginning to gain momentum in Bucharest's rural backyard. Antiquated farm machinery is being replaced. Acres of farmland are now encased in efficient plastic greenhouses. And in most villages you will notice, among the traditional homesteads, newly built mansions with top-of-the-range BMWs parked outside. Times are changing.
Quizás la mayor sorpresa es que haya tardado tanto. A partir de 1989, la admisión a la UE fue el objetivo primordial de la Rumania democrática. La preparación fue prolongada y dolorosa e implicó reformar la economía centralizada y desmantelar la burocracia comunista.
Desde que se firmó el trascendental tratado en 2007, muchos rumanos se quejan de que han sido tratados como ciudadanos de segunda clase de la UE. Varios países de la UE, incluidos el Reino Unido, Francia y Alemania, han optado por mantener las restricciones a la inmigración procedente de Rumania hasta 2014.
The delay in sharing the full benefits of EU membership may ultimately work to Romania's advantage. Other EU countries with emerging economies, such as Greece, Ireland and Portugal, rushed to join the euro and then indulged in an orgy of debt-funded spending. Romania has retained its currency, the leu, and is enjoying an export boom.
From January through April 2011, Romanian exports to the rest of the EU were up over the previous year by an astonishing 30.6 percent. In the same quarter, the industrial sector expanded by 10 percent. Car manufacture has led the way. In 1999, the Romanian car maker Dacia was bought by Renault and is now producing a competitive range of vehicles that appeal to increasingly cash-conscious consumers in the EU and Russia.
A newfound sense of pragmatism is starting to reach other sectors. In the first flush of free-market optimism, Bucharest's hospitality industry rushed toward high-end prestige development. A host of 4- and 5-star hotels blossomed around the capital until supply greatly outstripped demand.
The upmarket Continental Hotels logged a €4.8 million loss last year but discovered that its budget 2-star Hello Hotels brand was flourishing. "We want to keep building Hello Hotels and give up 4-star hotels," says Continental's owner, Radu Enache. "The economic outlook suggests that it is better to develop 2-star hotels."
The lengthy delays ahead of Romania's accession to the EU were once a sore point. Today, with an increasingly uncertain economic climate throughout Europe, it appears that the country will be able to learn from the mistakes of other EU members as well as from the lessons of its own totalitarian past.
En el futuro, habrá menos dependencia de proyectos grandiosos. Bucarest ha tenido más de lo que le corresponde. En cambio, se hace hincapié en construir el futuro sobre cimientos sólidos, de manera constante, campo por campo, ladrillo por ladrillo.
DIVERSIONS
Nicolae Ceausescu was not the only ruthless leader to cast an indelible shadow over Bucharest. In the 15th century, Romania was under the grip of a man whose brutality has become the stuff of legend: Vlad Tepes - Vlad the Impaler. His family name was Draculea, thus providing the name and inspiration for Bram Stoker's famous creation, Dracula.
La tumba de Drácula is located within a monastery on a tiny island in the middle of Lago Snagov, 20 miles north of Bucharest. The best way to reach the island from the shore is to row there in a hired boat (ideally on a weekday — the lake is a favorite weekend hang-out for day-trippers from Bucharest and gets very crowded). Vlad the Impaler's simple tomb is located in the gloomy stone interior of the UNESCO-listed Monasterio Snagov. Cuando, en 1931, se descubrió que la tumba estaba vacía, la leyenda de Drácula quedó escalofriantemente reforzada.
De regreso a Bucarest, merece la pena hacer una parada en Palacio de Mogosoaia, una residencia de verano construida en 1700 por el príncipe Constantin Brâncoveanu de Valaquia para su esposa. Hay un modesto museo dentro del palacio, pero para muchos visitantes la principal atracción es Cementerio de Lenin, justo fuera de los muros del palacio. Fue aquí donde las estatuas de Lenin y del primer ministro comunista rumano Petru Groza fueron abandonados sin contemplaciones después de haber sido retirados del centro de Bucarest en 1990.
El punto de inflexión de la revolución de 1989 fue un discurso pronunciado por Ceausescu. a las masas reunidas bajo su balcón en Plaza de la Revolución. The boos of the crowd signaled the end of his autocratic regime. Visibly confused, he was whisked away by helicopter and soon after was caught and executed close to Lake Snagov. That fateful episode is commemorated in the square by the $2 million Memorial of Rebirth, a controversial 75-foot sculpture that has been described as a "potato skewered on a stake."
El Museo Nacional de Arte de Rumania ocupa el antiguo Palacio Real junto a la Plaza de la Revolución y cuenta con una colección que incluye obras de Rembrandt, Tintoretto, El Greco y Monet. Pero su colección más importante es la de iconos medievales y altares de madera rescatados de iglesias rumanas demolidas durante la era comunista.
Several of those churches were flattened to make way for Ceausescu's Bulevar de la Victoria del Socialismo (ahora conocido como Bulevardul Unirii - Union Boulevard) y la enorme mole de mármol del Casa del Pueblo, ahora oficialmente llamado Palacio del Parlamento.
Guided tours of the huge palace are available daily 10 a.m.–4 p.m. and can be booked through your hotel concierge; prepare to be inundated with mind-boggling numbers. The 12-story building has 3,100 completed rooms, including 64 reception halls. When fully lit, the building burns through the equivalent of the entire city's electricity every four hours. Underneath the building there is a network of tunnels, garages and even a nuclear bunker.
La parte trasera del palacio ahora alberga el Museo Nacional de Arte Contemporáneo (abierto de 10 a. m. a 6 p. m., de miércoles a domingo), que es un gran lugar para experimentar la reinvención segura de la expresión cultural de Rumania.
El Museo del Campesino Rumano — a past recipient of the European Museum of the Year award — provides an introduction to the country's timeless rural heritage. The centerpiece is the "house in the house," an actual village cottage that has been deconstructed to allow visitors to peer into it from every angle. In the grounds outside is a relocated 18th-century Transylvanian wooden church.
Llevando aún más lejos el tema rural está el Museo Nacional de la Villa, situado a orillas del lago Herastrau en el norte de Bucarest. Este museo al aire libre, inaugurado originalmente en 1936, recrea la vida de un pueblo rumano con una colección de edificios auténticos.
One aspect of Bucharest's heritage has been lost forever. Before World War II, there were 800,000 Jews residing in Romania. Today they number just 10,000. What remained of the old Jewish Quarter was demolished by Ceausescu in the 1980s. One fragment — a 19th-century synagogue on Ma.mulari Street — survived, and today it houses the intensely moving Jewish History Museum.
Información para llevar
Los vuelos internacionales llegan a Henri Coanda. Aeropuerto Internacional (OTP), a 10 millas al noroeste del centro de Bucarest.
Taxis del aeropuerto: espere pagar $25 por el viaje a la ciudad.
También hay un servicio regular de autobús, que tarda unos 60 minutos (si el tráfico lo permite) y sale cada 15 minutos.
Más información sobre Bucharest public transport
Solo los hechos
Zona horaria: GMT +2
Código telefónico: 4 Rumania, 021 Bucarest
Requisitos de Entrada/Salida: Los ciudadanos estadounidenses deben tener un pasaporte válido para ingresar a Rumania
y puede permanecer hasta 90 días sin visa dentro de un período determinado de seis meses.
Para estancias superiores a 90 días, obtenga una prórroga de estancia en la Oficina de Inmigración rumana.
Moneda: Leu (plural, lei)
Idioma oficial: El rumano es el idioma oficial. El inglés es el segundo idioma más popular, especialmente entre los rumanos más jóvenes.
Industrias clave: Financial services, IT, retail, food and beverage production, agriculture
