Misconceptions about Bucharest

A common theme in Romania is hearing visitors start a conversation with “Romania doesn’t have the best reputation in our country”. This seems to be the case across a lot of Western Europe and it’s fair to say that Romania’s reputation in the UK is not great either. But, ask most people and they’ll struggle to come up with a reasonable argument why.

In recent years, TV shows have often been the source of some of these feelings. ‘Benefit Street’ on Channel 4 for example, is a popular show in the UK that usually causes quite a stir. What was probably intended to be an insight into how some of the poorer people in the UK live, actually just turned out to be another chance for people to laugh at people worse of than themselves.

Despite most of the ‘stars’ of the show being English, there have been some Romanians featured more recently, and what good would the show be without featuring the (supposed) squalor from which they escaped in Romania. Naturally the scenes filmed didn’t paint Romania in the best light but that’s what cemented in people’s minds.

 Side note: At one point during the show the Romanians said they should have stayed in Romania where conditions were better, I’m sure you can imagine the reaction that caused on twitter.

Another hot topic in the UK was the free movement of people within the EU. From the 1^st of January 2014 people from Romania and Bulgaria could move to the UK without already having a job lined up. This, of course, allowed the media to go crazy and soon people were preparing for the invasion of Eastern Europeans.

“They’re all coming over here aren’t they?” was actually said to us on more than one occasion before moving here.

Going back a generation, it’s the number of crowded orphanages and the stray dog problem that stuck in people’s heads, both of which were a big problem in the early 90’s and were heavily documented abroad.

Every tourists first stop – The Peoples Palace

While the perceptions of people at home had not painted a negative picture of Romania in our minds, there was a lack of up to date information available about Bucharest. Even well-respected guide books had not been updated in a while and offered conflicting information, that along with our usual lack of planning, meant we had almost no idea what to expect of Bucharest and Romania.

So, after half a year of living in Bucharest, we thought we’d put to bed a few of the misconceptions we’ve heard. To be clear, these are by no means the biggest or most important issues in Bucharest or Romania but just the common misconceptions we hear at home.

Stray Dogs

Stray dogs were a big problem. Friends who have lived here much longer than us reiterated this, a few years ago it was an issue but the last two years the numbers have dropped hugely. There are of course still stray dogs in Bucharest but it’s by no means a daily occurrence to run into them.

Charities have been set up to rescue dogs in Romania and rehome them in the UK but, whilst this is a pleasant cause it’s only reiterated people’s thoughts on Romania and it’s apparent stray dog problem.

Our experience with stray dogs in Bucharest has been very limited. We live towards the edge of the city in a very suburban area and we’ve encountered less than 10 stray dogs in our time here.  When venturing into town, it’s also rare to run into stray dogs and it’s certainly not something you think about when going out for the day.

I read somewhere, that if you’re born and raised in Bucharest it’s inevitable that at some point you’ll get bitten or attacked by a stray dog, with the amount of stray dogs on the streets today I can’t see any way that could still be true.

View from The Peoples Palace balcony

Terrible Roads

So this might not be a complete misconception, the roads within Bucharest can be awful. Potholes are a big problem, the roads are generally looked after but while a pothole in the UK is usually a small crack, potholes in Romania are actual holes that can cause some serious damage to your car.

However, roads out of Bucharest to the other popular tourist destinations are actually quite good. The road out to the coast is a perfect motorway and very easy to drive (if somewhat boring). And while sections of the road up towards Brasov are a little slower, they are at least kept well and it’s a very pleasant and simple drive.

Getting out of the country is a bit trickier. Heading northwest to Arad and out into Hungary is a very slow and time-consuming journey. While again it’s very scenic, the unfinished motorway teases you just in view as you share the single carriageway road with lorries and other slow moving vehicles. Let’s just say, if you’re not brave enough to overtake you won’t be going anywhere fast.

Hiring a car and driving out of Bucharest to the other popular towns, I don’t think, is quite as bad these days as many guidebooks would have you believe.

Grey and Miserable

While Bucharest used to enjoy the nickname of ‘Little Paris’ wartime bombings and communism destroyed much of that image.

Since then, many visitors to Romania have only spent a day or less in the countries capital before disappearing off into the mountains. Many of the books we read before arriving here, described Bucharest as full of high-rise buildings, lacking in character and on the whole pretty grey.

Arriving in summertime probably helped us settle into the city a little easier, after all, almost everywhere is lovely when the sun is shining. However, even when winter set in the cities appeal didn’t diminish. There are still many wonderfully impressive buildings around and once off the main roads, even the little side streets are full of interesting homes that have survived where others haven’t.

Our Local Park in Pantelimon

Perhaps the most surprising thing about Bucharest is the green spaces. For somewhere that is described as so grey, the parks are incredible.

They’re cleaned daily, have well-kept pathways, colourful gardens and even kiosks and restaurants selling food and drink. The parks are actually a place to enjoy and spend time rather than just somewhere to break up the endless sea of buildings AND people actually use them. Even in the winter, the parks are full of joggers, mums & pushchairs, dog walkers and people just reading the daily paper.

A visit to the parks of Bucharest should be near the top of any tourist’s list.

General Living in Bucharest

There seems to a bit of a feeling in Western Europe that we are ahead of the times  compared to Eastern Europe and I’ll admit to knowing nothing about Romania in that sense before arriving here. There’s no reason for us to think that and again it’s just an assumption based on the things mentioned at the start of this post.

That same assumption probably led one person to ask me “Do they have Wi-Fi in Romania?”

I wouldn’t say questions about technology etc like that are due to a negative image of Romania, but just a lack of knowledge. Romania isn’t somewhere people particularly talk about at home unless they are planning on visiting (or have just watched benefit street).

Seeing as I’ve already mentioned Wi-Fi we’ll start there, it’s incredible. When looking for somewhere to live in Bucharest, we mentioned needing good Wi-Fi and the response was simple “No problem, everywhere has good Wi-Fi, it’s the second best in Europe”. Not only that but Wi-Fi is readily available almost everywhere and, it’s fast.

Phone signals are fantastic too and not just in Bucharest. For a few euros a month we have more than we were paying £15+ for at home and 3G/4G speeds are better, even up in the mountains on the Transfargarassan Highway.

 Transfargarassan Highway

Living here, it doesn’t feel like Romania is at all behind the times with technology. An example I like to use in the taxis, they’re all driving around with tablets attached to the dashboards and using them in a way I’ve not seen anywhere at home. You spend out a request via an app to all the taxis in your area, your location appears on their map and they can accept or decline the job. Once accepted you receive an estimated time of arrival and can follow their every move on the map in the app, driver and passenger can even send messages before pick up.

This is by no means anything groundbreaking given the technology, but it’s such a good use of what’s available. It’s also made taxis very safe as every job is recorded by the central office and if there are any issues you have the driver name and number on the app.

Another point to mention is the availability of shops and brands that you’d expect to find at home. The guidebooks we read suggested that Baneasa shopping centre, in the very north of the city, would be the only place to find certain things from home. I won’t go into all the different shopping centres and what they have to offer, but let’s just say you don’t need to go to Baneasa. We live in the far east of the city and our local shopping centre has an M&S food store (a very British shop).

On the whole, life in Romania is very easy. We have access to almost anything we could possibly want and there are very few challenges for a country that does not have the best reputation at home.

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This is, unintentionally, by far the longest post I’ve written in a long time, I clearly had more to say than I expected. Now I’m going to the park…

Have you been to Bucharest and it surprised you? Or maybe you’ve never been and we can help with any questions you might have?