Articles (1407)

Vitan Flea Market: On the Field Where Cattle Once Grazed, You'll Now Find Vintage Bargains

The place is called Vitan after vite — the Romanian word for cattle — not after any heroic legend or nobleman with a resounding name, but after the livestock that city dwellers used to graze on this field, once at the edge of town. Colonel Dimitrie Papazoglu noted, matter-of-factly, that "within the city's boundary, to the north, lies the Vitan pla...

5 Italian Restaurants in Bucharest: What to Choose When You Want More Than Pizza

There's a fundamental difference between a restaurant that serves Italian food and an Italian restaurant. The first puts pasta with Italian-sounding names on a laminated menu, plays Volare in the background, and sets a decorative bottle of olive oil on the table. The second knows that carbonara without guanciale isn't carbonara, that a Neapolitan p...

Who was Barbu Bellu, the baron behind the name of Bucharest’s most famous cemetery

Few people in Bucharest think about the man behind the name Bellu Cemetery. For most, “Bellu” simply means the resting place of Romania’s most important personalities. In reality, the name comes from a family with a complex history and, above all, from a gesture that permanently changed the city’s development.Barbu Bellu was not just an influential...

10 emblematic buildings of Bucharest from the last century that have disappeared today

Old Bucharest was a city of spectacular contrasts, where aristocratic palaces coexisted with old inns, historic churches, and monumental buildings that gave the capital a special charm. In the last century, especially during the interwar period and later during the communist regime, numerous valuable constructions were destroyed, either because of...

Who was General Nicolae Dona and why does he have a street bearing his name in the center of Bucharest

Bucharest preserves in its street nomenclature the names of personalities who had an important role in the history of Romania, even if today not all residents of the capital still know the story behind these names. One of these streets is General Nicolae Dona Street, located in the central area of the city, a name that recalls one of the notable of...

Why Bucharest was called the Little Paris during the Belle Époque period

At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, Bucharest went through one of the most spectacular periods in its urban, cultural, and social history. The capital of Romania was becoming increasingly elegant, more cosmopolitan, and closer to the Western model that the elites of the time deeply admired. In that era, the city re...

Famous boulevard names: Tudor Vladimirescu, the orphan and courageous child who became the first revolutionary of the Romanians

Few figures in Romanian history are as deeply engraved in the collective memory as Tudor Vladimirescu. His name is now carried by major boulevards, schools, squares, and institutions, and his image is associated with the idea of revolt, courage, and the struggle against injustice. For many, Tudor Vladimirescu is the man who first raised his voice a...

A Sweet Nostalgia: The desserts of 1970s and '80s Bucharest

Going to a confectionery in the Bucharest of the '70s or '80s was an act that went beyond simply satisfying a craving. It was a small escape, an incursion into a parallel universe where the ashen gray of the apartment blocks and planned daily life was replaced by the gloss of chocolate fondant, the immaculate white of whipped cream, and the bright...

11 Born-and-Bred Bucharesters Who Shaped the Capital as We Know It Today

Bucharest makes you feel, simultaneously, like you are in an open-air museum and on a perpetual construction site. Walking down Calea Victoriei, you get the sense that every peeling building has its own story, likely one involving spies, failed poets, or exiled princesses. Then, at the street corner, a long honk brings you back to the vibrant prese...

Who was General Petre Popovăț and why does he have a street in Sector 6 of Bucharest

Petre Popovăț was a Romanian career officer, trained within the structures of the permanent army, part of the military generation that contributed to the consolidation of the Romanian military institution at the beginning of the 20th century. Before the outbreak of the First World War, he held the rank of colonel, which indicates a long career and...