The block where I lived is from 1973. My parents were married in 1973 and they moved that year. In our neighbourhood a bunch of young people were suddenly brought together. I was born in 1976.

It was a social mix. Maybe mostly the Communist middle class, but also poor families. My friends were from all walks of life.

Outside the block were walnut trees, linden trees and sour cherry trees, and grapevines that grew up to the first floor. In the beginning, there were many green spaces and it was always spectacular.

Every block had many children. I came home from school, threw down my backpack, took a latchkey, and an empty milk bottle, filled it with water and went outside.

There were ten times fewer cars than now. During the most shitty period of Communism, children had no cares. With nothing to watch on TV, we stayed outside. Everyone was on the street.

My nickname in the neighbourhood was ‘Craiova’, after the city in southwestern Romania, because I was a fan of the football team ‘Universtitatea Craiova’. When I became a fan, aged six or seven, they were the best team in the country.

In front of the block was a giant field with little grass. This was our plaza. We made a large football field and every summer came the fair, with animals and a carousel.

I used to sleep in my parents’ bedroom. From my balcony I saw the circus.

For two or three years, it was a great place to play. Then the authorities started building a new block. The builders dug deep foundations. In the winter of 1985 was the deepest snow. We jumped in, and put some cardboard on the snow and slid into the foundations. Some kids were doing somersaults in the air. We used to play hide and seek though the building site.

It was traumatic when the block was finished. We were left without a playground.

I hate that new block.

There was a sensation that this was a town combined with the countryside. A couple of kilometres away was a forest, near the village of Domnesti, where we used to fetch sour cherries. In a cornfield, we picked up lizards, and we took them to school and hid them in girls’ pencil cases.

Our parents didn’t know what we did. We went outside and they couldn’t control us.

We felt free and in another world.

The 1980s were the worst period, you couldn’t find anything in the shops. There was no cheese or eggs. Everyone stood in a queue in front of the grocery store, even when they didn’t know what was being sold.

When I went out to play, my Mum asked me to take a look at the shop from time to time, to check if there was merchandise. All of us stayed with their eyes pinned on the grocery store, to see if there was something to buy.

One time there was a queue for cooking oil and we were playing close by. We called out to the people in the queue: “The hunger is shouting from inside you!”

In the market of Valea Ialomitei, near the loop, was an office where you could order goods by phone, especially those unavailable in normal shops. In theory, anyone could call, but not everybody received the goods. You needed connections. I used to pass by and imagine: ‘My God, they are keeping bananas and chocolate in there!’

One of the largest flea markets in Bucharest was spread over the streets between the blocks. I took my Dad there and asked him to buy me a pair of shoes. He bought them and paid 300 lei, which was a lot of money at the time. Poor him.

After less than two weeks the soles broke. I was so ashamed.

In only one or two places could you find Pepsi - the cafe or in the shopping complex, Indiana. We stayed for hours in a queue for Pepsi.

Once I blacked out standing in a queue.

How can you not hate the Communists?

Youngsters came at night to our school to smash the windows. Many kids identified the school with the Communist Party and the system. Especially in winter, when there was no heat in the school and we wanted to go home.

On a balcony on the tenth floor of on block, where people hung their clothes out to dry, some friends and I liked to throw plastic bags of water and potatoes at the people who came out of the trolleybus.

During winter we would hold on to the backs of cars and make them pull us on the ice. Sometimes the bumper came off, and I would be left holding it in my hand and the driver came outside and beat me up.

I would do the same today.



Miruna Stroe

At one point Ceausescu wanted to see a comparison of urban densities among European capitals and Bucharest was not in the high range of inhabitants per hectare. He said we need to increase this. In housing, the most expensive thing is the infrastructure, so it made sense to build on areas where that infrastructure already was.

At that time, this was not possible in the city centre, but only in dormitory settlements.

In Drumul Taberei, they filled in the gaps on the green spaces in the late 70s and early 80s.

This was ‘The Thickening’, where they construct more buildings and housing without adding amenities. It destroys the architect’s principles and produces public space that is dysfunctional, and not used for what it was designed.



