Europe

[Visited: August 2001]

My last visit to Bucharest had been in 1990, weeks after the most bloody of the 1989 Eastern European revolutions. Pictures of that visit can be found on this site. I was of course very curious to see what had become of the city that I remembered full of tanks and destroyed houses. So when I was back in the streets of the Romanian capital, I took a walking tour through the centre. It was actually easy to recognize the places of importance in the revolution.
First, I went to the building where Ceaucescu held his last speech, the famous one in which he was boo-ed away by a massive audience on a massive square. It would be his last appearance in public, hours before his attempt to escape. His next appearance on TV would be at his execution. During those dark December days, this was one of the areas that suffered most. People were shot dead, buildings went up in flames. Nowadays, you can find several small monuments for those fallen in the December Revolution.
Buildings that were destroyed in 1989, have been reconstructed. One small building stands exactly as I saw it in 1990, preserved as a reminder of the brutal repression of the special forces. Walking further through the city, I encountered more small monuments near the University, which was another place where people demonstrated and were killed. When I walked down a subway underpass, where in those early days of a new era students gathered in the dark to discuss the future, where shadows passed by on a meeting near candle light in the obscure corners of a wrapped up in darkness, I was amazed. The underpass has been transformed in a food court you could find anywhere in Europe.

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[Visited: August 2001]

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