Of the hundreds of walks, the rarest and most special are the night walks. What a change! It's "only" been 50 years since it was the other way around and I especially preferred night rides...
I note this with less wonder than the wonder that 50 years have gone by without notice!
Midnight stroll and after we do it every year in the spring and of course there is a reason why it happens, a reason you will discover if you have the curiosity to read on.
The charm of walking in the middle of a pleasant spring night is given, of course, in a busy city like Bucharest, by the lack of crowds, the lack of noisy and disorderly traffic.
Because I said Bucharest then it is understandable why any walk starts from University Square, it's a local custom.
The market is deserted, which is unusual, but there are some explanations for that too (which will come later). The iconic buildings here are the University building, almost 150 years old and now getting ready for renovation, and the National Theatre building, only 50 years old and recently renovated.
Remarkable in this loneliness is the poster for a famous music festival that takes place every summer in Transylvania, in the garden of Banfy Castle, the famous Electric Castle festival!
The names on the poster reminded me once again how much I have aged! Known and listened to me were only Iggy Pop and The Chemical Brothers..., for the others, I later turned to Youtube and liked them, they are quality musicians and make a genre of music I listen to more and more lately. Right now I'm listening to the last one on the poster, Tash Sultana. Good music to listen to on mute while writing a blog...
And yet, the city was not as deserted as it looked from University Square. I saw people gathered in a churchyard, the only church with Russian architecture in Bucharest.
The walk continued to the Old Town, the only place in a town populated all night. The National Bank building is the most imposing and brightest building in the area, that's where the money is!
The building is so imposing and large and the streets next to it are so narrow that I didn't have the space to frame it correctly and because of this only details will appear.
The Old Town seems to be another city, in another time, with other rules and other people. Other people with other interests, mainly relaxing and having fun, meeting up with friends, and a place where many friendships are made, even if some are made just for one night!
Terraces and restaurants, bars and cafes, all are like a magnet both for the city's inhabitants and, especially, for foreign tourists.
This was a special night and many of the people on the streets and in this place are neither tourists nor permanent partygoers.
There are many old people, many women but also young people with children...
It is the night of the Orthodox Easter celebration!
Here, in the middle of Bucharest, is an old church and a small monastery. Next year it will be 300 years since it was built.
Stavropoleos Monastery
The church was built in 1724, during the reign of Nicholas Mavrocordatos (Prince of Wallachia, 1719-1730), by the archimandrite Ioannikios Stratonikeas, a Greek monk from Pogoniani. Within the precinct of his inn, Ioannikios built the church and a monastery that was economically sustained by the income from the inn (a relatively common situation in those times). In 1726 Abbot Ioannikios was elected metropolitan of Stavropol and exarch of Caria. Since then the monastery he built is named Stavropoleos, after the name of the old seat. Source
My presentation is poor in images, especially from inside the church. For those interested, you can see a complete virtual tour:
Virtual Tour Stavropoleos Monastery Bucharest
Source
This place is a reference for Bucharest. Entering this church you are instantly teleported back three hundred years. The religious service, which has undergone changes over hundreds of years, is exactly the same as it was 300 years ago and that makes this place unique in Bucharest.
The church is frequented by the finest Romanian intellectuals, philosophers, theologians, artists, and great painters. Many young people are interested in theology. Among all of them, my wife and I, less important for society but faithful to the place, which we have been attending for over 20 years, have made our place.
This was the main reason for this midnight walk. The Easter ceremony is quite special at Stavropoleos. It all starts at midnight.
Unlike the vast majority of churches, where the religious service has parts hidden from the view of the faithful (i.e. in the church altar, behind walls and curtains), here the priests often perform the religious ritual right in the middle of the people.
During the ceremony we must surround the church, that is, we must all go around the church. This is impossible because the courtyard is very small, so we have to detour around the adjacent streets.
The lack of cars, the old buildings, and the dim light from a few lamps make the atmosphere eerie and impressive, seeming like we are all in another world, long gone. But soon the landscape changes. This tour inevitably leads past restaurants, bars, and terraces full of young party-goers, too little interested, in their youth, in the spiritual side of life.
It must have come as a great surprise to these young people when they saw a large group of people, all holding lit candles and walking quietly among their tables. If the inhabitants of the city are somewhat accustomed to it, for the foreign tourists it was certainly an image they will never forget and a bonus that they were there at that moment!
After a while the little pilgrimage ended in front of the church...
The religious ritual of Easter is long among Orthodox Christians. I don't know how it is for Catholic Christians.
That is why I have chosen to show here a little of what happens in Romania, an Orthodox country, at Easter.
For information purposes only without any reference to religion. I would like you to take everything that happened here as a performance, as a show that many tourists want to see...
Otherwise, to everyone with his faith!
As I said, the ritual is long. It takes a few more hours. Most of the faithful enter the church to participate.
Most will not fit in the small church and will stay in the inner courtyard. The ceremony is being broadcast on audio and outside...
We went home because we were tired and because we live very far from the city center. We could see the National Bank up close, with the lights on. Sorry, I couldn't, again, frame the whole building.
Opposite the bank is a passage, the Villacrosse Passage. Another place for terraces, restaurants, and cafés.
Next is another impressive building, a former bank headquarters a hundred years ago, now a fine hotel, Hotel Marmoroch. And this one is too big for my too-small camera!
The route that takes us back to where we started our walk, that is to say to the University Square (Piata Universitatii), brings us in front of the small café where we drink coffee every Sunday. My wife seems to wish it was open and we could do something undone. I mean, drinking a cappuccino at 2 a.m.!
The National Bank again, seen from the back (from Academiei Street, which spills into University Square, of course!
Finally, the University Square. The circle closed tonight. Same National Theatre.
Below is the subway that runs all night. Only this night!
Under the ground at the metro, two totally different posters. One refers to a painting exhibition where one can admire Van Eyck's famous painting "Portrait of a Man with a Blue Chaperon", painted in 1430, brought from the Bruckenthal Museum in Sibiu. It is a particularly valuable painting, considering that there are only 20 works by this painter in the world!
The second poster is hypocritical. It is promoted by a gambling house and has two warnings to players: "If you feel you are losing control say stop!" and "Play responsibly!"...
Why do I say it is hypocritical? Because those in the gambling industry know very well that those who are addicted to gambling will never follow these warnings. They let it be understood that they are responsible but, in fact, they advertise themselves that way.
With these thoughts, we ended our annual after-midnight walk. At the same time, I hope that I have managed to present an event, a performance, and a ritual that repeats itself every year in spring, but not on a fixed date, it differs every time. Something that may be to the liking and interest of those who are thinking of visiting this city in Romania. The very capital of Romania!
