Kevin's favourite capital of the week:
Bucharest, The capital of Romania.
Something interesting happens when you
type Romania into the old google, looking for recent news. You
largely get a lot of British news outlets talking about the attitude
and disparaging remarks of Nigel Farage towards Romanians. Nigel
Farage is leader of the far right UK independence party, a party that
won a shocking large percentage in the recent EU election poll, just
in case you didn't know. You get very little in the way of English
language news from Romania itself though. The Guardian does have a
story about the 6 countries that bucked the right wing trend of the
EU polls, one which is Romania (at which point there is obligatory
mention of Nigel Farage) and another about the release of the
European Bison into the wild for the first time in 200 years. The
Telegraph (the Guardian's right wing rival one might say) has an
article about a motorbike race crash in Bucharest and one entitled
“Who are the racists now?”.
If you type in Bucharest, you get a
little more about the city, though the most dominating story I
noticed was from Irish newspapers and about Katie Taylor, an Irish
boxer who recently won her 6th European title, in
Bucharest. The Romanian Insider has a story about how the Bucharest
Zoo was free to enter on World Environment Day (June 5th).
So what's actually going on in
Bucharest? Well US Vice President Joe Biden was there to discuss
Romania's importance to energy security in Eastern Europe, given
Russia's recent mischief, though there isn't much coverage of this.
It appears to be pretty untouched by news lately, otherwise though,
besides puff pieces about scenic boat rides and the zoo in Bucharest.
It is a little odd, Romania does seem
to have some issues that need facing, such as widespread poverty.
Romania has the second worst rate of poverty in the EU, just behind
Bulgaria. It bad enough even in Bucharest, “the Paris of Eastern
Europe”, that there are people camped out in the sewers of the city
and doing their best to sleep next to heating vents and pipes to stay
warm in the winter. There does not appear to be much of a safety net
for people who have fallen through the cracks, according to one
report (which was only written, apparently, because of a Channel 4
news report about the “Sewer Children”), almost everyone in these
conditions has HIV and likely TB as well. Tourist sites all over the
internet give various warnings about the poor of Bucharest, should
you visit. This is excluding the even larger problem of the Roma,
who make up roughly a 6th of the population and are far
worse off than most ethnic Romanians (with the possible exception of
those living in the sewers). Generally discriminated within and
without Romania, they are most likely to be the least educated and to
earn a living through begging. Romania does have a system in place
to help and include the Roma, but according to a recent World Bank
report this is not properly monitored or funded. Its too bad,
because according to that same report, Romania's proper integration
of the Roma could earn the whole country billions.
All this said, Bucharest, and Romania
as a whole, seems to be a hot tourist destination. Full of wide
boulevards and historic buildings and, presumably, inexpensive stuff,
Bucharest seems to have it all for austerity strapped Europeans in
need of a little down time. It does seem to be a nice place from the
pictures. And it does appear to be improving its more unsavoury
aspects, despite what I've mentioned above. Hopefully, with a little
more attention paid to the needs of the country, it can also solve
some of its larger issues as well.
