Being a city dweller and a lover of walking, the most pleasant place for this activity is the park. Both because it is a place away from cars and pollution and because it is almost the only place where I can remember the beauty of nature. A nature not born. It is a nature created but this can be an advantage if the "creator" is a good specialist in landscape architecture.
Being a big city dweller and a lover of walking I have the advantage that there are many parks to choose from for my next walk.
The next walk in Bucharest, Romania, that I want to summarize here was in Izvor Park (Spring Park in translation from Romanian).
I don't know why it's called that but I do know there is no spring in the park. Besides, it's... A park that shouldn't have been there!
I say this because in this place there was one of the most interesting neighborhoods in Bucharest, which was demolished (40,000 people were relocated) in order to build the Civic Center and the People's House, at the wish of the communist dictator Ceausescu to change the appearance of the city with so-called socialist realist architecture, inspired by the capital of North Korea, Phenian.
The Palace of Parliament in Bucharest, Romania (known before the 1989 revolution as the House of the Republic or the People's House), measures 270 m by 240 m, 84 m high, and 92 m underground, built in the spirit of socialist realist architecture. It has 9 levels above ground and another 9 underground. According to the World Records Academy, the Palace of Parliament is the third largest administrative building for civilian use in the world in terms of surface area, the most expensive administrative building in the world, and the heaviest building in the world. The Palace of Parliament building is located in the central part of Bucharest, on the site that today is called Dealul Arsenalului. Source
My God, what a fate for this city, modernized at the end of the nineteenth century after the Paris model!
Well, in order to make this enormous construction as visible as possible, this park was built in the place where thousands of houses were demolished. I know the place as it was before, I know how the park was laid out, which at first looked pathetic...
Well, after more than 40 years, the park is starting to look like... a park! The huge building dominates everything, it is visible from all walking or crossing areas.
Walking through this park was more of a crossing, a need to get from the subway to a doctor's office. Unfortunately, lately, the notions of the doctor, doctor's office, and medication have started to become more and more current in my life.
I found something paradoxical and unpleasant. A symbol of this city, the huge building that now houses the Romanian Parliament, was built as a symbol of communism. I don't know how many people still think about it, but it remains a little loved building, especially since the current parliament of the country is also a little loved institution by Romanians.
The young generation in Romania, those born after the year 2000, don't even know what communism means and don't believe in what a totalitarian world we, the old ones, have lived in. They cannot understand that almost everything was forbidden, and there was no individual freedom.
Today's walk brought before my eyes a picture of today's freedom. Young people sitting and having a picnic on the grass in the park.
Relaxed, without any emotions and fears, unaware that in the lives of the elderly, there was a warning:
"Don't step on the grass!".
Yes, it was forbidden to step on the grass, in all parks. Don't think it was ecologically conscious before time, no... It was just to remember that everything was forbidden!
The revenge of history, the revenge of all against the madness and totalitarianism of communism can also be expressed through these images of young people who do not know and cannot understand the lack of freedom. In my youth, in the 70s and 80s, it was forbidden to print and read books about yoga...
Now I've met these young people who are doing these yoga exercises quietly and undisturbed by anyone!
I can say that in the shadow of the great symbol of communism, now passed to democracy, which is the People's House in Bucharest!
I ended the walk and left Izvor Park with the image of the great building, an admired and much-visited sight by tourists visiting the capital of Romania.
I have lived in the same town with this pharaonic building, much too big for such a small country, for more than 30 years and I was not curious and did not want to visit it. Nor will I ever visit it for the rest of my life!
