Less about shopping, more about where we shop. A story from a former communist country where the inhabitants never dreamed they would ever be able to shop in modern, western stores.
After Romania was no longer communist, those buildings called supermarkets and shopping malls started to appear in the big cities. A terribly efficient concept of commerce. Especially for those who didn't know it.
Bucharest is a big city and has room for many malls. There really are many, I'm now trying to Google to see if I can find out their number. I found a list with 22 malls but I don't know if they are all (I mean if the list is updated). I don't know if there are many or few, compared to other similar cities.
In the area of the city where I live, a supermarket complex was started more than 15 years ago. A Carrefour supermarket and a Leroy Merlin DIY and building materials supermarket have appeared on a very large plot of land on the outskirts of town. A shopping mall was also to be built. The plan was to build the biggest mall in Bucharest. It was a surprise for me this intention, because in the area where I live the population density is low.
Because it was designed to be the largest, it was given the name...
Well, once again, it turns out that initial plans don't always come true. This mall was born hard and with bad luck.
Just when construction was supposed to start, the real estate crisis and the economic crisis came and such businesses became unprofitable. The start of construction was postponed for almost ten years and I didn't think it would ever be done again.
The surprise was that three years ago construction started.
After about a year, as it has always happened in Romania, again bad luck. There must have been money problems because the work was stopped and for another two years we were left with just the outer casing.
Sometimes, even bad luck breaks and, surprise! Last year, work started again and at the beginning of April this year, the mall was inaugurated.
We let a few days go by, to let the excitement and curiosity of the neighbors pass and I went with the future most important beneficiary, my wife, to inspect the place.
I forgot to mention that this large shopping complex is located on the outskirts of town, about a 20 minute walk from our house. The need to shop is always accompanied by pleasant walks.
I understand that you may be surprised that I chose to tell the story of this mall that may not be of interest to you. To explain, being a place I have seen and observed since it was just a hole and now entering the finally completed building for the first time, I want to keep this testimony with the help of Hive.
My apologies, this time I'm writing more for myself and my increasingly poor memory!
The mall is almost deserted. It's very early in the morning and people have already satisfied their curiosity.
In fact, the real reason the mall is empty, beyond the fact that real shoppers prefer to come in the evening, is that there are very few shops open. Being so close to the opening, most of the shops have not yet managed to set up...
We quickly reached the other exit or entrance, depending on which way you look.
Here I noticed that at least one café and one florist are open.
That was it. The floor is not finished yet, the cinemas will be completed next year. That's what I was interested in in the first place, the cinemas.
I understand that they wanted to open it before it was fully completed because it takes time to build clientele and for people to know that there is a mall there.
I'm glad it's been completed, we can have a coffee there and of course my wife will find a lot more things to buy, whether we need it or not.
The biggest lesson is that you never know that what you set out to do will happen. They wanted to build the biggest mall in Bucharest (and therefore in the country) and ended up building a smaller mall.
The market and the times decided that this would be a baby mall. I'm glad it is, I think this is the optimal size!
That's why I have to stop, and being a #marketfriday post, I always do this with a flourish, #alwaysaflower. Both proposed by dear 
Spring, more beautiful than all the malls in the world!
