Bucharest celebrates it's 555th year of being a capital

So Bucharest, capital of Romania, is celebrating this summer it's 555th year of being so. The city, itself, is much older, dating back to dacian times, but it has only been a capital since 1459.

This week it's all celebrations that started off yesterday with many romanian composers making music tracks for it.
EXCLUSIV | Imnul Bucure?tiului! l-ai v?zut pentru prima dat? pe ZUTV.RO! Adda ft. What's Up - Bucure?ti 555! | Muzica zutv.ro

This is in Romanian but w/e. You get the point.

So a bit of backstory is in order.

Bucharest ( Bucuresti ) became the capital of Wallachia in 1459 under Vlad the Impaler (Dracula) because the Ottomans, seeing as how in the past Romanian voievods (our version of rulers) rised up against their oppression, decided to enforce the royal court to be closer to ottoman lands, just a bit north of the Danube. Before this, the capital was in Tirgoviste, a city that is very well situated on hills and that makes the capital very defensive and very strong, and also, closer to Serbia and Hungary's capital which were both nations whom the Ottomans had plans for.

While Bucharest is not the oldest city in Romania, those honors go to Napoca (Cluj-Napoca, 2nd largest city, massively important to the Romans after they conquered Dacia), Buridava (kinda dead now, it got the Carthage treatment from the Romans) and Sarmisegetusza (tourist center, capital of ancient Dacia and again, massively important to the Romans) and other cities, it is the most populous and industrious city in Romania. It has 3-4x the population of the 2nd largest city, which is Cluj-Napoca, and it is the home of all important state structures.

It has it's own coat of arms
Coat of arms of Bucharest - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Which resembles very closely the royal coat of arms of Romania
Coat of arms of Romania - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And it has quite a few landmarks.
The Romanian Parliament: the Romanian Parliament, former Ceau
2nd largest government building in the world after the Pentagon and the largest civilian building in the world.

Now aside from this, and of an even greater importance, is that this building holds the key to answering the most important question of them all "Does size matter?". And the answer is a resounding "YES", yes it does. You see, the architect is Anca Petrescu, a woman who wanted the biggest, tallest, largest, beefiest thing so that when you gazed upon it, you wouldn't know if you wanted to really touch it, feel it, become one with it... or maybe you just wanted to stay in awe of it's imposing size, maybe even intimidate you a bit... but finally you'd give into the temptation of trying it out for yourself to see how it feels inside.

Cantacuzino Palace: Cantacuzino Palace (1906) – “George Enescu” National Museum | Bucharest & Romania Private Tours - Unknown Bucharest (for pictures down below)
Is a palace that was built by mayor Cantacuzino of Bucharest but now it is a memorial home for Romania's most popular composer, George Enescu.

And ofc, like every respectable European capital, we have our own Arc de Triumph.
Pictures: Arcul de Triumf - The Triumphal Arch in Bucharest | Romania Central
Built in 1935 to celebrate the reunion of all Romanian provinces after the Great War and the first true union of Romania since Mihai Viteazul in 1600, it has no lost that meaning since Moldavia and Izmir and Bucovina and Silitria all belong to different countries outside of Romania. I mean, it's still lovely to look at but I feel kinda silly every national day where the military parade goes through the city. On the inner side of the Arc there are names written of great battles fought, especially during ww1. they were written there in 1935 so people would know just how much was sacrificed. Which ofc, doesn't hold true today.

And I'll let you with 2 more.
Remember how I told you that Bucharest became a capital in 1459 when Vlad the Impaler had to move the royal court there due to Ottoman demands?
Well he had to build something for the royal gathering:
Curtea Veche - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://museum.ici.ro/mbucur/english/curteaveche.htm
This is it. What's left of it. As you can imagine, this place has seen it's fair share of torching and bombings, mostly at the hands of the ottomans.

And finally, since Bucharest is a multicultural city, there are a lot of edifices of different cultures present in Romania. Some of the ones which are more remarkable are the Anglican Church and the French Church.
Anglican Church (Bucharest) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

French Church (Bucharest) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

there are older buildings in Romania to symbolize the country's attachment to westernizing and importing western influences but these 2 are in Bucharest and there are tons of pictures online of them. Others are less public.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this post.

Thanks for the post Rainman

Thom Paine

My congatulations! Cool date.

past Romanian voievods - is here any link with Russian voyevoda? Voyevoda, voevoda - in Russian means "military chief", "governor" (old).

R-36M2 Voevoda (SS-18 Mod 6)

MrFirst said:

My congatulations! Cool date.

past Romanian voievods - is here any link with Russian voyevoda? Voyevoda, voevoda - in Russian means "military chief", "governor" (old).

R-36M2 Voevoda (SS-18 Mod 6)

Click to expand...

Yes, the word is of slavic origin.
Other words that describe status or nobility are boier and cneaz. Also have slavic origins. Nobility was arranged in such fashions. You had the high boyars who were usually at court, you had territories that were divided in voievodate and cnezate and other feudal assemblies.


Romanian rulers before they were vassals (wallachia before it became a vassal to ottomans and Moldavia until it became vassal of Poland and later on Russia) were known as domnitor, from latin domini/dominus. So until about the late XIVth century, Wallachia had just domintors and in Moldavia until the mid XVth century.
Afterwards they are called voievods because they only became independent through warfare, and that's why it's military ruler. That's why Vlad the Impaler (XVth century) is a voievod, he fought to free Wallachia from the ottomans, won and then lost and then lost again... but 100 years before him, Mircea cel Batran (Mircea the old/wise) is known as domnitor because he was leader of the independent Wallachia.

Havent been to Romania yet but I would like to go someday, I am especially interested in Dracula's castle and all the vampire legends.

PoS said:

Havent been to Romania yet but I would like to go someday, I am especially interested in Dracula's castle and all the vampire legends.

Click to expand...

Dracula's castle is not in Bucharest or in the south (in Wallachia), it's in SE Transylvania.

Dracula's Castle - Bran Castle Romania

Also known as Bran Castle.

I've been there twice. It's a really impressive fortress.
The aesthics are very spartan because it was a military stronghold. It guarded an important passage between Transylvania and Wallachia.


But if you want to see an even more impressive fortress that looks just... i mean, it's my favorite castle.
Castelul Huniazilor = Hunyad Castle. Also known, in fact properly known as Corvin Castle.