Given the not-so-common place Bucharest is (for one can say anything, but that this city fits some standard), there is little realistic information on it. Of course, there is a plethora of magazines pretending to provide up-to-date information on hotels, restaurants and entertainment. However most of them fail miserably. They list a few hotels and restaurants (without any personal/own rating, furthermore, without even visiting them) and then have half of their space filled with commercials, mostly for night clubs or the “escort and private massage” thing. These magazines aside, there is next to nothing on the market, except for international guidebooks (of which the LP and the RG are particularly good). And except for Bucharest In Your Pocket. Which gives me a topic to discuss.
Fortunately (for nothing comes for free here), it is hard to understand a city like Bucharest. Even harder to present it to others. So the BIYP people have no easy life. Without sobbing in my sleeping bag for them, they went through law suits with a real estate company, had scandals with restaurants they did not want to lie about the service of, and have to walk among cars parked on the sidewalk on a daily basis. The magazine is full of updated information on hotels, restaurants, clubs, dubs, events (at least usually, got them at least once with outdated info, grin grin). They provide their own views and recommendations for various places, recommendations that are usually explained in detail and based on first hand experience. They have a quite extensive list of sights (even though it could be improved beyond the typical “to dos” mentioned everywhere). Furthermore, a thumb up for their articles on Iliescu’s 1989 coup and on his Mineriadas, recent history facts which even most Romanians have forgotten way too easily. The vital tips’ pages are another good thing, especially as far as the taxi and airport data is concerned. Later on, the addition of the Bucharest Life Blog (nowadays gloriously defunct) seemed to be more than welcome, as some of the facts there could not fit (both space and contents-wise) the printed publication. It is one of the few blogs I follow in this country, for it actually says something instead of the typical mumbling, bubbling and clubbing crap. And if the editor would not come with some posts that say nothing (or tread the same track twice) every now and then, it would be all good.
OK, enough with the pros, for even the finest Capșa chocolate requires a glass of lemonade aside. Just like Romanians themselves, the staff at BIYP display a certain egocentrism. A certain superiority touch granted by their own Brahma figure and by their being, well, foreign. Well, put the blame on me, but I shall never agree to that. Try to understand things first, present your opinion then and never think you are smarter or more beautiful for just looking different. And it all gets worse when this superiority thing is packed in the typical Balkan mișto. If you do not agree to this mișto, then try to use it as little as possible, to make a difference from those you want to point at. Examples? Presenting Bucharest as “a shithole, but my kind of shithole” (even though it was a quote) goes way off limits for a publication that should have (take it as a personal point) a certain degree of respect for things, be them bad or good (and Bucharest has a lot of them both). Exclusively pushing up a blog (yeap, Horace’s, now extinct) which only showed its author’s being frustrated, does not improve anything anywhere. And again, I am not the kind of person to say this city is about milk’n honey; bucharestian.com should provide pretty clear evidence for this. I fully get it that you have to sell somehow. But if you want to be different from Romania’s bad, do not play this country’s low end mockery. For then you will turn into your very typical guy, blaming the grey buildings, everyone else and the sky above for his own failure and / or misfortune. And you will irreversibly turn grey. I know that mockery and everlasting criticism is a means of promoting your product. I know that it works. But this does not mean I have to agree to it.
Summing up: despite the cons above, this is (personal opinion) the best printed material on this city. As for the cons, they will always exist in everything. For Abraxas is all around in this city: enjoying a freshly baked plăcintă, smiling in the sun, shitting in the street, helping an old woman to cross the street and farting when returning home, on a crowded subway train. Back to BIYP, they are alive and kickin’ on a daily basis, something next to unique among Romanians. So they deserve my full respect.
N.B. Maybe I would not have written this review at all (for I had not even thought of it before), but it was them (well, the Bucharest Life editor) giving me the idea. He wanted to exchange links with www.bucharestian.com and sent me an email. I replied, providing two options, given my not having a “Links” page. Waited for an answer for my standard 48 working day hours (the maximum I allow anyone in this world to reply to an email). A traditional Romanian, typical Nimic arrived in my inbox (even though they are always prompt with business communication), so I chose for them. Nothing happens out of hazard in this world ;)
