Place
No public IJR answers mention Bucharest yet. As people ask about it and share their answers, they'll appear here.
“Like more than half the traffic lights in Bucharest, this one on the busy corner of Boulevard Nicolae Balcescu is dead. In the freezing fog, sputtering Rumanian-made Dacia sedans are lurching every which way, horns honking.”
“"Little Paris," as Bucharest was once called, became "Ceaușwitz."”
“The city frequently is compared with Paris, gay and lighthearted, whereas Russia is strong and earnest. The beauty of Leningrad and Moscow is that of New England, that of Bucharest is of North Carolina.”
“Bucharest is a faded old gal in a raggedy coat. Once called the "Little Paris of the East," she has long lost her finery. A few parks and buildings dream of past grandeur, but the picture is spoiled by concrete and steel mementoes of Communism on every side.”
“I came to Bucharest with a troupe of conquering heroes and I leave here with a troupe of gigolos and racketeers.”
“To this and other disasters, Romanians reacted (and still react) with glum jokes: Bucharest became Ceaushwitz, Ceaushima, Paranopolis; the dynasty that ruled them represented socialism in one family. But gallows themselves were less evident than gallows humor.”
Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.