Can a regenerative farm succeed in Romania? A feature published in Scena9 in Romanian and in English At the edge of a village in Dâmbovița county, I leave a 4×4 parked on a strip of land, and walk into a field, fringed by wild grass and tall trees. Lines of parsnip, lettuce and cabbage open […]
Category Archives: Travel
Welcome to the Romanian region that expects its residents to live and work abroad. A feature written with Vlad Odobescu, and published in DoR in Romania and Internazionale in Italy In the center of the northeastern Romanian city of Botoșani is a 1980s housing block, next to an awning for the country’s most popular beer, […]
A young woman is possessed by the spirit of a dead villager. Her neighbours dig up his corpse. The ritual begins A report from Oltenia, south Romania published in The Black Sea with Ovidiu Dunel-Stancu, and a video is here Fog has fallen on the plains. Between them runs an empty road, recently mended at […]
While grand residential projects help regenerate the outer centre of the Spanish capital’s district of Delicias, Romanian beggars build shanty-huts in the dirt – a short report written with Vlad Odobescu for The Black Sea Delicias. In English this means ‘Delights’. A district in outer central Madrid. A warm Wednesday. Huge new apartment complexes of brick […]
We wanted to expose how Romanians are the main nationality of male prostitutes in Rome… and we did not do it An article co-authored with Vlad Odobescu and published in The Black Sea A taxi driver told us where to find boys. His name was Mario. He wasn’t an average taxi driver. He ran an […]
A short travel note published in The Black Sea and Moldova.org Chisinau is dark. In the subterranean walkways, lights are scarce, burnt out, flashing or dim. People walk in darkness. There are few lamps on the street. In the playgrounds in the evening, children sway on the swings and climb on plastic castles. They can’t see each other. Parents […]
A failure in Romania’s brutal architectural planning of the 1980s has transformed a massive hole in Bucharest into an anarchic expanse of natural and urban coexistence. A feature published in UK online magazine City Metric. Pictures copyright Helmut Ignat The communists wanted a reservoir. The capitalists wanted a casino. The city got something else entirely. “No one […]
At the entrance to the Republic of Moldova’s second-largest city Balti, huge Soviet mosaics celebrate a paradise for the proletariat and peasants. A travel blog published on The Black Sea and Moldova.org. Giant mosaics decorate residential blocks constructed in the Soviet era in the industrial city of Balti in north Moldova. These images combine traditional folklore with Socialist realism to promote hope in an industrial […]
Bucharest’s pedestrianised old centre is filled with concrete tubes stuck to the ground and covered in pebble-dash. It is unclear what is the purpose of this urban furniture in the Romanian capital’s buzzing hub of beer, pizza and prostitution. But the public reacts to their presence by chucking trash inside them. The tubes […]
Bugs! Depravity! Bodily fluids! Experiencing romance and nightmare on the overnight train linking Romania and Moldova – a travel blog published in The Black Sea The means of transport to Moldova from the west are limited. There are expensive flights and overcrowded buses, but for those looking for a retro-chic experience of real travel, there […]
Michael Bird Writer & Journalist 