I worked for over a month as a volunteer trying to help Ukrainian refugees in Bucharest, and this is what I discovered, published in Scena9 I am talking with a friend of mine. She volunteers in a transit camp in Bucharest’s main railway station, Gara de Nord, for Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian attack. I […]
How, where and with what justification could Russia launch an attack? A feature published in Scena9 In 2021, Russian president Vladimir Putin published a rambling essay on the Kremlin’s website called ‘On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians’. As a work of historical analysis it is questionable, but as a historical document, it is […]
Ukraine’s capital is a memorial not only to the sacrifice of the oppressed against greater odds, but also to willpower, dynamism and revival. A short comment piece published in Scena9 Kyiv has always been a flashpoint between clashing states, cultures and ideologies. After each tide of destruction, the residents barely have enough time to mourn […]
A short story published in Bandit Fiction online and in a podcast Whenever my cousin Mark was standing next to someone in public, at the bus stop, in a queue in the post office or supermarket, or in the pub, he turned to them, and started talking, as though they were old friends. Mark’s choice […]
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 50 word story, published on Fiftywordstories The rules are easy. Don’t hit people, or shout at them. If they say you’re too close, you’re too close. If they say don’t touch, you mustn’t touch. When I grew up, people didn’t follow the rules. Didn’t follow them with me. That’s my excuse. I know it’s […]
After a childhood of drug addiction on the streets of Bucharest, a former addict finds an alternative solution for users to recover An English version of a confession published in DoR Interview and editing by Michael Bird, and Ionut Dulamita. Illustrations by Ionut Dulamita It is evening. I am in the room where every Monday […]
How the Romanian capital still kills me—a version/preview for an article in Vice I first came to Bucharest as an English teacher in the 1990s, subsequently visited several times as a tourist, returned as a journalist, and then started a family in the Romanian capital. This is what has changed: When I was here in […]
A short piece of fiction and second prize winner for The Short Story Net When I was eighteen, my therapist told me that every day I should draw a picture of my face. “Don’t think about what you’re doing,” he said, “and don’t try to be an artist. Take only a few seconds, look […]
Daniela Draghici (65) reveals her three attempts at a backstreet abortion in 1970s Romania, where the Communist dictatorship banned the termination of pregnancy from 1966 until 1989
Michael Bird Writer & Journalist 