{"id":7288,"date":"2024-06-27T07:12:45","date_gmt":"2024-06-27T07:12:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.mywp.ro\/?p=7288"},"modified":"2025-09-15T08:00:46","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T08:00:46","slug":"timisoara-cel-mai-spatios-oras-al-romaniei-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/timisoara-cel-mai-spatios-oras-al-romaniei-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Timisoara, the most spacious city in Romania"},"content":{"rendered":"

Timisoara, the most spacious city in Romania<\/span><\/p>\n

The city<\/i><\/p>\n

The surprise of this residence was the city itself, absolutely splendid, unparalleled in all of\nRomania, of amazing architectural unity. Even the socialist blocks in the historical areas were\ncarefully designed so as not to break the harmony with the heritage buildings. And the recent\n\u201cconcrete and glass\u201d structures were not built carelessly; on the contrary, they have style and\ndon\u2019t look like tumours of the urban tissue, like in Bucharest or Cluj.<\/span><\/p>\n

By comparison, Cluj looks like a joke, with its small and cramped centre and Habsburg\nbuildings on narrow boulevards, which suffocate you and look as if they were about to fall upon\nyou. And, no, Cluj has no parks; the small one in front of the Hungarian Opera House can hardly\nbe called a park. By contrast, Timi\u0219oara is incredibly green for a big city. Everything suggests\nthe spatial generosity of a lasting Habsburg city \u2013 Vienna or Budapest, not an Austro-Hungarian\nburg built with economy, like Cluj or Bistri\u021ba. In terms of spatial generosity, no other city in\nRomania compares to it. Beyond the border, Chi\u0219in\u0103u is just as green and has equally large\nboulevards by tsarist standards, but as far as architecture is concerned, Timi\u0219oara takes some\nbeating.<\/span><\/p>\n

Given the above, the city has enormous potential. It has every chance to surpass Sibiu or\nBra\u0219ov as a tourist hit. What can we say, compared to Timi\u0219oara, Sibiu is a joke. Timi\u0219oara took\nmy breath away. Even the streets that are not in the historical centre are of an absolutely\ncaptivating beauty.<\/span><\/p>\n

I must confess that, unlike Vasile who, like a lunatic, roamed the city and visited even its old\ncommunist neighbourhoods and the new suburbs, I did not leave the Centre except for one\nevening at the very beginning of my residence, when I explored the local manele scene. With\nthree spaces dedicated to this musical genre, two of which feature \u201cl\u0103utari\u201d, Timi\u0219oara beats any\nTransylvanian city.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The events<\/i><\/p>\n

The artistic duo Monotremu (Laura Borotea and Gabi Boldi\u0219) lent me a bicycle. I rode it\ncarefully, only around the central area. By comparison with my other stays in various places of\nthe world (Bilbao, Toronto, Namur, Tel Aviv), where I walked within a 500-metre radius around\nthe hotel, I would say that in Timi\u0219oara I took unexpectedly long walks, even according to my\nown standards.<\/span><\/p>\n

I won\u2019t lie. Many evenings I went to \u0218tefan Iancu, a friend of mine from Bucharest who\nmoved to Timi\u0219oara for work, and to the Monotremu duo. They all live in Trajan Square. The\nduo has a yard with a charmingly wild green vegetation. The man who put me in touch with\n\nMonotremu is the poet Vasile Leac. Being the most skilled of his kind, he had built an oven for\none of the artists\u2019 projects. I have known Monotremu since 2015, from a residence in Bucharest.\nI was running an art blog and I visited their exhibition, Redemption Day, curated by Raluca\nVoinea. I liked it a lot and I think it was the first Romanian contemporary art exhibition focused\non the climate apocalypse. Out of curiosity, I also checked their blog\u00a0https:\/\/monotremu.blogspot.com\/<\/a>\u00a0https:\/\/monotremu.blogspot.com\/, which gave me the sensation of uninhibited & learned concept\nart, especially the photo of the shell-and-core stage church with the FOR SALE ad and the\ncircular stencil mocking the postmodern \u201cThey know we know\u201d paranoia. Of the Trajan Square\nprojects, I liked the photo of a female statue with a severed arm. A contractor who only wanted\nthe bunch of flowers in the woman\u2019s hand bought the entire ensemble, cut off the arm holding\nthe bunch and then abandoned the body at a scrap iron centre.<\/span><\/p>\n

Because it was close to where I was, I also went to the exhibition at the Barracks. Actually, I\nhad bought a bottle of wine and I didn\u2019t feel like drinking it alone in the house. I wanted to see\nbeautiful images flowing behind the imaginary glass window in front of my eyes, so I checked\nout that exhibition. I liked it, though it was a little too decent for my taste. It left me with the\nfeeling that the curatorial option favoured aesthetics to the detriment of the political dimension.\nBut it was refreshing, because, honestly, I\u2019m tired of political art. It\u2019s full of fakes \u2013 to persuade\nthe sponsor to give you the money, you have to use NGO language and morals, which don\u2019t go\nwell with art; it\u2019s very difficult to create good art out of NGO-ism; the chances of failing\nrepeatedly are very real.<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore, having swallowed a lot of experimental crap from engaged art, I have come to\nappreciate art that questions human nature or individual anxieties.<\/span><\/p>\n

Together with Vasile Ernu, Moni St\u0103nil\u0103 and Sandu Vakulovski, my fellow residents, I went\nto a meeting with students of the Ion Vidu National College of Art, where we watched a film,\nSrbenka. It was political, meaning boring, \u201cmeta of meta\u201d. A director documents the rehearsals\nof a play that analyses Croatian racism. I would have liked to hear what the high-school students\nof Timi\u0219oara thought about life and the world, but since the film was not interesting at all, the\nkids didn\u2019t react to it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The people<\/i><\/p>\n

To compensate for the high-school students\u2019 lack of reaction, Pavel Gheo\u2019s students at the\nFaculty of Letters were delightful. When Gheo told them I have a PhD in manele, they let loose.\nI discovered they were familiar with the local manele scene better than older people \u2013 they knew\nabout Dorin Covaci, the best \u201cl\u0103utar\u201d of Timi\u0219oara, sadly almost consigned to oblivion today.\nThe best-informed student was a dark-haired boy who studied Latin and played the accordion in\na band of \u201cl\u0103utari\u201d to make pocket money.<\/span><\/p>\n

So I saw Pavel Gheo again. We both debuted in the first wave of EgoProse. And I met\nEmanuel Copila\u0219, a left-winged comrade with whom I had spoken on the net, but had never met\nbefore. We met at \u0218tefan Iancu\u2019s and talked about the Phoenix scandal and analysed each side of\nit.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dana Sarme\u0219 was just the tonic I needed. The day I met her I had a horrible hungover. My\nneighbours, a team of workers, had had me drinking for almost a week. The beer vodkas and\nDana\u2019s buoyant mood took my hangover away.<\/span><\/p>\n

The film festival<\/i><\/p>\n

The film I liked best at the Balkan Film Festival was\u00a0A Cup of Coffee and New Shoes On<\/span>, an\nAlbania-Greece-Kosovo-Portugal co-production directed by Gentian Ko\u00e7i.<\/span><\/p>\n

Agim and G\u00ebzim (played by Rafael and Edgar Morais, two amazing Portuguese actors), two\nbrothers who run a woodworking business, were born deaf. As a result, the strong bond that we\nexpect to exist between identical twins is even stronger in their case; they communicate through\nsigns and lip-reading with the others, but between them they use a private language that relies\nmore on touches and glances than on words. Their undeniable mutual interdependence survives\neven the arrival of a third presence, G\u00ebzim\u2019s friend Ana (Drita Kabashi, a wonderfully warm\nperformance). While in a different film she would have been a source of conflict or jealousy, in\nthis she becomes part of the twins\u2019 lives, accepting the primacy of the sibling relationship.<\/span><\/p>\n


\nAgim and G\u00ebzim (played by Rafael and Edgar Morais, two amazing Portuguese actors), two\nbrothers who run a woodworking business, were born deaf. As a result, the strong bond that we\nexpect to exist between identical twins is even stronger in their case; they communicate through\nsigns and lip-reading with the others, but between them they use a private language that relies\nmore on touches and glances than on words. Their undeniable mutual interdependence survives\neven the arrival of a third presence, G\u00ebzim\u2019s friend Ana (Drita Kabashi, a wonderfully warm\nperformance). While in a different film she would have been a source of conflict or jealousy, in\nthis she becomes part of the twins\u2019 lives, accepting the primacy of the sibling relationship.<\/span><\/p>\n

Agim and G\u00ebzim (played by Rafael and Edgar Morais, two amazing Portuguese actors), two\nbrothers who run a woodworking business, were born deaf. As a result, the strong bond that we\nexpect to exist between identical twins is even stronger in their case; they communicate through\nsigns and lip-reading with the others, but between them they use a private language that relies\nmore on touches and glances than on words. Their undeniable mutual interdependence survives\neven the arrival of a third presence, G\u00ebzim\u2019s friend Ana (Drita Kabashi, a wonderfully warm\nperformance). While in a different film she would have been a source of conflict or jealousy, in\nthis she becomes part of the twins\u2019 lives, accepting the primacy of the sibling relationship.<\/span><\/p>\n

Agim feels frustrated while trying to learn braille.<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition, the sombre performance allows the acting to flourish, and all three leads are\nterrific. The supporting roles, which are portrayed with wit and generosity, are eccentric and full\nof strength, despite the fact that this is the kind of film where there is no bad character, just good\npeople trying to do the best they can for each other, even \u2013 or especially \u2013 when fate has a\nshockingly unfair future in store for them. However, it\u2019s the singular chemistry between the\nMorais brothers (who are not deaf and learned Albanian sign language for their roles) that gives\nthe film its theatrical intensity. Their striking physical resemblance somehow magnifies the\nslightest mood swing between them, with effects as devastating as those of an earthquake.
\nIn short, a wonderful film.<\/span><\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/i><\/p>\n

A question that put me in difficulty while I was abroad was what to recommend a foreigner\nto see in Romania. What sense does it make, after seeing Vienna or Budapest, to beat Cluj or\nSibiu? To see that kind of architecture replicated on a micro scale?<\/span><\/p>\n

Now I know what to recommend to a foreigner: Timi\u0219oara. It\u2019s an incredibly spacious and\nbeautiful city.<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Timi\u0219oara, cel mai spa\u021bios ora\u0219 al Rom\u00e2niei Ora\u0219ul Surpriza acestei reziden\u021be a fost chiar ora\u0219ul, absolut splendid, f\u0103r\u0103 egal \u00een toat\u0103 Rom\u00e2nia, de o unitate arhitectural\u0103 uimitoare. Chiar \u0219i blocurile socialiste din zonele istorice au fost proiectate atent, ca s\u0103 nu rup\u0103 armonia cu cl\u0103dirile de patrimoniu. Iar construc\u021biile recente, \u201ede beton \u0219i sticl\u0103\u201d, nu […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[43],"class_list":["post-7288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cronica-taifas-2023","tag-adrian-schiop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7288"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7293,"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7288\/revisions\/7293"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}