The thing is If you turn on the light it is still Balkans. Basically it is only city of Tirana in the video. You will see reality in mere 30 km out of it. The real growth of economy is measured in quality of life, basically for all people, not just in a capital of the country. Italians bury cash into concrete of these building, unfortunately not into prosperity of Albanian people.
Or Jakarta, Riyadh, Jeddah, Doha...etc. And tbh, I much prefer older European architecture than these copies of Abu Dhabi/Dubai. Actually building this, is yet another expression of primitivism.
maybe you don't want to visit a culture that is so way behind in it's values? Realistically and scientifically speaking, from the most objective point of view, a human person does not deserve to die for this.
Romanians complaining about drug laws in another country is funny to me, considering Romania is one of the few Western countries where you can become unemployable by being caught with trace amounts of weed in your pocket, or lose your driver's license for smoking a joint 3 weeks before.
That probably won't happen, but technically, in Romania, you should get at least 3 years in prison for possessing any quantity of weed.
I've seen people smoke weed next to cops in countries where that would be punishable by death (in SEA), but never in Romania.
TL;DR: dismissing a country because of the theoretical punishment for weed possession is stupid.
You're missing the point. It's the hypocrisy.
They excuse themselves from visiting a country because of its weed laws, even though they're willingly living in Romania, with pretty much the same kind of weed laws if you add human rights into the discussion.
Moving to The Netherlands or Germany is as easy as moving to Cluj. Instead of just saying "Nah, Malaysia is not on my travel list", they find a stupid excuse like weed laws.
Maybe I shoul’ve explained I used SEA as an example because our politicians have the same authoritarian reflexes, recently on a debate about graffiti the mayor of Sector 1 suggested to look at Singapore and their laws (whippings) they dare to say we gotta be like those countries because they are so developed and modern, I wasn’t trying to say it’s a backwater
Also, that one specific place in the video is awful to be in.
Walking? It's about as busy as a festival main stage, but there's no grass or happiness to be seen.
Biking? There's a "bike lane" there, going from nowhere to nowhere, connected to nothing.
Car? It's slower than walking in Northern Bucharest at rush hour.
Subway? It's about as busy as a festival main stage after the main show ends.
Aside from transportation, during daytime, those apartment blocks in the background were built like 5 years ago and they aged worse than 60 year old commie blocks renovated 20 years ago.
"Listen Dragen. Here is post-modern shit building design. Here is modern shit building design. And here far away is building design that might look like something. What you choose?"
"The shit one."
"Say no more."
No we're not, we are still behaving as if we're living in villages and so everyone can do whatever they want. Won't speak about Serbia but Greece, Albania, Macedonia (Yugoslavia), Bulgaria and even Cyprus which isn't near here, we all do that.
How does it show? Really curious, since I never got into problems with other balkan people. To be even more honest, I kinda feel having a coworker from the balkans more chill than a stuck up westerner.
Of course not. How we could have guessed politicians are this cheap, and people are stupid. This generation sold the future and freedom of their children for a couple light bulbs and shiny high rises. And they still don't see what's happening and think of these constructions as develeopment and prosperity.
If you take a taxi or a bus from the airport to the city center of Istanbul during the night... it's wow, ''Turkye is so developed'', ''so many skycrapers'', city lights, etc
During the day... it's still a balkan land, with dust all over the place, cars that honk to much, people yelling trying to agree on something...
So... a few tall building and some glass doesn't mean much in this part of the world.
Bucharest is the same; some nice buildings (private of course) - otherwise you stil know you re in the Balkans and in a former comunist country.
The Balkans are growing rapidly. If we exclude Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and North Macedonia, the region is making significant progress. Unfortunately, these four countries are still struggling with corruption and lagging behind—largely due to political and structural issues. On the other hand, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece are experiencing strong economic growth and are developing quickly. In the next 10–15 years, they could become very robust economies. Slovenia and Croatia, in particular, are already close to that level.
Compared to Germany and other Western European countries, which are currently slowing down, the Balkans are seeing impressive growth rates—sometimes up to 3% GDP annually. If—hopefully—war can be avoided in the region, these countries have the potential to become quite wealthy.
I don't think skyscrapers are a good indicator of wealth and stability, it's usually the opposite, especially if you look at Asia and Africa. An actual precise indicator of prosperity and stability would be good maintenance and good infrastructure all around and that's also the case and indicator in places like Scandinavia, not just skyscrapers and modern buildings
I think turkey has more of them than all of the countries combined, and that is just in istanbul. But that is not the problem, you as well know that these glass buildings are nothing compared to history and real beauty.
Pardon my ignorance, but what's so special about it?
That's like saying 4sqkm would define a city of 60sqkm (if not more) and a country of 200k sqkm.
Move like 4km to the East of those skyscrapers and it looks like shit.
Move like 4km to the West, and it looks like shit.
Move a few km to South West and it looks like shit.
Bucharest is full of buildings that are about to collapse at the first earthquake. Many of them already seem like it takes one fart and they fall apart.
Oh, yeah, why don't you mention that every winter, tens of thousands of people run out of heat and warm water in the very city.
I am sick and tired of people claiming 'look how much we have developed' by posting a picture of an insignificant area relative to the surface of the country. We did not 'develop' because we did something special. Vietnam developed more than us, Kazakhstan developed the same as us. Don't get me started on 50% of the Persian Gulf. The only reason why we developed so fast is because most of our region was not bombed into smithereens
I've had the same heating and warm water issues in England. That's just the reality of old buildings. Ironically, those are the same buildings with nice façades everyone compares these news ones to.
I guess it depends on your definition of 'old buildings'. As far as I am aware, building age has nothing to do with it in Bucharest. Apartment blocks of 40 y o are suffering the same issues as ones built in 2000-2010
Yeah... you can say that about any city, some areas are nicer, some less so. And those areas that look like shit almost invariably look much better compared to how they looked 25 years ago.
Nobody claimed we did anything special? Did anyone say that? This being said, I can imagine countless scenarios that would have let us to a worse outcome over the last 35 years.
Don't do this. Only africans post this to say: Look what africa Actually looks like - and it's just the downtown of their biggest city. This is not balkans, every city in the world has shiny glass buildings now. Balkans have much more history , much more beautiful architecture than the "downtown" made in the last 15 years.
Belgrade has only one area which isn't renovated but built from the grounds up as a private city for arabian oil princes. It only looks impressive as a backdrop, but the Belgrade Waterfront (that's the name of the private city) is actually pretty bad quality and you can see online how badly built everything is. It's just a useful thing for politicians to wave at people telling how they're "building the future" or whatever.
There are also business towers adjacent to BW - such as the Afi tower, not to mention several areas around New Belgrade, most clustered around Airport City.
Belgrade has been absolutely booming in construction which has its positives as well as negatives, but Serbs will only complain, criticize and be cynical, yet also never back any alternative.
Belgrade is lacking most in heritage restoration, even though the city center did improve dramatically in some areas, it’s simply not even near enough, many buildings are literally falling apart or even being demolished for new builts.
Belgrade has 0 infrastructural improvements and it rapidly expanded without any essential infrastructure projects being built or planned. The city is in traffic, energetic and sewage collapse.
Do you really think rich Arabs care about Belgrade? They are in Serbia to take money. Some of it is bought by clueless people. Some as investment to be rented. Some by business owners who avoided taxes and they're forced into buying. Otherwise their businesses would be closed.
During the day it looks horrendous. And Bucharest is the ugliest capital in the whole EU. I live here and I can tell you daily life is a masochistic struggle. The population's education level is sunken, the public transit is neglected and the city is suffocated by cars. The green spaces are ever diminishing and the infrastructure seems to cater only to drivers. We have close to no bike lanes. The old historical buildings in the old city centre are ruined and dilapidated and await demolition. The cultural life is lacking and besides getting drunk in some dubious bar, I see no appeal to visiting this city.
It’s a hit and miss.
The Balkans have a generally high level of inequality - both regionally and within communities. Small towns in the Rose Valley are very different than ones in the Northwest.
I am going to say it. I would rather live in the commie district I’ve lived my whole life where there are green spaces, large sidewalks, third spaces than in any district developed by private real estate developer that just spawn one block next to the other in order to maximise profits
Tbf the commie blocks are insanely practical and built to last. They just look ugly af due to the architecture style back in the days, same as council flats in the UK.
Also they were not built to last. Khrushchevkas (which are the regular 4 storie buildings that people call ugly commie blocks) were meant to be temporary solutions for the housing crisis and were meant to be replaced by better buildings when economy permitted that. Never happened tho
They definitely weren't built to last. The ones in Bulgaria were built cheaply during on-and-off economic crises in the hopes that they can be demolished in 50 years and rebuilt "properly" once the communist economy miraculously stabilises. It didn't, they're still standing and no one is producing the parts that need to be replaced.
You can compare the structural integrity of blocks built in Ukraine during and after the Soviet Union. The ones built by the Soviets [collapse like a stack of cards](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/04/05/world/05ukraine-scene-promo/05ukraine-scene-1-mediumSquareAt3X.jpg) after getting hit.
Czech dude was not insulting us, instead he invited us to remember what villages looked like 30 years ago and now everybody has blue tiles on their roof like's it's fucking Halkidiki from wish
I remember in the early 90s (the worst time economically for Bulgaria) my grandma used to watch soap operas like The Bold and the Beautiful. It began with these shots of skyscrapers in downtown wherever in the US and I remember thinking how I wanted to live in such a place and being upset we did not have such buildings. Today when I see one of those being built up I want to throw up.
That's one of the *corporate* mix of buildings in the northern part of Bucharest, Romania - which is NOT balkanic region.
Please stop confusing the places!!!
Also, you don't want to live in that part of the town, low green areas, high prices and bad food (there's a mall there).
Want to live authentic? Try old neighbourhoods, local dishes etc.
Signed,
A Bucharestian.
well this is just a small part of Bucharest, I am Romanian and I actually lived there and outside of the business center some parts are really shitty, while this is still impressive it is not representative of the whole city or nation
I wouldn't believe it. But hey, this is the magic of debt. :)
"The debt has grown from roughly $11 billion in the late 1990s to over $219 billion by 2024"
https://preview.redd.it/a44yym9x0usg1.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=8af7b611abff7ff9074810b6d894668b6b27323b
That ain't average Balkan, this is:
Compared to the soulless communist blocks and the dilapidated village houses that came before this, yes it looks quite good. Sure, the architectural gems of central Bucharest from the kingdom period look better but most buildings historically haven't looked like palaces. Cheap and ugly is the norm and we've definitely improved on that front.
As if we didn't have these things 40 years ago already.
https://preview.redd.it/tne6gx0b4vsg1.jpeg?width=2560&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6cad26ea8d4d15616bfb033b1a531a6a24fd6303
https://preview.redd.it/ksufoxt82usg1.jpeg?width=1178&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e68a4e82cedf360eceeefbd7bf1bc5758b892a66
This reminded me when we announced Jokic winning MVP on this monstrosity lol
It also looks like a penis, depends on your perspective
https://preview.redd.it/ficvv930busg1.jpeg?width=1049&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0325cd77021095f2828ea8326c2a5b6f93eb4d5e
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