Why was Bucharest named “The Little Paris?”
what can you visit here
you can ask me here everything you would like to know about our 'little Paris'...what would you like to visit? would you like to start your day with a tee, and then start a city tour?museums, art galleries, political buildings, parks,historical area,cinemas maybe some shops?
what do you think about our 'little Paris' ?
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spectacular
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it's ok
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fine
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I don't like it
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historical.
Maybe this question has already had many answers. One of them should have a double reference: a human one, anthropologic, and another one.. an environmental, architectural one. Both references interpenetrate each other, even though the confrontation between old and new, at the beginning of the XIX century , was often aggressive.
Reality caught shape in the next period, especially after 1830,when Bucharest –as Valahia also – was a few years under Russian domination. The European model life has been introduced in less than a generation. Many French intellectuals , as Frederic Damme or Ulysee de Marsillac , gave, a cultural and very dinamic tone to Bucharest’s society.
The city is changing into the most detailed urbanist benchmarks , and the clothes, accessorizes, gestures, become alike Paris. French is frequently spoken on the streets and on certain social levels, also including here a large part from the “middle class”.
Well, this spectacular change of image and mentality , for a Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian or Albanian, in comparison to their Balkan countries ,still situated under Turkish empire, gave the name of “The Little Paris” for Bucharest. For most of the Balkan merchants, the true Paris was way too far and expensive, so, in Bucharest they have discovered a mininatural Paris. From here comes also the name of “Little Paris” – from the surprise of the Balkan travelers about a Bucharest that has rapidly changed, linking with Europe by its French cultural model, starting with clothes and language, and finishing by architecture and other everyday concerns.
“The Little Paris” has lived its glory period , and what gave consistent to that age and its surname are even nowadays partial kept in the center of the town : houses, shops, palaces , public buildings and others , most of them designed by French architects as Albert Galleron , Cassian Bernard, Xavier Villacrosse or Paul Gottereau.