The city of Ploiești as remembered by its people

Recent publication brings together recollections of Ploiești residents about their city.

Christine Leșcu, 28.08.2021, 14:00

Once known as the capital of black
gold in Romania, Ploiești, a city located just north of Bucharest, has had a
troubled but interesting history. Thanks to the crude oil reserves on its
outskirts, the city developed quickly beginning with the end of the 19th
century. Large imposing buildings began to be built and the prospect of
enrichment started to attract a variety of people, including from other
countries, who settled in Ploiești and contributed to the local life. A recent editorial
project from the Association for Education and Urban Development consisting of
four volumes focuses on the recollections of people who were born and grew up
in Ploiești but who have ended up living elsewhere. The latest book in this series
was published recently under the title Ploieștiul amintirilor noastre (Ploiești
in Our Recollections). Historian Lucian Vasile, who was involved in the
project, tells us more:

The book is a natural continuation
of an endeavour that began five years ago. We didn’t imagine at the time that we
would come this far, but the response from readers and those who were willing
to share their memories and their family and personal stories was extremely
positive. The latest book in the series continues some of the stories from
previous books and also contains texts from new contributors. The authors come
from different backgrounds, have different professions, are of different ages
and write about different places and periods. The stories cover almost an
entire century of the city’s history and the whole city, from its outskirts,
where the oil refineries are located, to what has remained of the historical centre.

The latest collective volume
dedicated to Ploiești contains the contributions of 11 authors, some of whom
also contributed to the previous volumes and who belong to inter-war, post-war
and contemporary generations. Historian Lucian Vasile is back with more details
about the different authors:

One of them is a young man who writes
about the city as he knew it in his childhood in the 1990s. An older author writes
about the city’s merchants almost half a century ago, while another remembers
what Ploiești used to be like during the communist period. The latter’s account
is quite amusing, although it also refers to the dramatic events of 1989. The entire
Romanian society has undergone radical changes in recent decades. For the very
young, the stories about the 1990s sometimes seem unbelievable. They are still
part of our recent history and a piece of the jigsaw puzzle when it comes to local
history. History is not only about what happened hundreds of years ago or 80
years ago, but also about what happened 20 or 30 years ago. And this is history
we need to know about and understand in order to be able to understand our
present.

Apart from publishing books, the
Association for Education and Urban Development is also involved in organising
guided tours of the historical part of Ploiești and the urban transformations, often
unfortunate, which they city saw during the communist period. These tours are
popular not only with local residents, but also with people from Bucharest and
other cities. Historian Lucian Vasile explains:

Our tours are primarily about
history. The stories we tell in our books and our guided tours complement the
information provided by local museums. As a matter of fact, Ploiești has some excellent
museums which are different from the museums in other parts of the country in
terms of theme. I’m thinking about the Clock Museum and the Hagi Prodan Burgher’s House Museum. The
recent past still generates heated debate and I think Romanian society is yet
to reach a consensus or a common, universally accepted view about its recent
past. At the end of the day, however, it’s only natural to have different views.
For some, the radical transformations that began in 1945 were disastrous and
tragic, and the crimes and destruction that followed cannot be denied. For others,
however, the same events were also an opportunity to climb the social ladder. Places
and buildings that appeared in the wake of the destruction of historical
heritage and which are seen by some as very ugly are considered by others to be
an integral part of an improvement in living standards and housing in the case
of apartment blocks. Each view has its own reasoning, and we must understand
and accept it.

That was historian Lucian Vasile from the Association
for Education and Urban Development, which recently published a fourth book in
a series dedicated to the history of the city of Ploiesti in the last 100 years
as seen by former residents.