1. The centre that is not central

What strikes one who takes a look at the map of contemporary Romania is its total asymmetry: the capital, that is to say the political, cultural and economic center of the country is way too removed from the geographical center of the national territory. Of course, the notion of the capital as center is a pure convention; few are the states whose capitals lie at the very heart of the national territory. However, Bucharest seems to be thrust in Southern Romania, to the effect that its vicinity to the 45° North latitude parallel* (i.e. half way between the Equator and the North Pole) is a mere surrogate. The distance between the capital and the north-westernmost and north-easternmost cities of Romania is, in a straight line, longer than that between Bucharest and Sophia (the capital of Bulgaria) or the frontiers of Greece and Turkey. However, one should note that Bucharest is un-centered only with regard to contemporary Romania; centuries ago, it was relatively central to the region of medieval Wallachia.

Those who claim that Bucharest is a ?Balkan city? disregard these elements of topometrics. During my university years I was in friendly polemics with a fellow student from Cluj, and, in an attempt to put an end to a discussion that left him no honourable means to take the upper hand, he told me, I know your sort, you Southerners! My first intention was to argue that I was a Bucharest man only as a student, that my hometown was Craiova, but then I realised that his rebuff covered that area as well.

            2.  Waters, coins and oak-trees

Let us leave meta-history behind and come back to history as such: according to available data, contemporary  Bucharest and its surroundings have been inhabited from times immemorial. That should come as no surprise, since the place has always been drenched by two watercourses,  Dimbovita and Colentina (although they must have been clearer during the Paleolithic age than they are today). Main occupations included hunting, fishing and breeding and, probably, given the surrounding forests and the abundant vegetation, bee-keeping too,  as was the case everywhere along the left bank of the Danube. Time passing by, crafts and commerce became, as we shall see, prominent, since Bucharest was situated on one of the trading roads that connected the Ottoman Empire to the Western world, passing through Brasov and other Transylvanian cities. The contemporary Romanian attempt to foreground the country as one stop along the wondrous trajectory of Eastern oil towards the Western car-reservoires has, as one can easily see, a considerable tradition.