CITY

After 1980, the city was nothing but a construction site. It could not be clean since whole streets or even neighborhoods could disappear over one night. The pace of constructions was so that cleanness was excluded. Six months were enough for any building to be completed, the kind of work that will take now more than 13 years. When the metro was built, the rhythm was of one linear meter a day. Incredible.

The banks of the river Dimbovita were ready in one year. Underneath there are 3 channels: one for sewage, one for draining and one for maintenance. And above there are those concrete banks and the fence. I remember that many institutions contributed to raise that fence, such as ?23 August?, which made those cast iron pillars and those small fences. (22)

CLOTHES

Available, but very hard to get. Leather clothes were only sold to people one knew. If you were nice to the shop assistant, she would let you know about the new stocks and would not put them on sale if you were interested. Actually they didn?t really get many articles of the same kind. Hats were rare, and so were other articles too (such as shirts, etc.) (M. C. J., 21)

Yes, you could find clothes on sale; people would mostly buy Chinese cotton things. Generally they were good quality things; I could find whatever I needed. (M. C. J., 96)

The shop on my street sold whatever didn?t pass the export quality control. Word was passed around the neighborhood that new stuff was brought in and they rushed to get it. There were, for instance, those checkered shirts with some nasty defect on the sleeve, as if someone just tacked the seams. All the same, they were good quality, since they were made for abroad, not for the inferior classes. (114)

Sometimes, you could pay for the more expensive things, like coats, in installments.