Today is the last day of the Bucharest International Spotlight festival, an event which lasted for 4 days. It's a very interesting and dynamic event, mixing lightning and sound with abstract movies projections on various buildings in Romania's capital, Bucharest.

I will try to give you a little bit of a context, though. For the last few years, Romania has been dramatically affected by corruption and, after the last elections, in 2016, the population has been deeply polarized: the vast majority (including rural areas and small cities) is siding with the ruling party (which won the elections en fanfare), and a small, but vocal minority (big cities, entrepreneurs) is siding with a more progressive view, which favors, amongst other things, normal values (like honesty and entrepreneurship).

In 2017 there were huge street protests against some of the ruling party initiatives, which aimed at institutionalizing corruption (it sounds Sci-Fi, but, unfortunately, it isn't). Nothing really happened after that, the initiatives were just temporarily stopped, while the ruling party (which has a comfortable Parliament majority) is still trying to make them happen using other courses of action. At the same time, they are rolling more and more populist measures, some of them downright phantasmagoric.

The effects are starting to be seen: because they raised salaries across the supporting population spectrum, without any support from economical factors, the RON-USD rate spiked and inflation is heading towards 5%. On the front, the rulers are chanting economical growth, but on the back, they're desperately looking for money to close all those electoral deals they have to pay now. They're so desperate that, sometimes, ANAF, the IRS equivalent, is simply inventing more taxes and freeze people's bank accounts without any warning at all. I know a lot of people in this situation (not to mention that I've been there too, for almost the entire 2017).

This context generated one of the biggest emigration waves on Romania's post-communist history. Supposedly, around half a million people silently relocated from the country since 2016. Although we're not fighting on the streets for food, and you can still live a decent life (if you ignore the idiots and your bank accounts freezings), there is a very profound "ugly" vibe which tainted Romania's big cities. There's a lack of joy and a permanent state of alert: "what else are they going to do to us now?". People are barely smiling.

So, in this context, the Bucharest City Hall, in partnership with a few foundations, decided to deploy this festival. On the front, it is spectacular, and I commend the efforts behind it, while deeply enjoying huge parts of it. But once the festival lights are out, Bucharest gets back to its status of a decaying city.

Well, today I'm going to focus on the bright side, though, but I didn't want to do this without you knowing the big picture.

So, here is the first installment of pictures showing some of the iconic buildings of Bucharest being lit in Spotlight.

Romanian Atheneum

Here's how the Atheneum is looking during the day:

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And here's how it looks during the night:

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Kretzulscu Church Park

Right in the middle of Bucharest there is a brick-made church called Kretzulesc, and a very, very tiny bark behind it. Here's how the park looks during the day:

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And here's how it looks during the night:

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From the same spot, I turned 180 degree and took a photo of an administrative building, which also hosted some projections. Here's how it looks during the day:

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And here's how it looks during the night:

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That's it for the first installment, I'll be back soon with more pics and a couple of videos (which are even more spectacular than the shots).

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I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.

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