First impressions of Bucharest, Romania

Having never been in Romania before, in August 2021 it was going to be my first visit to Bucharest for work and relocation. Before coming to Bucharest, I heard from friends about city, watched some videos, documentaries to learn and to get familiar. Since I lived 5 years in Moscow in young ages, experienced of being a foreigner in a different country and having visited nearly all countries in Europe, I was not expecting much surprise.

Of course the things you see and feel in real about a city is different from what you hear or read. The first impressions about Bucharest, after a few days were:

• Many old, not repaired buildings, not so good roads, old electric buses (trolley bus), as well as new ones (but mostly old)
• Green city, with parks and lakes.
• Less floored or high floored apartments can be mixed in city. While there is 10-15 floor new residences, just 50 meters later you will see garden houses mostly old with one, two floors.
• City contains Soviet architecture and feeling in some life style, but at the same time trying to adapt to European style more.
• People are calm, very friendly, helpful and open to communication. They don't have any bad intention about foreigners, different from Russia which is much more nationalist.
• Romanian and Turkish cultures have many similarities, even some words in common. From history two countries had good relations.
• Many global technology companies have big offices like Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe. 
• There are many big parks and small parks in every part of the city. Specially for children, city is very good in parks, playgrounds and greenness.
• Although city is very small compared to Istanbul, there is traffic in Bucharest. Roads are narrow, crowdy parking on sides of the streets.
• There is a Turkish community, Turkish markets, restaurants, Turkish trademarks & shops in shopping centers (LC Waikiki, Damat, English Home, Colin's, Kahve Dunyasi etc.). So you don't feel far from your country.
• Bucharest is 1 hour far from Istanbul by plane and Henri Coanda Airport is relatively small, so its easy and not time consuming to travel from Istanbul to Bucharest.
• Life and Bureaucracy is very slow working in Romania. 
• Most Romanians know English, specially young people. And I had the feeling of the quality of educations is good.
• People give importance to life and work balance. Specially on weekends they prefer to go mountainside, in summer sea side to rest and share time with families and friends.
• European Companies and Corporate businesses are dominating Romanian market (specially German, French, Italian, American companies). Markets like Lidle, Auchan, KaufLand; Car Companies Bmw, Mercedes; Banks Unicredit, Raiffeisen, Ing. Romania needs time to create and improve its own corporate companies.

In summary, as first impression Bucharest was not a city that affects you, gets exited or makes you surprised much. Calm, green city, warm people and not bad entertainment options (good restaurants, cafes, night clubs, swimming pools) makes the city a good city for living. From a tourist perspective, 3-4 days would be enough for Bucharest to discover the city.