Little Paris…

Some hours spent at the “Little Paris” Museum were a blessing to me, first of all for the simple reason that I saw or better said that I reviewed old things, old pictures, old arrangements, and secondly, I managed a return in time, which is not easy, but it is very pleasant, which once again confirmed to me that life is too short, it deserves to be lived the way you want and how you like it.

What does “Little Paris” mean?It is actually the old name of the city of Bucharest, which in a certain period of time, in the 1930s, respectively, in the interwar period was called “Little Paris”.

Pleasure is not it?When you think that many of our customs were borrowed from the French, adapted to the Romanian society at that time, objects borrowed from the French and even the mentality of the people who lived (and may still live) in those beautiful times forgotten.

Times where there is not so much hatred among people, not a lot of political disputes that would make the press delight, the fun was at home if I was allowed to express myself without mobile phones or internet that would capture the attention of young people, not many cars, the carriage being made with cabrioles or horse drawn carts, but what is more important, the exaggerated politeness of the people and the chosen manners that they had.

I’m not a nostalgic of past times, but often you remember and remember what a beautiful times grandparents spent.

Looking at each object in part from the “Little Paris” museum, do you actually realize the part of their intimate history, wondering what’s behind them in fact?Images, interiors, interior decorations are an integral part of those times, silent film images but many say.

At the entrance, there is a huge chandelier decorated with crystal-shaped figurines that emit light through reflexes and games only known to him.The narrow and not too long entrance hall guides your steps to a circular wooden staircase that at each raised step emits a specific scraper, the old wood from which it is built, giving the feeling of vaudeville steps on the music, a bar smoked by the weather.

And what do you see?The entrance is guarded by old-time photographs in black and white and even sepia, which actually creates a gateway to another world, a world that actually lives only in memories, a world that at its time was better, more beautiful than a special flavor.

You ask, is that something like that?The answer would be, well yes!Perhaps many times your imagination plays a role in passing from a real, current time, to a time when older generations have lived, worked, and perhaps dreamed of a better future for their children, our parents, and why not nine children to their children.

Pure magic nothing else, guarded by old lamps and surrounded by a musical background of those times, passing through the door that connects the two worlds.

Going into the main hall, after a long and fine observation, you actually find that it has a totally atypical star shape for the museums I visited because it attempts to imitate as much as possible the systematization of the city of that time, the rooms being arranged in such a way that you can be seen or see any person regardless of where they are, or who knows, or thought about the “ghosts of the past” that populate the rooms, in a positive sense as they guide your steps but more choosing to look at objects arranged in such a way that you can integrate completely in those times (it depends very much on the imagination of each of us).

I can say the excellent idea had the architect or designer who arranged the museum.

Everything you see and observe gives you the pleasant feeling of an antique store with all sorts of things, useful and useless to your eyes, starting from old women’s and men’s costumes, fancy hats, carnival masks, old glasses, books, old cameras from that time, but also crystals, glasses, coffee cups, tea cups and many objects arranged sequentially that you truly have the impression or the feeling of total integration at that time, and all of them they want to tell you their own history.Pretty, is not it?

What is most interesting is the architecture of each room, with walls embellished with flowered silk, structures specific to the “Belle Epoque” period, Florentine ornaments and interwar symbolic angels, taken from the Baroque interior architecture of French classicism.

The interior design of the Renaissance style was not vaguely arranged in an old house in the historical center of Bucharest, which does not know by what heavenly miracle escaped the destructive demolition of Ceausescu before 1989. Absolutely gorgeous I could say!

It’s a real pleasure to sit down on an upholstered old chair, close your eyes for a few seconds, and try to dream, as surely the rich imagination will help you pass through those times, and the euphoria thus created gives you the feeling stopping at least for a few moments of time instead, as if “Tooth Fairy” touches you with her charm wand, so everything becomes real.

Forget about time, forget about space, and if you look at the clock at some point, you find that a few hours have passed, and not a few moments as you dreamed, but in a pleasant, enchanting manner, with a history of accumulated history and beautiful stories specific to those times, objects exposed as if you were guiding their own history.

On leaving, going through the “gate of time”, you return to the cruel reality that you wanted to escape, or perhaps you wanted to defer, to the “misery” of present times, to the politics created by politicians, to the pressing atmosphere of life’s life every day, wanting a return to time either at Little Paris, or elsewhere where you can feel good, or perhaps not in a better world, as those on you have previously wanted to become a history for the next generations, but the love that unites us as people, regardless of race, color, language, or religion cannot be destroyed by absolutely no one, nor our most invisible enemies, what we really want from all our soul, creating in time chemical valences that cannot be affected by other factors.

Watching, imagining and understanding is also an art.

June, 13th / 2018