![Bucharest Quarter Berceni](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Bucharest_Quarter_Berceni.svg)
Berceni is a district (''cartier'' in
Romanian
Romanian may refer to:
*anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania
**Romanians, an ethnic group
**Romanian language, a Romance language
*** Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language
** Romanian cuisine, tradition ...
) of southern
Bucharest
Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...
.
Location
Geographically, it has a trapezoidal shape, bordered by
Olteniței Road to the north and Turnu Măgurele Street to the south. Built during the 1960s, it is a typical Communist-era working class district, lacking any major green spaces or cultural attractions. It has a population of roughly 110,000.
Etymology
It is believed that the name comes from the
hussars
A hussar ( , ; hu, huszár, pl, husarz, sh, husar / ) was a member of a class of light cavalry, originating in Central Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries. The title and distinctive dress of these horsemen were subsequently widely a ...
of Miklós Bercsényi, who were first mentioned after the suppression of the
Hungarian Kuruc War led by
Francis II Rákóczi
Francis II Rákóczi ( hu, II. Rákóczi Ferenc, ; 27 March 1676 – 8 April 1735) was a Hungarian nobleman and leader of Rákóczi's War of Independence against the Habsburgs in 1703–11 as the prince ( hu, fejedelem) of the Estates Confeder ...
(at beginning of the 18th century). They settled in the neighborhood of Bucharest. Another theory claims that the name comes from an archaic Romanian word for
tax collector
A tax collector (also called a taxman) is a person who collects unpaid taxes from other people or corporations. The term could also be applied to those who audit tax returns. Tax collectors are often portrayed as being evil, and in the modern wo ...
.
History
![Vedere spre Piata Sudului](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Vedere_spre_Piata_Sudului.jpg)
Before the 1960s, Berceni was situated outside of Bucharest, in a very sparsely populated area where only a few rural properties were located, with the nearest landmarks being the long-gone
Văcărești Monastery Văcăreşti may refer to several entities in Romania:
*Văcărescu family of boyars
*Văcărești, Bucharest
*Văcăreşti Monastery
*Văcăreşti prison
*Văcărești, Dâmbovița, a commune in Dâmboviţa County
*Văcăreşti, a village in Mihă ...
, and starting from the latter half of the 19th century, the
Bellu Cemetery
Șerban Vodă Cemetery (commonly known as Bellu Cemetery) is the largest and most famous cemetery in Bucharest, Romania.
It is located on a plot of land donated to the local administration by Baron Barbu Bellu. It has been in use since 1858. Th ...
. In the
interwar period, the Alexandru Obregia hospital was opened.
On 5 April 1964, the
Scînteia
''Scînteia'' (Romanian for "The Spark") was the name of two newspapers edited by Communist groups at different intervals in Romanian history. The title is a homage to the Russian language paper ''Iskra''. It was known as ''Scânteia'' until th ...
newspaper announced plans for a new housing estate, being built specifically for the workers at the IMGB plant located nearby, which opened in 1963. Construction works began the same year, which brought many
Lipovan Russians from the
Dobruja
Dobruja or Dobrudja (; bg, Добруджа, Dobrudzha or ''Dobrudža''; ro, Dobrogea, or ; tr, Dobruca) is a historical region in the Balkans that has been divided since the 19th century between the territories of Bulgaria and Romania. I ...
region of Romania, who worked with excavating and laying foundations for the buildings. The first dwellers moved in 1965 when the first apartment buildings (4 to 9 storeys high) were completed, although the housing estate had its shortcomings: the local market was not ready on time, so trucks with food supplies would come in the mornings for the residents. On the other hand, the Lipovans found multiple graves on the construction site of a school.
The construction of the 4-storey apartment blocks was done much faster due to the type of the buildings using prefabricated panels, in one of the first large-scale uses of prefabs in apartment blocks. The 9-storey apartment blocks used the more traditional construction methods. 5,500 apartments were planned to be built in the first stage: the goal was achieved in 1968, but construction works were completed by around 1976. The buildings closer to Piața Sudului were also built at the same time.
The western half of Berceni (located closer to the
Giurgiului
Giurgiului () is a neighborhood in the southern part of the Romanian capital Bucharest, in Sector 5, near Berceni and Ferentari. Like Berceni, Giurgiului has plenty of 10-storey blocks of flats that were built under Communist rule, starting ...
housing estate) began to be constructed starting from 1971 using more austere 4-storey and 10-storey apartment blocks, being exclusively built with prefabricated panels, the construction of which was completed by 1981. The second stage had fewer green spaces and more buildings that were built closer to each other. A group of small houses was left undemolished, and it still exists today, because, according to the institute that planned this housing estate, it gave the area "a special characteristic".
Berceni also benefitted from a large shopping center (BIG Berceni) which opened in February 1975, various schools and multiple trolleybus routes that opened in the late 1960s. The
M2 line of the
Bucharest Metro
The Bucharest Metro ( ro, Metroul din București) is an underground rapid transit system that serves Bucharest, the capital of Romania. It first opened for service on 16 November 1979. The network is run by Metrorex. One of two parts of the large ...
began operating in the vicinity of the neighborhood starting from 24 January 1986, serving the Piața Sudului and Apărătorii Patriei areas, along with the IMGB industrial area; however this led to the trolleybus network of Berceni being isolated from the rest of the trolleybus network of Bucharest in 1987, in an attempt to re-engineer the ground transportation in the city by building district-based networks.
In the last stage, multiple apartment blocks were built nearby from 1982 to 1990 in various areas of the housing estate, especially on the Olteniței Avenue and Constantin Brâncoveanu Avenue. In the 1980s it was the largest working class housing estate in Southern Bucharest, being one of the main four large scale housing estates built in the 1960s.
After the
Romanian Revolution
The Romanian Revolution ( ro, Revoluția Română), also known as the Christmas Revolution ( ro, Revoluția de Crăciun), was a period of violent civil unrest in Romania during December 1989 as a part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred ...
of 1989, the housing estate became infamous for its high crime rates, although this issue has been less common in the last decade. Starting from 2016, a program was launched to rebuild the roads and renovate multiple apartment buildings.
Other
There is also a village of
Berceni, which is situated to the south and is outside Bucharest city limits.
Gallery
File:Bucharest Sefard Jewish Cemetery.jpg, Bucharest Sefard Jewish cemetery
File:RO B Bellu cemetery entrance.jpg, Bellu Cemetery
Șerban Vodă Cemetery (commonly known as Bellu Cemetery) is the largest and most famous cemetery in Bucharest, Romania.
It is located on a plot of land donated to the local administration by Baron Barbu Bellu. It has been in use since 1858. Th ...
File:Blvd_C-tin_Brancoveanu.jpg, Boulevard Constantin Brâncoveanu, Berceni
File:RO B Bacovia museum.JPG, George Bacovia memorial museum
{{Coord, 44, 23, 18.73, N, 26, 7, 4.17, E, display=title
Districts of Bucharest