Obor is the name of a square and the surrounding district of

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 ...

, the capital of

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

. There is also a Bucharest Metro station (on the M1 line) named

Obor Obor is the name of a square and the surrounding district of Bucharest, the capital of Romania. There is also a Bucharest Metro station (on the M1 line) named Obor, which lies in this area. The district is near the Colentina and Moșilor ne ...

, which lies in this area. The district is near the Colentina and

Moșilor Moșilor (literally, ''Elders'') is a residential quarter in Bucharest's Sector 2. It houses the Foișorul de Foc and Silvestru Church. Its name derives from the main avenue Calea Moșilor which in turn is named after a well-known fair held in Obo ...

neighborhoods. Obor stands in the place of "Târgul Moșilor", a

fair A fair (archaic: faire or fayre) is a gathering of people for a variety of entertainment or commercial activities. Fairs are typically temporary with scheduled times lasting from an afternoon to several weeks. Types Variations of fairs incl ...

famous throughout

Wallachia Wallachia or Walachia (; ro, Țara Românească, lit=The Romanian Land' or 'The Romanian Country, ; archaic: ', Romanian Cyrillic alphabet: ) is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Lower Danube and so ...

, which was held twice a week. In

Old Romanian The history of the Romanian language started in Roman provinces north of the Jireček Line in Classical antiquity. Between 6th and 8th century AD, following the accumulated tendencies inherited from the vernacular spoken in this large area and, to ...

, "''obor''" meant ''enclosure, corral''. Located outside the city, in the 18th century, it was also the place for

public hanging Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature around the neck.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Hanging as method of execution is unknown, as method of suicide from 1325. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' states that hanging i ...

s. About 20 Turks captured from wars were hanged here by the Romanians.Justiţie în Bucureştii de odinioară
''Magazin Istoric'', no. 461. August 2005 The Obor market (Piața Obor), the direct successor of the original fair, was, until 2007, Bucharest's largest public market. It covered about 16 city blocks and included a variety of indoor and outdoor market spaces, with goods ranging from

compact disc The compact disc (CD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then rele ...

s to live chickens. Informally, the market spilled into the surrounding neighborhood, both in terms of street vendors and in terms of the nearby ''Magazin Universal'' ("Universal Store") named ''Bucur Obor'', a large commercial building and housing estate (officially named the ALMO housing estate, built in 1975 and renovated in 2013 and 2017) that has been parcelled up into hundreds of small, independent retail stores. The market was demolished, not without public outcry, in order to pave the way for a modern market and a small park, thus ending a 300-year tradition. The

Veranda Mall Veranda Mall is a shopping mall located in Bucharest, Romania, in the Obor neighborhood. It lies on Ziduri Moși Street 23, close to the Obor metro station, and it was inaugurated on October 27, 2016. The shopping mall was developed by Professi ...

, which lies close to the Obor metro station, was inaugurated in October 2016. With a surface, it includes 18 fashion and footwear shops, restaurants, children's playgrounds, a cinema, and a gym, as well as a Carrefour hypermarket. In Romanian popular culture, the neighborhood is referenced by

Gică Petrescu Gică Petrescu (; 2 April 1915 – 18 June 2006) was a prolific Romanian folk music composer and performer. He made his debut at age 18 by joining a student band, having just graduated from the Gheorghe Șincai High School in Bucharest. His ...

in his song ''Uite-așa aș vrea să mor'', in which the artist playfully expresses his desire to be buried in a tavern in the area with a glass of red wine in his hand. Among Bucharest dwellers, it has attained a reputation of a market of relatively cheap products, sometimes even of low quality. The was inaugurated in 1903.

References

Districts of Bucharest {{Romania-geo-stub