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Pictures and paintings to save Bucharest historic district

12 February 2011 22:22 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. A hundred people equipped with cameras, brushes and paints protested Saturday against the authorities’ plan to demolish one of the oldest marketplaces in the Romanian capital, APA reports quoting news.yahoo.com website.
The protesters installed their easels and tripods in front of Matache Hall and started painting or taking pictures, while a dozen police looked on.
"I am here to make a drawing of the hall even if I’m not very good at it," Radu Raileanu, 27, told AFP.
"Our protest may not save Matache but it can prevent the destruction of other monuments," he added.
Matache Hall, built in 1887, is one of 13 historic monuments threatened by a project to build a large boulevard through one of Bucharest’s oldest districts.
Nicusor Dan, president of the Save Bucharest association, said he had resorted to this form of "quiet but creative protest" after the municipality banned the organization of several cultural events in the neighbourhood.
Seated at the foot of a statue, Ana Drula, a budding artist aged 11, was carefully looking at the architectural details of the hall before putting them down on paper.
"We have come to say our farewells to the building, we could not let it disappear like that," her mother, Ioana, said.
Dozens of NGOs and Romanian intellectuals have pleaded over the last few weeks with the authorities to prevent the "irretrievable loss" of Bucharest’s heritage