You will often see Bucharestians crowd in front of a small outlet selling Vishnu and Shiva know what. Students at the infamous ASE, mid-aged folks wearing fine suits, as well as poor old ladies, all ready to spend next to nothing (about RON 0.6 - 0.9) for a covrig. A piece of dough shaped like an endless rope, then wrapped more or less in shape of digit eight, and eventually baked, but not before being put in a bucket of water, because otherwise the goddamn covrig won’t be shiny. They will have it topped with with sesame, with salt, with poppy. Or plain. They will eat several covrigi while walking down the street, not givin’ a damn about its containing alot of wheat flour and not much else. At a time of globalization, where fast-foods or frozen’n baked outlets expand every day, places selling the covrigi still are real institutions Bucharestians rely on and crowd at. Watch them on an early morning at the outlet in Piața Romană (with that skinny guy always ready with a joke), or at the one across the street from the Howard Johnson, in Lahovary Square (with that old lady, always sorry she does not have the change in the early morning). I would also recommend a just as good one on the corner of Franceză and Șelari streets. More recently, there have appeared places serving covrigi in many subway stations and at major traffic crossings (even though these new places do not have classical ovens, but rather electrical ones, and taste is different). Despite the cons, this is a sign people are still on (sort of) a good road.

One might call these memories of a long gone period of time. I would rather call these present time people. As well as parts of my daily life. In a city called Bucharest.

GPS - Covrigi Piata Romana - N44 26.789 E26 05.783

GPS - Covrigi Lahovary - N44 26.783 E26 05.989

GPS - Covrigi Selari - N44 25.822 E26 06.027