RRS803

Hi my husband and I might be moving to Bucharest, he will be travelling all over continental europe but be based in Bucharest. Please can someone answer the following:

1. Is it a safe enough place for me to feel comfortable on my own while he is away?

2. How bad is the stray dog situation I have read so much about? Not keen on dogs so don't want to have to come face to face with them like many people seem to do.

3. Where would be the best place for us to live bearing in mind we would need to be handy for the airport. There are two offices my husband would be working out of one in central Bucharest and the odd few days at the office in Ploiesti

Thanks in advance

Azarel

Hello,

1. As safe as if not safer than most European cities. Random violence is rare - scamming, pickpocketing and pilftering are more of a problem. Take the usual safety precautions you would back home. There are some dodgy areas, but you'd have no reason to be in those areas.

2. I've never had a problem with strays and I walk/bus everywhere on a daily basis. 99% are docile and more afraid of you than them. The aggressive packs are limited more to outer or more deserted areas. You will encounter dogs if you travel around town a lot on foot, but if you're mostly driving/cabbing and shopping in malls and hypermarkets then you'll be ok. If you don't harass them or approach them, you won't have a problem.

If you're afraid of dogs, then it could be more distressing as you'll certainly have to walk past them (usually fat castrated ones sleeping under a bench or something) from time to time.

3. The best place would definitely be in the north of the city, perhaps around Dorobanti, Arcul de Triumf, Primaverii or Herastrau. Firstly it's more upmarket (re. your safety concerns), has shops and restaurants locally, and isn't too far from the centre for your husband's work. Also it's a short drive to the airport from there (10 mins if no traffic) and the road that goes to the airport also continues to Ploiesti (about another 45 mins from the airport). There's also a large park there which is good for walking, jogging, skating and cycling and a short drive away you have a large mall (Baneasa Shopping City) and various other superstores like Ikea.

RRS803

Thank you so much for replying Azarel, much appreciated.

The areas you mentioned are the areas I had been looking at online.

Not really scared of dogs just wouldn't like them bounding up to me so them being docile and lying underneath benches wouldn't bother me.

Are there plenty pubs/bars? After living in the Middle East for 10 years where all pub life takes place inside 5 star hotels it would be a nice change just being able to walk into a pub on the street to have a wee dram or two

Azarel

Hi,

Those northern aresa are probably the most suitable for your needs. They are, naturally, a little bit on the expensive side, especially if you want a flat in a newer block with its own parking, doorman and so on. Hopefully your hubby's company have provide some allowance for accommodation.

The dogs do annoy a lot of people but the government is making moves to solve the problem, set up pounds, and so on. The fact they want to euthanize ownerless dogs has causes a lot of media/blogosphere option to polarize maybe giving the impression that you either can't take two steps without some wild half-wolf with a foaming mouth slobbering at your ankles, or that they are in fact all harmless fluffy little victims. The reality is, as always, somewhere in the middle: most are harmless and docile, but they do occasionally pack together and cause a nuisance, or in some case attack people and cause more serious harm. Personally, I'm more afraid of the drivers!

Bucharest is full of pubs, bars, cafes and restaurants, so no worries there. The council have recently renovated and partly pedestrianised the old town (Lipscani) and practically every building there is now a bar, cafe, or restaurant. I reckon just in that square kilometre alone there must be 50-60 establishments, maybe more, catering for various tastes. Every neighbourhood has plenty of restaurants - sometimes cheapish Romanian places where you can have a meal for about a fiver, or just get a beer or a coffee. Most cuisines are catered for - lots of Chinese places, a few Indians, Italian and quite a lot of Turkish/Middle Eastern (if you're not sick of it yet) and the usual range of fast food places.

RRS803

Yes we do get a good housing allowance so hopefully get somewhere in nice neighbourhood.

I am well used to crazy drivers here in Middle East so won't be a shock to me seeing how the driving is in Bucharest. Glad to hear there is a decent public transport system.

Wow that's a whole lot of pubs and eateries in that area, should get round a few of them though.

Just waiting to hear in next few days if it is Romania we are moving to as another two countries have been in the equation too

Thank you for the information

shefs

Hi,

So sorry to jump on the thread here, my husband and I are considering moving to Bucharest as my parents are living there for work and would like to be close to them so they can help with my two sons.
I have a few questions regarding living costs. Prefer not to ask my mom as she is desperate for us to move there and don't want to get her hopes up if it's not financially viable!
So we would be looking at renting a 3 bed house in the Corbeanca area near the airport, what is the average cost I can expect? Also wanted to find out about the cost of utilities for a house of that size, ie. gas, electricity, council tax.
Any help would be appreciated!

Many thanks.

susiecy

hi
you will be fine in Bucharest !
we lived there recently for 19 months and my husband was away almost monday to friday in some other nearby country! the people are very friendly - I never felt unsafe and my neighbours were always very helpful if i got in a jam - you should definitely live somewhere near Banesa as that is where a lot of expats live (we were the other side of town, due to office location) traffic & commute times really need to be taken into account when you find a place.
the biggest problem with the dogs is that i felt so terribly sorry for all of them, although you hear stories of people being bitten they are usually asleep and you do get used to seeing them hanging around.
by the way, Azarel is the most helpful person ever about Bucharest! he should work for the consulate ))
come and enjoy - its nice and hot in the summer but can be cold in the winter. x

RRS803

Looks like Bucharest has been decided on for us to base ourselves and should be coming to Bucharest in next couple of weeks to house hunt and look round.

Sorry shefs I can't give you any information yet but hopefully someone can soon. As the saying goes always listen to what your mum tells you

Thanks susiecy good to hear that someone else was happy in Bucharest and its always good to have someone as helpful as Azarel when moving to a new country.

Another couple questions:

Are the road, train, shops signs all in Romanian or do they have a English translation too?

Cinemas - do the films have english subtitles? Please don't tell me they are dubbed

Azarel

Hi again,

@shefs

Don't really know that area too well as it's a little out of town, but a quick search of some online real estate sites seems to suggest you can get a 3-bed villa from anything between 500 Euro and 1000 Euro. Saw some for ridiculously high prices (like 4500 Euro!) but I think 500-1000 seems to be the going rate.

Here are a couple of links with properties to give you an idea of what you get for those prices:

http://mercador.ro/imobiliare/case-d...=1&q=corbeanca

and

http://www.tocmai.ro/cauta?q=corbean...t=8&jd=26&tz=2

When looking through the ads, look for ones which say they have '3 dormitoare' (3 bedrooms) or at least '4 camere' (4 rooms). When they talk about 'camera' (room) here, they mean bedrooms AND reception rooms, but don't include kitchens, bathrooms, and halls as those are taken as read.

It's harder for me to predict utilities because I live in a flat so a lot of things (water, gas, heating) are divided up between residents according to sie of the flat and number of people living there. With a villa you'd just get a regular consumption-based bill each month. Hopefully someone else who has rented a villa will be along to advise. Also depends on how you heat the house, whether you cook on gas or electricity, how much you cook, how hot you like the house, and so on.

As a very rough guide, I spend on average 20 Euro on electricity per month (lights, PC, fridge, washing machine) but obviously with a family you'll be washing more and might have a dishwasher and stuff like that. My other utilities (gas, water, heating) and come to between 30 Euro and 60 Euro per month, the higher ones being for winter when I'm paying for heating too. Of course, heating your own 3-bedroom villa will be a LOT more than what I spend heating my place so gas could be your biggest bill.

Similarly, council tax can vary depending on location, size of the house, size of the land, utilities supplied by the local council (waste collection, sewage, and so on) and a number of other factors. However, I would say that compared to the UK, it's not likely to be so much as to be a concern. I pay about 20 quid a year for my flat. A house in an 'upmarket' area like Corbeanca will be a lot more, but that might only mean a hundred quid a year or something.

Azarel

Stop it, you're making me blush

Azarel

@RRS803

Most of them are in Romanian, but fortunately it's quite an easy language to get to grips with. Also, a lot of shops use English anyway. The Romanian for 'Pet Shop', for example, is usually....wait for it....'Pet Shop'! Bar is bar, restaurant is restaurant, post office is 'oficiul postal' and so on. You would need Romanian probably (or emphatic use of sign language) to get by in small shops, but while you pick up the basics, there are plenty of supermarkets in every neighbourhood where you don't really need to know the name of anything.

A lot of the restaurants and bars in the old town area have menus in English available, or have a translation (not always a great one though) underneath each item on the menu. Most waiters and waitresses are young students who know English anyway.

And road signs...well, bit trickier, but some are obvious, like 'stop!', others are like in the UK: they don't really have a lot of writing but you need to know what the symbols mean. Anyway, I don't think people particular pay any attention to road signs here!

Transport also isn't such a big problem. For about 10 quid you can get a monthly surface transport pass. First time you get it, you have to go to one of the kiosks with some ID (your passport) and get a plastic card, and for this you might need a Romanian speaker with you. Then you just have to get the card reactivated at any of the kiosks once a month. With the card, you can basically jump on any tram, bus or trolley bus you like. There a similar card for the metro, or you can just buy a 10-trip card for about 3 quid. You don't need to specify where you're getting off, so no problem with communication there. - you just use the card to go through the turnstile, and then you can ride the metro all day - a 'trip' only ends when you leave the metro system again.

Good news on this front too. Cinemas are nearly always in the original language (90% of the time that means English) with Romanian subtitles. Most films/serials on TV are the same - in the original with Romanian subtitles, so if you get a cable subscription, you'll find plenty to watch in English.

RRS803

Thanks again for another informative post Azarel

Sure I will get by on the language front even if it is by some crazy kind of sign language.

Prices for the metro etc seem very reasonable.

Looking forward to my trip over in a couple of weeks even though the cold will be a shock to the system. Hopefully my husband's company will be on the ball and set up some apartment viewings for us as I think we are moving over by 1st March.

Azarel

You're welcome RRS. Have a good trip, despite the weather (it's just turned cold and rainy here in Bucharest and snow is forecast for later in the week) and I hope you manage to find suitable digs. Let me know if there's anything else you'll like to know before you come over.

MrCogo

This is a helpful thread as my wife, I and two dogs are moving to Bucharest in May. I'm wondering how the stray dogs react to pets. We walk the dogs almost daily through our neighborhood and nearby parks. I'm not worried about the strays on my own but how does the dynamic change when you have a dog (or dogs) on lead? Do they tend to approach aggressively or just to say hello or do they raise an eye and go back to sleep under the bench? Probably all three. We plan to live in Sector 1, hoping for a fair selection of rentals that will allow pets. Any advice on managing pets in a city of strays would be appreciated.

susiecy

hi
we had our two westies in bucharest.... we lived in sector 6 which i would think is a bit more rural than sector 1 maybe. We had no issue with stray dogs - however we would always try and avoid the strays, the majority of them are huge! we did go to the park in the centre and there were lots of strays as you say sleeping under the trees or benches and showed no interest in our dogs who likewise steered clear (maybe they knew!) in the summer (which is very hot) they are all looking for shade and chilling out and in the winter obviously you don't see many of them wandering around - they huddle waiting/looking for food outside the shops/at the side of the road - please bare in mind the summers are very hot and the winters are very very cold. also in our area there was pesticide sprayed in the fields which made all the dogs on the compound sick - happened each year, (an elderly dog actually died sadly) but hopefully that wouldn't be the case in sector 1. We had a nice vet who spoke excellent english and a fab pet shipping company who couldn't have been more helpful or professional... hope this all helps x