Cav's Place

On the evening of October 30, a tragic accident, which was covered in detail by international media, took place inside Colectiv club, some fireworks used during Goodbye to Gravity’s release concert for their second album, Mantras of War, reaching a pillar placed a few meters in front of the stage and igniting the foam used for insulation. Within seconds, the fire had spread to the ceiling and the roughly 400 people inside tried to rush to the single open exit before being killed by the flames or the extremely toxic air, made up of a mix of gases that shocked doctors when it was determined. Once the dust settled somewhat, 27 people were pronounced dead that night and close to 200 were injured, many of them in serious or critical condition. At the time I’m writing this, the death toll has risen to 54, most of those who were injured but will survive will likely have a worse fate ahead of them than those who won’t and, starting a few days ago, some of those who escaped relatively unharmed by the fire started to seek medical assistance due to respiratory problems developed as a result of breathing in that deadly mix of gases, in some cases the complications being severe enough to be life-threatening.
This caused shock, grief, outrage, the expected wave of conspiracies and ruthless people, including some from the media, attempting to take advantage of the situation, but also an immense wave of solidarity and grassroots efforts aimed at helping the victims and the friends and relatives wishing to be near them. Blood banks were overwhelmed by those rushing to donate blood, people volunteered to help in any way they could and people as well as companies offered services free of charge and made countless donations of both money and needed products. Of course, there were also calls for swift and harsh punishments for those the public saw as to blame for the tragedy and demands for a number of resignations, going all the way up to the Prime Minister, but grassroots efforts made during the three days of national mourning declared by the government focused on helping the victims and the medical personnel fighting desperately to save their lives. There were gatherings and marches, even one with over 12000 participants, but they were silent, as a way to pay respects to the victims, people leaving thousands upon thousands of burning candles and flowers at the closed gate of the crumbling Communist-era factory which had in recent years rented its abandoned halls to the club, dozens of other businesses and at least one group of activists.

While this was going on, and while actually being directly involved in the efforts I mentioned above, various groups also worked on lists of demands, making them public after the three days of mourning ended, and the United We Save Community was no different, publishing a list of ten that included a number of resignations considered as a single item, specified as being not negotiable, but otherwise focused on the investigation of the accident and improving public safety, disaster readiness, emergency response and the health care system. As this was made public, a huge protest was announced for November 5, several other groups agreeing to change the plans they had made independently and join a common action that day. This left a single protest focusing solely on demanding the resignation of the Sector 4 mayor, seen as responsible for granting the club the required approvals even though it didn’t meet the safety requirements, announced for the evening of November 3, starting at 6 PM.
Well, that protest ended up being huge, with most activists and groups quickly adapting to the situation to announce their support and take part, and the list of resignations that were demanded growing to include the Prime Minister and the Minister of Internal Affairs, whose resignation had already been demanded recently after a police officer heading his motorcade on a motorcycle fell in a large hole caused by some work being done on that street and died, which also prompted investigations revealing that he had used official motorcades several times per day on average, abusing the privilege even when running personal errands. Some also wished to protest against the Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church, considering the absence of any official involvement of the Church in the efforts made for the victims, his snappish reply when asked about it and also all the messages posted by various people claiming to be Christians and later also taken up by some high school religion teachers, which said that rock music is a path to Satanism and the victims deserved what they got, especially since a Halloween-themed afterparty was supposed to take place after the concert that evening.
Since the focus was on resignations and I never took to the streets only to call for someone to step or be brought down when that person hasn’t been found guilty of a criminal offense and I don’t have a clear idea of who I’d want to take their place right away, I didn’t take part in that protest, but it was easy to follow, so I can say it started with a few thousand people gathering in University Square, spilling into the street when the area was filled. Then, as it tends to happen after that critical mass is reached and a march starts, more and more joined on the way to Victory Square, probably some 15000 people ending up stopping in front of the Government building.
The group continued to grow while there, peaking at well over 20000, probably up to 25000 or even 30000. However, as they stayed in one place for a good hour and a half, some eventually grew restless, some simply leaving while others began causing problems, arguing with the gendarmes, pushing against the line they had formed and in one case one person even throwing a rock which, from what I heard, ended up hitting another protester in the head, though I’m not sure if that was then or later. As a result, while a fair number were unhappy with this decision and once again started accusing some of the known activists of manipulating the protesters, a call was made and people got moving again, some time later ending up in front of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
What’s interesting is that, while a few of the known activists got as close to the Ministry building as possible and waited for the others to join them, the rest, and the entire long column of people, initially simply continued the march, leaving those few shocked and terribly disappointed. Those at the head of the column were eventually persuaded to turn around and make a brief stop there as well, but it was only a matter of about five or at the very most ten minutes until everyone left again. At that point, it appeared that the intensity of the protest was dropping, people continuing to leave.
The next destination was the Parliament, but once again it was mainly a matter of marching past it, those at the head of the column not even stopping long enough to wait for those at the other end to reach the area before announcing that they were leaving for the original target of the protest, namely the Sector 4 Mayor’s Office, where they did stop for about half an hour. Some more incidents were reported there, including someone throwing what appeared to be a firecracker, and this is also the point where the reports I’m seeing are unclear. The estimates I saw the next day tended to agree on a peak of about 30000 protesters taking part and that evening I was under the impression that it was reached there, more people joining, or perhaps rejoining, once the group reached said initial destination, but others say the numbers continued to drop and the peak was that from Victory Square, so I’m not sure how things actually were. Still, a peak of around 30000 at some point seems an accurate estimate.
After leaving again, the next announced destination was the Patriarchy, but that caused the protesters to split, only a relatively small number leaving the larger group to go there and not even managing to get too far, the gendarmes lined in front of the gates appearing truly determined to block the way for the first time that evening. During this time, the larger group waited, lost a significant number of people and then split again, some heading back to University Square and others to the club. Parts of these two groups met again later, around 1 AM, when those who didn’t scatter shortly after once again reaching University Square decided to go to Colectiv as well, or more exactly to the factory gate. Not much later, only a small group of people was left, sitting mostly in silence around the candles.

The next day, those who focused only on resignations got what they wanted, as the Prime Minister resigned, which also caused the Government to be disbanded and obviously also removed the Minister of Internal Affairs from office. The latter’s party needed about an hour after the decision was made public to release a statement saying they take note of and accept it, and something I’ve seen said later that day seemed to indicate that the Minister of Internal Affairs was asked to resign and refused, this being the reason why the Prime Minister chose to settle the matter so quickly and completely. The Sector 4 mayor resigned as well, though he also needed a bit of time to realize he needs to, and later he was detained and an investigation into his actions regarding the club in question was started, though by now he was released again while the investigation continues.
This hardly meant that the protests were over, however. In fact, November 4 brought the highest turnout, estimated at about 35000, but also caused the most reasons for concern, as many of those who attended simply didn’t know why they were there anymore, different political parties and other interest groups made particularly visible efforts to steer the protest in their favor and everyone else saw the opportunity to make their personal demands and desires known, on pretty much any issue and in any direction possible. People wanted change, but many didn’t even know what to say should be changed, much less how, and those who did couldn’t possibly agree on anything, the demands being so diverse, often in direct conflict and at times frightening to even consider. For his part, Vlad tried desperately to gather opinions, ask people what they wanted, what their demands were, how they see the way forward, get some serious discussions going, and simply got nowhere.
This time, I went as well, trying to figure out what was going on and what will come next, seeing as the meeting scheduled before the previous day’s events, which was supposed to take place that evening, was obviously canceled under the current circumstances. I arrived at about 7:20 PM, however, just when thousands of people were getting ready to start marching to the Parliament, and left at about 8:30 PM, disappointed and more than a little angry because of what I saw. Others, on the other hand, seemed thrilled, judging by the posts I saw that night. May have been difficult to say why they were thrilled though, and the one person I actually talked to about it admitted that my assessment was right, didn’t have many rational reasons to hope that much good will come of it and actually, after spending the entire evening there, knew of many more serious reasons for concern than I did, but it was simply a matter of a certain kind of euphoria generated by so many people gathering.
But to return to what actually happened, those thousands of people did start marching to the Parliament at that time, but thousands more, including the vast majority of the known activists, stayed behind, as was the original plan for that evening. Later, it was said that some 10000 people ended up in Constitution Square, led by some highly questionable individuals who climbed the fence surrounding the Parliament building and were allowed by gendarmes to even wander around in the garden for a while. Many looked and acted like the troublesome kind of football fans or even homeless people, they tried to hide their faces, threatened those who meant to take pictures of them and gave conflicting answers that seemed made up on the spot when asked who they were and where they came from. The obvious goal of these efforts was to demand snap elections, which would play right into the hands of the opposition, as no new parties or real independents could be ready to run on such short notice.
Various attempts were also made to steer people to the Cotroceni Palace, which is the presidential residence, but those failed every time, both in University Square and in Constitution Square. As the protest was nearing the end, there were some discussions about going to the Patriarchy as well, but those seemed to only result in arguments among some of the known activists. The only thing that did work was an earlier attempt to break off another part of those gathered in University Square and persuade them to try joining those in Constitution Square, but by then those were already returning, so the two groups met at Unirii Square and eventually returned together, creating that peak of about 35000 people in University Square.
After that point, people started leaving and, except various discussions and arguments and a drone falling on the crowd, it didn’t seem that much else happened. As expected, most were rushing to the University metro station around 11 PM, hoping to catch what they thought were the last trains. It was later announced, possibly as a result of the efforts of a television station, that the trains will actually run for two hours longer that night, to help all those people return home, but the announcement came too late and the two hours didn’t exactly seem necessary, as the number of people in University Square was likely below 1000 some time before midnight, when most of them decided to once again head to the club, or more exactly to the factory gate, where they eventually also ended the protest.

November 5 started with a mess among activists, after the President asked for representatives to take part in consultations the next day, after those with the political parties represented in the Parliament, and the United We Save Community, the old page, various other groups and individual activists and protesters rejected the idea completely, sticking to the stance of refusing any discussions with politicians or any other actions they consider may “legitimize” the authorities. Of course, I’m also sticking to my stance of pointing out that this is at best terribly misguided, and in fact was even more so now than in 2012 and, especially, 2013, as back then it could be said that there was a clear list of demands that were not negotiable and didn’t need to be formally presented, but now not even that list existed. And no, being aware that this invitation was something of a publicity stunt and also specifically meant to generate such conflicts, even more so after a message was posted about half an hour after the announced start time of the evening’s protest asking for people to send e-mails to nominate representatives by midnight, so exactly when those directly involved weren’t exactly going to be paying attention, doesn’t change my opinion.
To get to the protest itself, I was pleased to see that the activists I know were gathering at the fountain and trying to agree on a brief list of demands, in an attempt to put some order into the mess and offer a direction for all that energy and discontent. Unfortunately, after the rest of us had agreed that one of the top demands needs to be to completely eliminate all artificial electoral thresholds, Claudiu showed up just as people were spilling into the street and we were about to follow them and disagreed, saying they should only be eliminated for local elections, but the one for the Parliamentary ones should only be reduced from 5% to 2%. That definitely won’t help the real alternatives, but with no time for further discussions, it was the idea that seemed to end up on the list as we first joined with some representatives of some student and youth groups in one area of the mass of people and then made our way to the front.
That move was to have a better chance in part of blocking the attempts to make people march again and in part of having more of an impact on the various groups, after somebody came to tell us that less than 20 meters away in any direction we’re neither noticed nor heard and the Square is simply full of all sorts of groups promoting their own demands and agendas in their own little parts of it. The first goal was achieved, the second much less so, despite the best efforts of the activists who had made their way there and apparently some football fans who tried to help. Others, on the other hand, were only there to make an even worse mess of things, argued, yelled, two rival supporter groups even fought at one point, other suspicious individuals kept accusing activists of the same usual shit and at some point a certain strange and strong smell that others I believe seemed to recognize as weed made an appearance.
While this was going on in the street, at one of the metro exists a few other activists had set up a spot where people could come and write their own demands or opinions on pieces of paper, to be gathered in order to determine and present the most common ones later. At first the location for this was announced as being the statues in front of the Bucharest National Theater, but that idea was abandoned even before our group made its way to the front, possibly because of those who had claimed that area, some demanding returning Romania to monarchy and others being the usual crowd from that spot, at the time protesting against both the current and the previous President. Either way, a significant number of demands were gathered in such a manner, and others, written in few words and large letters, ended up on a string in front of the fountain, where they remained and were joined by others in the coming days, to be seen by anyone passing by.
As far as estimates are concerned, I can’t make any myself after having been in the middle of such a large group, but I saw the media putting forward numbers of 10000 or 12000, though some activists claimed there were in fact at least 20000 people present. What’s clear is that there were a lot less people than the previous day, and also that the road was cleared and the protest ended somewhat earlier, most leaving before or, at most, around 11 PM. By the time the metro wasn’t an option to get back home anymore, no more than a few hundred were left, and I’m not seeing anything about any attempt to get back to the club as a group.