Cav's Place

I already linked to an article offering a few more details in my previous post and more background is available for those interested, but the very short version of the reason why we “celebrated” exactly four years since the start of the “Romanian Autumn” of 2013 with another protest on the same topic is that our Prime Minister announced planning to withdraw Rosia Montana’s application for the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Obviously, this triggered an immediate reaction, and while those involved in the ongoing protests on other issues, which had plenty of other problems to put on the list recently anyway, merely added this as well along with the rest, groups born as a result of 2013’s protests and known activists who had more or less stood out of those ongoing protests after they peaked in early February, unhappy with the direction they had taken, focused on this matter and called for a protest about Rosia Montana on September 1… Which, despite clearly having a high symbolic value, was quite a poor choice for a date, to a lesser extent due to the fact that it was Friday instead of actually during the weekend and likely to a greater extent due to the fact that our national team played against Armenia that evening, here in Bucharest.

Still, Alex created an event, which was then also shared on the United We Save Community page, at the University Square fountain, the “traditional” location for the Rosia Montana protests, therefore avoiding mixing with the ongoing protest in Victory Square. This event was also to start at 5 PM, which would normally be too early for a weekday but which under those circumstances offered plenty of time for some sort of protest to take place before those inclined to do so would leave to watch the match. Those who had tickets were quite clearly not going to come either way, and in case of some of them that may be both good and bad news, but that couldn’t be avoided.
Unfortunately, other groups created an event at Victory Square, from 7 PM, and plenty said that this year’s events can’t be forgotten, so Victory Square is the protest location now and that shouldn’t be changed, resulting in that event being the widely shared and promoted one. As such, the other event’s title and description were changed to state that it had been turned into a meeting for organizers and a banner workshop, before the proper protest, which caused me to largely shrug it off, since I’d have had nothing to do there. For that reason, I can’t say much about what took place there, but I do know that the handful of people that gathered managed to eventually march to Victory Square, arriving there, with their banners and a drum, at some point after 8 PM. Probably around 8:30 PM, maybe even later, but I somehow completely forgot to check the time and I couldn’t find any article mentioning it, so can’t say more than that. Can say that, while quite a number of known faces who had otherwise laid low since that early February peak were among them, they were only around 20 or so in total. Not that I actually counted, but quite sure they were less than 30, at least.

Meanwhile in Victory Square, people had been slow to gather, with the estimated total being only in the hundreds. Again I find myself out of practice, because I didn’t try to make my own estimate at all, and those I found range between a mere “more than 100” and 1000. I believe both extremes can be eliminated, but anything between a few hundred and sufficiently below 1000 for that number to not be a reasonable estimate seems possible. That obviously includes not just those who were there for Rosia Montana, including those who arrived from University Square, but also those who were there for the ongoing protest, each of the groups staging a bit of an event before dark. The dragonfly with the Prime Minister’s face, referring to a particularly unfortunate, to put it mildly, statement he made about protecting Rosia Montana, was clearly the more creative of the two, the other merely spelling out a request for resignation, initially with a person holding each of the large letters.

To return to what took place after those from University Square arrived, it was just before 9 PM when Alex took the loudspeaker and started speaking, people gathering around. However, the timing was unfortunate, due to the “tradition” of singing the anthem at 9 PM every evening in Victory Square, and with Friday being day 214 of that ongoing protest, he was quickly interrupted for that to happen, after which the regular crowd took over. There were a few attempts to make chants for Rosia Montana dominate, but they failed, leading to most of those who had arrived from University Square withdrawing to sit on the pavement behind the banners they had tied to the fence placed around the area by gendarmes, quite resigned to the situation. Well, all but Alex, who was absolutely furious, as is quite typical of him. Sometimes he exaggerates, but now he definitely was perfectly right in lashing out at those who had decided to mix the events.
What, if anything, happened after that, I don’t know, but highly doubt it was anything significant. They also had small signs saying “Bogdan, one of us”, referring to the protester who had killed himself the day before, and meant to talk about that as well if they’d have been allowed to, which was obviously no longer the case, and there was a suggestion to simply leave the area and sit on the sidewalk in front of the Government, but I only sat there with them for a few more minutes, took the last pictures and then left, wanting to at least catch the match from the beginning if nothing notable was happening anyway.

One more thing I guess I should add here, though I’d rather forget all about it, is that a reporter from an independent group managed to catch me at some point before dark, when for a moment I didn’t pay enough attention to avoiding any who seemed like they might be interested in me and making it clear that I didn’t want to talk to them even before they approached. I wanted to tell her I didn’t want to speak, but couldn’t even say that much, so rather stood there dumbly as she introduced herself and started asking me questions, struggling to find some way to reply and saying things that had little to do with what I’d have wanted to say if I could have done it. At one question I froze completely again, stopping in the middle of a word and just staring at her as she was nodding and gesturing at me to continue, and then at another I said something I specifically didn’t want to bring up. They didn’t post their video report of the evening yet, but if they’ll use any of that, it’ll be not only terribly embarrassing, but actually detrimental to the cause.

Later edit: They posted that video report and I’m not in it. Quite a relief…