The Romanian Capital City Bucharest is celebrating 565 years since its first documentary attestation through a series of cultural events scheduled this weekend under the banner Bucharest Days.

„This year, Bucharest turns more than half a millennium – 565 years old. A venerable age for a Capital that, in hundreds of years, has gone through remarkable changes. Let’s just say ‘Happy birthday, Bucharest!’ it is not enough. We celebrate and respect the past, but we must also think about the future of the city we live in, because Bucharest depends on our choices and actions, of all of us”, wrote the mayor of the Capital City, Nicusor Dan, on Facebook.

The first known document attests to the existence of the city on September 20, 1459. Bucharest became the capital of Romania in 1862, when it was considered the largest city in South-Eastern Europe after Istanbul. Following the first world war (1914-1918), the city became one of the most beautiful European capitals, the brilliance of cultural and social life, the atmosphere and the architecture rightly earning it the name „Little Paris”.

Over time, Bucharest remains the most important political, economic, financial-banking, commercial, cultural-scientific, educational centre, transport node, information, sports and tourist centre of the country. The population residing in Bucharest, over two million inhabitants, places it 6th in the hierarchy of capitals in the European Union, according to the website of the Regional Directorate of Statistics of the Municipality of Bucharest.

AGERPRES