August 11, 2005
Yikes
Saw some people swimming in the Dumbovitsa today.
You have to understand: the Dumbovitsa is the little river that flows right through (and, in some cases, under) the center of Bucharest. It used to be a real river, but it flooded and caused trouble, so the Communists put it in a really ugly concrete trough. Most of the time it's only a few feet deep. The water is brown and stagnant and smells of old socks. In the winter, there isn't even that; it's just an concrete ditch through the middle of the city, filled with frozen mud and trash.
However... because of the recent heavy rains, the Dumbovitsa is unusually high. It's probably over 2 meters (maybe 7 feet) deep. And there's actually a little bit of current; if you watch a piece of trash on the surface for a minute or two, you can see it move very slowly.
But it's still an unpleasant deep brown color and, well, I really wouldn't swim in it.
But people were. I saw at least half a dozen of them today as I walked along the river on business. They were all wearing bathing suits, so this was clearly no idle whim. All boys or young men. They seemed to be enjoying themselves.
When I saw it, I literally stopped in mid-step and said "Yikes!" out loud. I must have looked rather odd.
Posted by douglas at August 11, 2005 01:17 PMHeh. Ever read "The Life of Pi"? Reminds me of one of the early chapters.
Posted by: Bernard Guerrero at August 11, 2005 05:18 PMAhhhh, the beautiful brown Dumbovitsa. One of my favorite (sort of) pictures is of people crossing the bridge there at Piata Uniri and most have their fingers pinching their noses so as not to get the full effect of the stench from the "river". It was practically unbearable on one of those sweltering, no breeze summer days.
I also often saw people fishing along stretches nearby too! I wouldn't touch that water let alone eat anything that lived in there. Oh well.
Despite it all though, I miss it.
Keep the descriptions and impressions coming.
Thanks.
Just goes to show you have to be "Dumb" in order to swim in "Dumbovitsa"...
Posted by: Tina at August 12, 2005 10:05 AMWhere did you guys get this weird spelling of "Dumbovitsa". It's spelt "Dâmboviţa", or if you don't want to use diacritics, then at least Dambovitza/-tsa will do. I presume you got the word from speech, and you will notice the distinctive sound â, which isn't like "u". Anyway, it's strange that people are swimming in it!! But what to do, due to all this terribly hot weather!
Posted by: Mihai at August 13, 2005 01:45 PM"Dumbovitsa" would actually be a correct transliteration - in French.
Posted by: ifi at August 14, 2005 03:33 PMThe â sound does not transliterate into non-diacritics in any language. It's not like the German umlaut characters, which drop the umlaut and add an e. The â sound is usually converted to "a" in non-diacritic situations. So "Dumbovitsa" would still not be correct.
The only two letters than convert into non-diacritics are ş and ţ, which become sh and ts/tz respectively.
I think what you're talking about is a phonetic interpretation instead of a transliteration. In that case, Dumbovitsa would be quite close. But the â sound, as the only Slavic non-Romance sound in the Romanian language doesn't really have an equivalent in any Romance or Germanic language.
Posted by: Mihai at August 14, 2005 03:51 PMwow, nice one Mihai!
He's right people, it would be better not to use the phonetic transcription any more...
Anyway, the river is so fragmented by floodgates and little waterfalls that it is impossible to say this year Dambovitza has reached high levels. In some sectors it can be very high, in others near to the bottom.
And this is why, not always, in winter some sector s are being shut down. The others freeze over. I remember, about 3 years ago, some kids even played football on the ice!!!
And, btw, I don't know if you looked carefully at the people who jumped in the water. Mostly they are gypsies or even homeless young people, or crazy idiots who don't give a s***t about personal hygene or possible health problems. Normal people don't jump in that water, by God! I see them too every week I drive along the Dambovitza. And I really dislike that behaviour.