Alexandria  

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Agricultural Alexandria

Home of Prince Alexandru II and designed as a modern town in 1834, Alexandria is the proud capital of County Telorman.

As the first major town as you head west out of Bucharest, Alexandria and County Teleorman in general donates much of it's citizenry to mighty Bucharest, as do the adjoining Dāmboviţa and Giurgiu counties.

With over 64,000 people in the larger Alexandria area, the town operates as a regional centre for the rich agricultural plains formed throughout the ages by rich mountain soils carried on many rivers flowing through the region.

Alexandria's main river is the Vedea, which flows down from nearby Roşiori de Vede (where the river and main rail lines converge) to the north-west.

 Since Alexandria is a comparatively recent town, it benefitted from 19th century planning sensibilities, giving it the long avenues paralleling the Vedea river that it enjoys today.

Communities further along Alexandria's rail spur heading south use Alexandria as their "big town", most notably the port town of Zimnicea on the Danube River.

The people of the area south of Alexandra are the true literary "Vlach" peoples, the Wallachs of Wallachia, and some say they more closely resemble their Bulgarian brethren across the river than people in the rest of Romania (the borders were less prominent before the area nationalised under waning Turkish influences in the late 18th and 19th centuries). 

Friendly Alexandria

Our Australian staff writer, Robert, was dying for a good coffee on his way back from Oltenia and stopped in at Alexandria not expecting much.

But not only did he find good service, he found a town that was truly quite friendly, from the corner store to the little terasas (bistro style restaurants with outdoor seating).  These little oases of good eating and drinks have cropped up at the bases of the long collonades of apartment blocks in Alexandria, seeming for all the world like little mushrooms at the bases of great oaks.

Cenotaph for Prince Alexandru II

Hometown Boy Makes Good Hometown soccer star Sorin Paraschiv played midfield for top team Steaua Bucharest, now playing in Serie B in Italy.

If you're looking for a more up-scale experience, downtown, head over to the Hotel Parc, which is a two-star hotel sleeping 240, complete with a reasonable bar, restaurant and of course, yet another terasa.

In a more rural setting is The Lucky Inn, offering a slightly less urban experience.

See more accommodation options in Alexandria here.

The County Museum at Alexandria

The County Museum is in Alexandria sports over (squared) of usable space in a modern building (since 1977) with 65 main collections spanning archaeology, history and local traditional and cultural displays.

You may be surprised to find a museum on this level in the middle of -- well, mostly agricultural lands.  But it's birth came from some far-sighted townsfolk, who, in 1934 (the 100th anniversary of the town of Alexandria), started a fund for local heritage.   

So, in 1952, the museum was founded, and although Alexandria is considered a relatively young town, the archaeological research conducted in the area gave an immediate gravitas to it's collections and demonstrated the existence of life in the area dating  back to Palaeolithic and Neolithic eras, as well as some finds from the Middle Ages.

Across three levels of exhibition halls, restoration and storage rooms, the museum inventory of over 65,000 pieces today extend into the fields of ethnography, numismatics, art history, as well as the stock-standard archaeological finds.  It was known as the History Museum of County Teleorman in the communist era, it was renamed the County Teleorman Museum in the late 1990s.

Strada 1848 nr. 1 in Alexandria

The Alexandria Night Life

Try your best to not to laugh your head off at the thought of a night out in Alexandria, because like most agrarian centres throughout Romania, there IS a sizable population in their late teens and early to mid twenties who are "stuck" in the town! 

For those who don't have a car to make the 70 minute drive to Bucharest, you'll find them on a warm summer evening congregating at the Bella Italia pizza restaurant, going into the Smile disco, probably just in from the Mara swimming complex in the Peco district.

See a list of local
restaurants here

The Cultural Scene

Again, Alexandria does have a few surprises too on this front, with a rather good cultural centre which hosts exhibits year round.  Founded in 1973, the 600-seat hall hosts musical, dance and theatre events and the 120-seat conference hall is a favourite for trade shows.  The centre also has rehearsal rooms and additional exhibition space with fairly high-tech facilities.

In addition to the cultural centre, the Pop Art School offers lessons in local handicrafts, as well as ballet, dance, and other art forms. 

Surprisingly, Alexandria has a branch of the prestigious Spiru Haret university (in Bucharest), and the town operates as a regional education centre with over a thousand students from the outlying communities boarded in town each school year. s

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==HISTORY===================================

Early Alexandria History

Alexandria in the 1920s Locals Elisabeta and Lenciu Ionescu out for a drive in their dray.

Its population in 1900 was 13,675. Its chief trade is in grain, despatched by rail to the Danubian port of Zimnicea, or by river to Giurgiu.

 Alexandria was named after its founder, Alexandru II Ghica (Alexandru Dimitrie Ghica), prince of Romania from 1834 to 1842.

The idea of founding the town of Alexandria was promoted by leaders of the Danube port town of Zimnicea and Mavrodin.

It was the famous Otto von Moritz, who in 1834 issued his plans for Alexandria.  Von Moriţ had similarly planned for nearby Giurgiu, as well as Brăila further down river.  A cenotaph dedicated to Prince Alexandru can be viewed in St. Alexander's Cathedral downtown.

Early commerce in the town was dominated by cereal and cattle until the Communist takeover in 1948. After the re-establish of Teleorman County in 1968, Alexandria was designated the county seat, and declared a municipality in 1979.

Fourteen years after it's founding, the town took part in the 1848 Revolution, and then the union of the Principalities of Wallachia with Moldova to the north.  The 1907 Peasants' Uprising swept through Alexandria, as did the great world wars. 

During World War II there was a forced exodus of Jews and Gypsies (Rromani) from Alexandria, mostly to camps in what is now the Republic of Moldova.  This sad relocation process left the town impoverished of much of it's traditional culture.  Even to this day there are the odd incident of brutality against the remaining ethnic minorities, such as this report from a local human rights organisation:

Alexandru Botu, of Prunaru village in the county of Teleorman, was reportedly beaten seriously by police.  Botu had stopped in front of the shop S.C. Dina to talk to some acquaintances.  The shop owner, the brother of Prunaru's mayor, had had an altercation with Botu's brother, beating him, in January. 

Botu finished his conversation and began to cross the street when he was stopped by the police chief and his deputy and led back to the shop.  The shop owner closed the shop and its blinds and left.  The policemen proceeded to beat Botu for about half an hour.  A villager who heard Botu scream alerted Botu's wife, who rushed to the shop and took Botu home.  The next day he was taken to Alexandria hospital where he was diagnosed with a series of deep bruises and two broken ribs. 

When interviewed by APADOR-CH representatives a month later he was still in poor physical condition.