Ikea Coming to Bucharest

I opened the front door to our apartment the other day to find a plastic sack hanging on the handle with something heavy in it, which appeared to be a catalog. Upon closer inspection, I discovered it was an Ikea catalog.

When you've been out of the country for a while, there is nothing quite like getting something as familiar as an Ikea catalog in the mail. Ikea is a furniture company that takes modern living seriously. They know people don't have a lot of space to work with. For myself, I have my eye on some bare-bones office furniture that looks like it should be onboard a spaceship like Serenity.

Ikea is perfect for Bucharest. Most people here live in tiny apartments, and would welcome furniture that doesn't take up a lot of space, yet still looks nice.

Well, it's obvious how much sales copy I've been writing lately. This wasn't meant to be an Ikea cheerleading session. But the presence of the company in Bucharest is one of those signs of changes to come. Ikea is a big store. It won't be the last big store to come to Bucharest, or probably to other cities in Romania as well. That may mean that the smaller stores will go out of business. Remember what happened to bookstores like Magnolia (near Augusta State University) when Barnes and Noble came to town? I can't be certain whether it was a cause-and-effect relationship, but the guy I spoke to at the small bookstore seemed to think it was at the time.

The small stores stuffed into every conceivable nook and cranny are one of the more enjoyable things about neighborhoods like Dristor, which is where I live. You have to really keep your eyes open when you walk around. When I leave my apartment, I can walk for a block before coming to a bend in the road. A few meters later, I come to an unmarked white building that usually has a loaf of bread hanging in a plastic sack outside the door with a price on it. Inside is a curb market about a third the size of Johnson's Curb Market in Augusta. Most of the goods are kept behind the counter. You can get maybe 10 Americans in there if you try really hard, and probably 20 Romanians. (Partly due to the size of Americans and partly because Romanians really know how to squeeze.)

If you cross the street, there is a row of curb marts, most of which are small grocery stores like the one in the white building. One is a pharmacy. Then there are the piatas, which are open-air markets surrounded by rows of these tiny curb marts. A very few of those are furniture stores, which tend to be a bit larger than the grocery stores, but they're still tiny. And they're everywhere. There's something neat about that. It's convenient, because there isn't one central location that draws a huge, uncomfortable crowd. In a neighborhood like mine, no matter where you live, there are several little curb marts nearby, several pharmacies, several everything. I wonder if joining the European Union and bringing in stores like Ikea will mean the eventual demise of the little proprietorships.

At any rate, Ikea will open in Bucharest Wednesday. We'll see what happens.