Timisoara, promoted by German organisation as part of new tour project

A Berlin-based cultural organisation together with a group from Timisoara has found an interesting way of promoting the city on the Bega River among German tourists. He Berlin inter:est Kulturprojekte organisation are highlighting Timisoara in a subjective tour guidebook belonging to a project including several European cities. The Timisoara Guidebook will be released in Berlin in the spring.


Timisoara is the only Romanian city included in the German project. Starting next month, it will be publicised around the world first on the internet and then through a printed guidebook of 60 pages in English, German and Romanian. The format of the guidebook was decided upon by the Berlin partner and contains a brief introduction, a range of landmarks identified on the city map and described by text and pictures and author’s texts in the end. The content is produced by the local team headed by the independent cultural manager Andra Vaida. ‘We have included some historic sight, cultural actors and cultural events. We tried to select interesting places also for the Romanian public, not just for the foreign one. For example, we have a chapter on with texts on districts and historic buildings,’ Vaida said, according to Evenimentul Zilei daily.


‘Another chapter is on and includes various curiosities or city legends and another one groups texts on cultural and artistic events’, the cultural manager further explains. The guidebook contains stories about the Tree of Guilds, the Turkish Towers form the House with Atlantes or the cannon ball infixed in the wall of the Franciscan Monastery school. Another text speaks of Timisoara’s oldest statue which is to be found in the yard of the Iosefin Catholic church or Fadrusz János’ statue a bronze Christ – standing on the side of the oldest park of the city – the People’s Park.


The concept of the guidebook starts from the reality that Timisoara regularly presents itself as a multi-cultural and economically developed city with an inciting history and valuable sights full of pulsating cultural life and also presenting numerous special local initiatives.


‘Timisoara is all about interesting and creative people who give value to this space. This cultural guidebook is a subjective one, presenting the city from the point of view of its inhabitants – writers, actors, architects, artists, journalists, regular people with interesting life stories etc. – of visitors or occasional guests. Its purpose is to give Timisoara’s prospective visitors diverse perspectives on the city, as well as ‘privileged’ information or useful tips that are not regularly found in normal city guides,’ cultural manager Andra Vaida explains.