Yeah, Romania needs more stories like this one, or this other one:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55827510

...except in case of the latter story, the funds are unfortunately lacking.

Given the building was seized during political unrest and the records "lost," it seems like it could be historically useful today to export snapshots of property ownership data into some kind of distributed ledger so that people can recover from events like those.

While Carturesti started as a pretty well-stocked bookstore chain, the stock of actual books has plunged at most of its locations over the last decade (like has often happened across Europe), including the location in the linked article. Sure, there are still books lining the walls, but vastly fewer than there used to be, and now there are gaping holes on shelves. Eventually the owners found that they were making most of their profit off not books but what might be termed "hipster accoutrement": vinyl records, imported Japanese tea sets, boutique wines, bicycle decorations, etc.

Quote: "It took 24 years of battles in court, untangling bureaucratic loops, and finding the proper documents in archives, but he finally took possession of the decaying building in 2007"

Considering the Romanian Revolution happened in Dec. 1989 and probably the earliest he could request to have the building was 1990, I'd say math is either wrong (2007 - 1990 = 17 years) or the date is wrong (1990 + 24 = 2014, not 2007).

Went there in late 2019, just before the plague came and closed down the world. At the time, they literally had the whole world in there [0]. A bit crazy that one of the top tourist attractions in the city is a book shop.

[0] https://imgur.com/a/tkcwC0V

This bookstore's cousin, Cărtureşti Verona, is also a gem, https://carturesti.ro/librarii

How can a single city support so many cool bookstores in 2021? I visited this one a couple of years ago, it was a very pleasant place to spend an hour browsing. The English section is surprisingly large. I bought a Murakami that I had not read.

Despite looking beaten down, overcrowded, messy, Bucharest is a surprisingly rich city - it produces about a third of Romania's GDP and its GDP/capita is significantly above the EU average. Book prices however are still sort of anchored to the national average => Bucharesters can afford books. Sadly, this is the case mostly in Bucharest and a few other large cities - outside of those there's hardly a bookstore (theater, cinema etc.) in sight.

This reminds me of El Ateneo in Buenos Aires, which is built into a former theater.

https://www.buenostours.com/el-ateneo-grand-splendid-booksto...

>"Cărturești Carusel Bookstore

Bucharest, Romania

This once derelict building is now one of the most beautiful bookstores in the world."

PDS: I wonder if this would be a good idea for defunct/derelict malls around America... that is, turn them into giant, elegant, bookstores...

Good idea, except that those malls are a bit lacking in the "ornate early 20th century architecture" department, and are a bit too big for a bookstore...

Besides large all encompassing bookstores there could be libraries, cafes, markets of exchange of used item and other community driven projects. It is imperative however that the initiative is run by people and not a corp.

What, exactly, is a corp but an organization of people?

Legally, it's an entity in itself.

Anyone know how to see the page without consenting to cookies?

There’s no optout on the pop-up. If I click the cookie policy link I can withdraw my never-given consent but then must click accept again to get past the pop-up to visit the page.

On the latest Firefox Android with 'Ublock Origin' addon, ther's no pop-up. I have checked some additional blocking in the 'Ublock Origin' settings.

This reminds me a little bit of The Coop with more white and less wood.

Too bad book stores have no reason to exist in 2021.

There will always be demand for cafe/bookstores like this. For bibliophiles, the "third place"[0] is stores such as this.

[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsVFTxZiHd0

Why not just use a library?

Ever grab a coffee and have a chat with your friend in a library? In my part of the world, you'd be asked to stop or leave within a few minutes.