Obor

Obor Market, May 2006

Obor Square

Obor Public Garden

Obor is the name of a square and the surrounding district of Bucharest, the capital of Romania. There is also a Bucharest Metro station named Obor, which lies in this area.

Obor stands in the place of "Târgul Moşilor", a fair famous throughout Wallachia, which was held twice a week. In old Romanian "obor" meant enclosure, corral. Located outside the city, in the 18th century, it was also the place for public hangings.^[1]

The Obor market (Piaţa Obor), the direct successor of the original fair, was, until 2007, Bucharest's largest public market. It covered about 16 city blocks and included a variety of indoor and outdoor market spaces, with goods ranging from compact discs to live chickens. Informally, the market spilled into the surrounding neighborhood, both in terms of street vendors and in terms of the nearby Magazin Universal ("Universal Store") named Bucur Obor, a large commercial building that has been parcelled up into hundreds of small, independent retail stores. The market was demolished, not without public outcry, in order to pave the way for a modern mall, new apartment buildings and a small park, thus ending a 300 year tradition.

Obor is near the quarter of Colentina and Moşilor.

References

1. ^ (Romanian) Justiţie în Bucureştii de odinioară Magazin Istoric, no. 461. August 2005

Coordinates: 44°27′1.52″N 26°7′47.03″E / 44.4504222°N 26.1297306°E / 44.4504222; 26.1297306