It had been a long time since I was last in Brasov. I liked it then and I like it now. However I am not sure whether my memory is faulty or whether graffiti is a permanent fixture in these beautiful old towns.
It was almost the first thing I noticed when I got to Bucharest – graffiti goes seemingly unchecked throughout the most beautiful areas. It’s on walls, gates, bricks, plaster, windows – on historic buildings houses, town halls, shops.
What’s happening here that the youth take what pleasure they can get by tagging buildings in these historic old towns. Perhaps I have just forgotten how bad it is in Europe (including the UK) but having been a way so long, it was the first thing I noticed when I got here.
In places like China and Africa there doesn’t seem to be the disease of criminal damage. There is some but it’s not as widespread or noticeable as here. In China there are walls set aside for graffiti artists and it is real art, a pleasure to look at.
Even the illegal graffiti is mostly pretty there. But here, it’s purely egotistic tagging by people with little else to do than deface these buildings.
I wonder why the local government doesn’t get on top of the graffiti considering it’s such a popular tourist destination. Perhaps people here can easily tolerate this scourge of criminal damage.