Doina
Ruști

Set in old Bucharest, this urban legend revisits the night of March 9, when cats are said to gather and one among them becomes a woman. Blending folklore, desire, and ambiguity, the story follows a ...

This man, whose story I want to tell today, was well traveled and well tried. He had walked the roads to Istanbul and to Vienna, where he bought himself a tall hat, shaped like a ...

A Brâncovenesc recipe becomes the trace of a silent desire, revealing how jealousy and repression turned snails—from everyday food into a cultural taboo.

Saveta is suddenly seized by a desire whose roots reach deep into her childhood, when she learned—without anyone ever saying it outright—that being a girl meant counting for less. In a family that did not ...

Sometime in the early 1700s, there lived in Bucharest a cook with a great passion for sweets. He knew how to make many delicacies, and among his inventions was a small cake he named zarnacadea. ...

A rare pineapple ordered by a noble Bucharest family triggers an unexpected obsession in a servant who secretly tastes the fruit. His fleeting encounter with an exotic flavor alters the course of his life, turning ...

A gifted clerk, a desperate fisherman, and a legendary dish intersect in Phanariot Bucharest, where refined pleasure and random violence collide in a single, fatal evening.

Set in old Bucharest, The Map of Debauchery follows Elina, the wife of a master hat-maker, whose secret encounters redraw the city’s hidden geography. From the overgrown grounds behind Saint Sava Church to an inn and ...

After the disappearance of the pharmacist Marco, a new tenant moves into the house on Batiște Street: Iane, a young man trained in Pavia and obsessed with finding a cure for sadness. His highly sought-after ...

An ancient mulberry tree in Bucharest, linked by legend to the name of Brâncoveanu, has long been surrounded by urban superstition. Stories of enchanted fruit, goblins, and a defiant Venetian pharmacist have turned the tree ...

Set in Bucharest in 1798, this fictional urban legend recounts the arrival of a young monk sent to protect the city from a locust invasion by carrying sacred relics.

The Corpse revisits a forgotten murder in Bucharest in 1923, following the discovery of a young woman’s body near the Decebal Mill. Blending archival detail with imaginative reconstruction, the story traces the girl’s final hours ...

Elisabeta Boulevard reconstructs a cinematic urban legend set in interwar Bucharest. After the early death of a famous actor and the disappearance of the film documenting his funeral, his image survives as a haunting presence. ...

A freed lăutar, once a gifted bagpiper, roams the roads carried by his music and his newly gained freedom. As his art decays into a piercing scream, the city of Bucharest is seized by an ...

A Saint Andrew’s Eve story from 1793 Bucharest: a thirteen-year-old girl, suspended between slavery and freedom, enters a household on a night when spirits roam and destinies quietly shift.

A fragment from an 18th-century Wallachian archive turns a small, yellow silk umbrella into the silent witness of crime, disease, and fatal temptation. A story about objects that outlive their owners—and carry their misfortune with ...

A pandemic-era Christmas tale drawn from late eighteenth-century documents: a young itinerant doctor, a blind woman who loves books, and the bureaucratic choreography that turns a medical miracle into public truth.

Lucache, a beardless man who has also begun to go bald, lacks the mythical powers and storytelling grandeur of the legendary spân; gentle and unambitious, he is defined instead by a single, enduring passion—his love ...

The laundress stepped into the street and took a few steps toward Lipscani Square. Bucharest was lit by a handful of lanterns, while shadows of carriages and people drifted across the walls. The life of ...

Framed as an archival account from eighteenth-century Bucharest, this fictional urban legend follows the disappearance of a ring entrusted to a celebrated dyer. Suspected, punished, and ruined without proof, the woman survives on the margins ...

A charismatic captain returns from war trailing scandal, women, and rumors of a saint’s miraculous hand—an object said to open locks and bend fate. A learned priest, haunted by confessions and jealousy, tries to seize ...

At the end of the eighteenth century, Bucharest was a city of mud, epidemics, hurried lives, and fragile fortunes. From a probate file dated 1794 emerges the story of an itinerant doctor, his restless household, ...

It sounds like a line of poetry. You read it and you do not dare ask what it means. The moment questions begin, poetry fades — like a lump of limestone over which water has ...

In 2003, while trying to build my first website and struggling with the terror of my own photographic image, I walked into Suțu Palace in Bucharest. There, I encountered a nineteenth-century merchant whose painted portrait ...

Set in Bucharest in 1794, this story follows Toia, a young enslaved man known for his striking hat and musical talent, who lives freely for five years alongside Tranca, a woman from the Pantelimon district. ...

In a late-eighteenth-century monastery near Bucharest, a gifted Roma musician is killed during what should have been a holy celebration. Preserved in an archival document from 1794, the case reveals a darker truth: that art ...

Escape from Istanbul and a Finger on a Page A document-based narrative about adoption, slavery, and moral debt, centered on Paraschiva—a former enslaved woman—and Gheorma, the child she brought from Istanbul, who would later become ...

A personal and archival essay about handwriting, memory, and power, built around a seventeenth-century document that records the purchase of a woman—and the first appearance of Gheorma, the man who would later become one of ...

Originally published in Adevărul in February 2024, this story is inspired by an authentic seventeenth-century recipe for a magical wine, sold in Bucharest during a winter that altered the city forever.

This excerpt comes from a mythological Christmas tale originally published in Libertatea. Drawing on ancient solstice rituals and Romanian folklore, the text evokes the rebirth of light and the figure of Consânzeana, guardian of the ...

From lucky charms kept in pockets to plants believed to confuse demons, this story traces the ancient logic of protection—where love, blood, and magic turn into leaves and flowers meant to be carried close to ...

The eagle is one of the essential archetypes of the Mediterranean world, and for Romanians it may be regarded as a totem with archaic roots.

Beneath his anteriu, he wore translucent stockings, followed by fine shalwar trousers made of Maltese silk.

A teleleică was shameless enough to expose secrets, stir scandal, and turn gossip into spectacle. Once an honorable term designating a public orator or rhetorical messenger, the word gradually came to signify vulgar, unscrupulous women. This ...

In February 1795, a provincial officer and his daughter arrive at the Metropolitan Church to settle a scandal. A broken promise of marriage, a rival lover of lower rank, and an invisible third party — ...

A former slave, abandoned by her husband, confronts betrayal, abduction, and social ruin—only to turn the law to her advantage. A late-eighteenth-century story of female intelligence, negotiated justice, and survival after slavery.

18th century. A maker of painted bowls, a harsh winter, and a dream of love.

A young widow with money, desire, and freedom becomes a public danger. Labeled desfrânată—“wanton”—by her contemporaries, Băjeasca is punished not for a crime, but for stepping outside the narrow boundaries imposed on women. Based on ...

In late-18th-century Bucharest, breaking a marriage promise was not a private matter but a public offense. This story, reconstructed from court records, follows a man who swore a sacred oath—and then withdrew it. The girl ...

A cultural essay about midsummer fairs, vegetal rituals, fairies whose names must not be spoken, and how legends are born at the intersection of desire, fear, and collective imagination—moving from folklore to a documented case ...

A cultural essay starting from a nineteenth-century painting and unfolding into a story about fairs, vagabond monks, art, marginal lives, and the uneasy relationship between freedom and social control in premodern Eastern Europe.

București: One day in 1928, a bizarre scandal broke out—one that changed several lives. .

In Romanian, the verb to brand (a înfiera) survived centuries of violence, humiliation, and political spectacle. This urban legend traces its origin to a real man from 17th-century Wallachia — Iașca, a conspirator punished not by ...

In the summer of 1782, a student from Saint Sava School poisons his Greek teacher after months of humiliation and obsession. Set in the fragrant, turbulent Bucharest of the late 18th century, this urban legend ...

A sealed room, a plague victim, and dozens of chests filled with beads, lace, and forgotten goods. From a bureaucratic report emerges the quiet tragedy of a man who guarded other people’s possessions—and brought death ...

A true 18th-century case: a woman abandoned after a summer affair fights for justice under Phanariot law. Love, coercion, legal loopholes, and male storytelling turn a private tragedy into public legend.

A court servant’s arrogance, a ruined girl, and a staged punishment lead to a fatal ending. This true Phanariot case exposes how vanity, class privilege, and performative justice collide—leaving mercy to chance and death to ...

Set in Phanariot Bucharest, this fictional tale unfolds from a forgotten marginal note and traces the encounter between a master embroiderer and the mysterious mărmănjici—tiny April spirits said to alter dreams and colors. Blending folklore, ...

he true story of Doctor Carniol, a character from Zavaidoc in the Year of Love, begins on Calea Moșilor and ends in journalism textbooks, as a notorious case of one of Bucharest’s most enigmatic crimes. ...

The Corpse revisits a forgotten murder in Bucharest in 1923, following the discovery of a young woman’s body near the Decebal Mill. Blending archival detail with imaginative reconstruction, the story traces the girl’s final hours ...

Bucharest, 1924. On Paris Street, a shoe shop, an obsession, and a disappearance recorded in a document of the time.

București: One day in 1928, a bizarre scandal broke out—one that changed several lives. .

Elisabeta Boulevard reconstructs a cinematic urban legend set in interwar Bucharest. After the early death of a famous actor and the disappearance of the film documenting his funeral, his image survives as a haunting presence. ...

Set in interwar Bucharest, Mitiță, the Perfumer reconstructs an urban legend centered on a flamboyant perfumer whose linden-based fragrances become a secret map of desire. Through three perfumes—green, purple, and red—Mitiță classifies women, studies love, and ...

On the church steps, at noon, when a small wing descends from the sky—what some call inspiration, others grace, and most revelation.

Set between history and imagination, this urban myth traces the forgotten cult of a cat goddess and its transformation into one of Europe’s most persistent superstitions. Through the story of Myrrhina, a priestess in exile, ...

Set in old Bucharest, The Map of Debauchery follows Elina, the wife of a master hat-maker, whose secret encounters redraw the city’s hidden geography. From the overgrown grounds behind Saint Sava Church to an inn and ...

Set in old Bucharest, this urban legend revisits the night of March 9, when cats are said to gather and one among them becomes a woman. Blending folklore, desire, and ambiguity, the story follows a ...

Originally published in Adevărul in February 2024, this story is inspired by an authentic seventeenth-century recipe for a magical wine, sold in Bucharest during a winter that altered the city forever.

This man, whose story I want to tell today, was well traveled and well tried. He had walked the roads to Istanbul and to Vienna, where he bought himself a tall hat, shaped like a ...

A seductive man from old Bucharest owes his irresistible charm not to himself, but to a mysterious pair of trousers woven with a trapped spirit of sympathy. When the trousers are lost, so is his ...

In Phanariot-era Bucharest, a monk cultivates a miraculous flower said to bloom only on Christmas Day. Drawn by hope and desire, a fritter seller secretly enters the greenhouse at midnight and witnesses a strange, intimate ...

In 1702 Bucharest, a sleepless woman baking pumpkin pies unwittingly attracts Murta, the ancient spirit of dreams. As her night-long cooking floods the city with visions, ordinary lives unravel: secrets are revealed, crimes exposed, destinies ...

A Brâncovenesc recipe becomes the trace of a silent desire, revealing how jealousy and repression turned snails—from everyday food into a cultural taboo.

A marginal note discovered in an old book reveals the story of a legendary sleep elixir circulating in late-18th-century Bucharest. Written by a young apprentice who secretly steals a miraculous recipe from his master, the ...

A fantastical tale set in 18th-century Bucharest, about a tailor guided by a prophetic cricket living in his ear. Success, seduction, and excess lead to his spectacular downfall, leaving behind mysterious talismans scattered across the ...

A dark eighteenth-century tale about obsession, superstition, and the absolute devotion to a single book. When a furrier curses his beloved volume to protect it from theft, an Enlightenment-minded apprentice dares to challenge the curse—only ...

After a failed courtship caused by a fatal misunderstanding, Tudorachi reads a handwritten version of The War of Troy and discovers in Helen’s infidelity a mirror of his own disappointment. His bitter marginal note turns a ...

Three people, three dreams, and an ancient recipe.

An anecdote from 1716 recounts how Nicolae Mavrocordat, newly arrived in Bucharest, was tricked on April Fool’s Day into fleeing the city, all because palace servants needed time to procure his favorite dish: crayfish fritters. ...

A fantastical tale set in 18th-century Bucharest, Liver in Caul explores culinary art, imagination, and the cost of denying one’s true calling. When a magical mishap turns a nobleman’s ears into sprouting wings, the truth about ...

Saveta is suddenly seized by a desire whose roots reach deep into her childhood, when she learned—without anyone ever saying it outright—that being a girl meant counting for less. In a family that did not ...

An 18th-century tale of forbidden knowledge, curiosity, and consequence. When an apprentice healer secretly tastes a mysterious juniper elixir, her life veers into slavery, loss, and obsession. A darkly ironic legend about secrets withheld, destinies ...

A gifted clerk, a desperate fisherman, and a legendary dish intersect in Phanariot Bucharest, where refined pleasure and random violence collide in a single, fatal evening.

He was not drawn by the place itself, nor did he question the eye on the roof or the palpitations of its divine eyelid. What enchanted him was something else entirely. From the chimney, from ...

Lila the Healer, a woman gifted with extraordinary powers, arrives in Iași one summer and is drawn into the circle of power and violence. As she witnesses extreme events, she gradually loses both her sight ...

The laundress stepped into the street and took a few steps toward Lipscani Square. Bucharest was lit by a handful of lanterns, while shadows of carriages and people drifted across the walls. The life of ...

Beneath his anteriu, he wore translucent stockings, followed by fine shalwar trousers made of Maltese silk.

A rare pineapple ordered by a noble Bucharest family triggers an unexpected obsession in a servant who secretly tastes the fruit. His fleeting encounter with an exotic flavor alters the course of his life, turning ...

Framed as an archival account from eighteenth-century Bucharest, this fictional urban legend follows the disappearance of a ring entrusted to a celebrated dyer. Suspected, punished, and ruined without proof, the woman survives on the margins ...

Sometime in the early 1700s, there lived in Bucharest a cook with a great passion for sweets. He knew how to make many delicacies, and among his inventions was a small cake he named zarnacadea. ...

That café, where drunken voices murmured, stood opposite the houses of Petrache Sticlaru, a renowned healer who took pain away with his bare hands and with six small “glass vessels,” each no bigger than a ...

A freed lăutar, once a gifted bagpiper, roams the roads carried by his music and his newly gained freedom. As his art decays into a piercing scream, the city of Bucharest is seized by an ...

After the disappearance of the pharmacist Marco, a new tenant moves into the house on Batiște Street: Iane, a young man trained in Pavia and obsessed with finding a cure for sadness. His highly sought-after ...

An ancient mulberry tree in Bucharest, linked by legend to the name of Brâncoveanu, has long been surrounded by urban superstition. Stories of enchanted fruit, goblins, and a defiant Venetian pharmacist have turned the tree ...

Set in Bucharest in 1798, this fictional urban legend recounts the arrival of a young monk sent to protect the city from a locust invasion by carrying sacred relics.

A teleleică was shameless enough to expose secrets, stir scandal, and turn gossip into spectacle. Once an honorable term designating a public orator or rhetorical messenger, the word gradually came to signify vulgar, unscrupulous women. This ...

In 1796, a woman lived in Bucharest, the widow of a captain—hence she was known as the Captain’s Widow. As imposing and combative as she was, always ready to file petitions and put anyone in ...

Lucache, a beardless man who has also begun to go bald, lacks the mythical powers and storytelling grandeur of the legendary spân; gentle and unambitious, he is defined instead by a single, enduring passion—his love ...

In Romanian, the verb to brand (a înfiera) survived centuries of violence, humiliation, and political spectacle. This urban legend traces its origin to a real man from 17th-century Wallachia — Iașca, a conspirator punished not by ...

In February 1795, a provincial officer and his daughter arrive at the Metropolitan Church to settle a scandal. A broken promise of marriage, a rival lover of lower rank, and an invisible third party — ...

Set in Bucharest in 1794, this story follows Toia, a young enslaved man known for his striking hat and musical talent, who lives freely for five years alongside Tranca, a woman from the Pantelimon district. ...

In the summer of 1782, a student from Saint Sava School poisons his Greek teacher after months of humiliation and obsession. Set in the fragrant, turbulent Bucharest of the late 18th century, this urban legend ...

In a late-eighteenth-century monastery near Bucharest, a gifted Roma musician is killed during what should have been a holy celebration. Preserved in an archival document from 1794, the case reveals a darker truth: that art ...

A true 18th-century case: a woman abandoned after a summer affair fights for justice under Phanariot law. Love, coercion, legal loopholes, and male storytelling turn a private tragedy into public legend.

A pandemic-era Christmas tale drawn from late eighteenth-century documents: a young itinerant doctor, a blind woman who loves books, and the bureaucratic choreography that turns a medical miracle into public truth.

A fragment from an 18th-century Wallachian archive turns a small, yellow silk umbrella into the silent witness of crime, disease, and fatal temptation. A story about objects that outlive their owners—and carry their misfortune with ...

A Saint Andrew’s Eve story from 1793 Bucharest: a thirteen-year-old girl, suspended between slavery and freedom, enters a household on a night when spirits roam and destinies quietly shift.

At the end of the eighteenth century, Bucharest was a city of mud, epidemics, hurried lives, and fragile fortunes. From a probate file dated 1794 emerges the story of an itinerant doctor, his restless household, ...

A sealed room, a plague victim, and dozens of chests filled with beads, lace, and forgotten goods. From a bureaucratic report emerges the quiet tragedy of a man who guarded other people’s possessions—and brought death ...

A former slave, abandoned by her husband, confronts betrayal, abduction, and social ruin—only to turn the law to her advantage. A late-eighteenth-century story of female intelligence, negotiated justice, and survival after slavery.

18th century. A maker of painted bowls, a harsh winter, and a dream of love.

A young widow with money, desire, and freedom becomes a public danger. Labeled desfrânată—“wanton”—by her contemporaries, Băjeasca is punished not for a crime, but for stepping outside the narrow boundaries imposed on women. Based on ...

In late-18th-century Bucharest, breaking a marriage promise was not a private matter but a public offense. This story, reconstructed from court records, follows a man who swore a sacred oath—and then withdrew it. The girl ...

A cultural essay about midsummer fairs, vegetal rituals, fairies whose names must not be spoken, and how legends are born at the intersection of desire, fear, and collective imagination—moving from folklore to a documented case ...

A cultural essay starting from a nineteenth-century painting and unfolding into a story about fairs, vagabond monks, art, marginal lives, and the uneasy relationship between freedom and social control in premodern Eastern Europe.

Escape from Istanbul and a Finger on a Page A document-based narrative about adoption, slavery, and moral debt, centered on Paraschiva—a former enslaved woman—and Gheorma, the child she brought from Istanbul, who would later become ...

A personal and archival essay about handwriting, memory, and power, built around a seventeenth-century document that records the purchase of a woman—and the first appearance of Gheorma, the man who would later become one of ...

It sounds like a line of poetry. You read it and you do not dare ask what it means. The moment questions begin, poetry fades — like a lump of limestone over which water has ...

Once upon a time there was a ravishingly beautiful woman, who liked two things above all else: roaming the world and loving men.

In 2003, while trying to build my first website and struggling with the terror of my own photographic image, I walked into Suțu Palace in Bucharest. There, I encountered a nineteenth-century merchant whose painted portrait ...

From lucky charms kept in pockets to plants believed to confuse demons, this story traces the ancient logic of protection—where love, blood, and magic turn into leaves and flowers meant to be carried close to ...