R is for riots and razors, in Romania.

R is also for required reading about riots in Romania.

Cast your mind back if you will, to the summer of 1990. Eastern Europe was opening up, dictators were growing cold in their hurridly dug graves. In Romania dissent and protest were still rife, anti-this shouting out the pro-thats, revolting students everywhere, thousands of miners with pick-axe handles coming to town ready to argue the finer points of democracy, socialism and living conditions. And all around, intermingled, were the photographers, photographing it all, trying to earn a crust, having adventure, Bucharest, June 1990.

And in amongst all those photographers in 1990′s Bucharest summer were me and a trusty photographer colleague we’ll call – just for the sake of it, to make this blog post more glamourous – NooYawk.

The day, June 13th 1990, had started in dramatic fashion, before dawn, the police arrive in Piata Universitatii to clear the anti-government demonstrators who had been camped out on the front lawn of the Hotel Intercontintental for weeks. The place looked like a 4th world refugee camp on the lawn of a 2nd world posh hotel. It was a bizarre time. But the police, finally, had had enough, and arrived in their long black trenchcoats, in their blue buses with the grills over the windows. Their round helmets reminiscent of WW2, their truncheons in their hands, the machine guns on their backs. And it all kicked off.

It all kicked off for two days of rioting. The police cleared the students and anti-governement protestors. The protestors reformed, charged the police, back and forward, back and forward.

We photographed as protestors stormed the trams, setting them alight. We photographed as they ripped up the beautiful old cobble stones to throw at the police, and at the army who also came out onto the streets. Down by the Ministry of Interior, known as the Securitate building – named for Ceaucescu’s dreaded secret police,  we watched and photographed as protestors ransacked what offices they could access. Cine film littered the streets, I remember lifting some up, holding it to the sky to see the footage, it looked like a conference of some sort. Documents littered the streets, people scrabbling to grab it, to read it and find out the secrets of the Securitate. I watched and photographed, in a cobble stoned street, as two young boys tried to unscrew the door off a safe using a coin on the screws- if only life were so simple.

All around the Ministry protestors, and normal quiet law abiding people who finally just broke and aired their grievances, threw cobbles smashing the windows of the art deco building. Round the front of the building the people tried to force their way in, through the large doors, the large grills. But inside were terrified employees of the Ministry. I was off to one side of the door, photographing. And then the worst happened. Crack. Crack. The shooting began. From inside the ministry someone aired their grievance in the ultimate fashion and fired out through the door or broken window. Near me a man got hit in the face by a bullet, killed, and dragged to a vehicle. I rushed to shoot, my pictures blurred, no autofocus on Nikon FM2s then….

In side streets of the capital running battles took place, more to-ing and fro-ing, police run this way, protestors run that way. Occasionally there’d be a stale mate, one side cornered, the other side defiant, and around the fringes people would stand watching the two sides, people would stand in doorways just watching, commenting, spectating, people trying to pass by to go shopping. Things would calm down, there’d be a lull in the proceedings. Me and NooYawk, we’d be hungry, or thirsty, can’t keep photographing protesting all day, you got to pace yourself. Around the side streets were lots of shops, the bakeries, the stationery shops, the barbers. In the doorway the barbers stood watching the riots outside. So we did what seemed natural at the time, we went for haircuts and shaves. So off we went, me and NooYawk, the rioting was still there, but it’d be there for a while yet, no rush. From the main street, through the little passage to the barber shop and in we went.

Just a trim and a shave please, in my best Romanian. The men, with their pot bellies, in their white lab coats reached for the scissors, combs and open blade razors. The women in their bouffant peroxide hairdo’s stood at the doors watching the carnival outside, or sat at the till polishing their bright red fingernails. NooYawk was nervous about the shave, nervous about being cut with a dirty blade, nervous about HIV that was all over the news from Romania. You’ll be fine I told him. So there we sat, facing the mirrors, large mirrors, chrome, bright lights and silver all around. The men in their white coats shuffled around us, their hands danced their dance with scissors. And then the hot towels, some lather, open blade razors, a shave, look smart, clean ourselves up. And then we were finished. Clean, smart, respectable, wouldn’t be mistaken for a protesting students in the afternoon ahead of rioting.

Back outside, NooYawk didn’t look so happy. Worry all over his face. Worry and bloodied razor nicks. As he stood there telling me he’d told me so, me laughing and smirking, him dabbing at his chin with bloodied tissue. I looked great, he on the other hand looked like he’d been through a riot.

1990 Romania, Bucharest rioting – Images by Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert