Everyday Life in Communist Romania

1985. You could wait for the bus for up to an hour. That’s why they were often so full they’d run with their doors open, with the back almost touching the ground because of the weight.

Andrei Pandele is the only Romanian photographer who had big enough balls to systematically depict the Ceaușescu era of the 1970s and 80s. This was a time when taking a snap showing hardships, such as people queueing for bread, was seen as a “denigration of the socialist reality” and could land you six years in prison. Pandele, who is 65, has amassed such a vast pictorial archive of life in communist Romania that, when we asked to see some of his unpublished images, he sent us a CD with 11,000 pictures! And each one was totally captivating and amazing-looking.

VICE: Why did you wait until 2005 to make your photos public?
Andrei Pandele: People were offended by my work and saw it as an act of defamation of Romania, when, really, it’s merely a critique of communism. To give you an example, in 1993 I showed my pictures to the current director of the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest, who was so appalled that he threw them away. People weren’t ready to come to terms with their past. Many still aren’t.

How did you come to take pictures portraying life during communism?
I’m not only a photographer but also an architect. When Ceaușescu began demolishing churches and whole neighbourhoods, I wanted to immortalise the Bucharest I loved that was disappearing in front of my eyes. It wasn’t illegal, but it looked very suspicious. During the first year and a half I was interrogated about 30 times. Then I realised that what policemen, criminals and dogs all have in common is that they get aggressive when they smell fear. So I changed my approach and learnt how to talk to the police in a way that would make them leave me alone, and found out the names of high-up guys I knew they feared. I also had a press ID from working as a freelance photojournalist for the only two sport publications in the country, as well as an architect badge.

Were you ever scared?
Well, I knew that in order to do something special you must be willing to take a risk. People think I was hiding when taking pictures, but I’m over six foot tall – how could I have hidden? I have a picture of the demolition of a church, in which one of the policemen is looking straight at me to see if I’m shooting. I wasn’t stupid enough to take the camera to eye-height, what I mainly
did was let the camera hang on my neck and lean my right hand on it, as if I was resting it, and do something with my left hand to divert attention. Of course I wouldn’t always get good pictures when shooting that way, but some still came out great.

A lot of people claim you got away with taking pictures because you were an informer.
I’ve also heard that some people think I was Ceaușescu’s photographer, which is weird, as I don’t have any pictures of him. I just happened to work in the centre of Bucharest, in a tower-like building overlooking one of the main boulevards, which made it easy to take pictures whenever something was going down.

How did you get hold of a camera and film?
My dad was a famous gynaecologist and whenever he went on congresses outside Romania he’d bring back films for me. They were very expensive so I could only afford to buy ten films at a time with my salary. He bought me my first camera in Vienna. I did all the processing at my father’s house, where I also kept my films. If the police would have searched my house, all they would have found would be a film that had ”Romania vs Germany Handball Game” written on it, containing 34 pictures of the handball game.