Exclusive interview with Yvette Larsson (The Bucharest Lounge)

She is a full working Swedish teacher at an International School, but in the meantime she has an online project intitled “The Bucharest Lounge”, with almoast 3,000 Facebook likes and very well known and appreciated in the Romanian online community, but it also has a lot of foreign fans, as she communicates through the blog and Facebook page in English. Who am I talking about? Yvette Larsson is her name and more information of who she is and what exactly she does at “The Bucharest Lounge” you can read in the interview down below.

 

Patrik Iorga: Who is Yvette Larsson?

Tell me a bit about yourself.

Yvette Larsson: I am a Swedish woman of 40, mother of two children (aged 5 & 8), with a passion for sports, nature, reading, writing ,photography, art, design, architecture, music, food & wine, cooking & baking, history, politics/society, traveling, meeting people.

I am a language teacher at an International School. I used to work 10 years with Sports Management and 4 years as a Coach and Leadership Trainer. My academical background constitutes of  a Master of Arts in Languages, Media & Communication and Science Journalism.

I lived as an expat for 13 years (Norway, Denmark, England, France, French Reunion Island) but now moved back to Sweden.

I believe in trust, openness and transparency. In democratic values. I believe that democracy is not a static thing but something people must fight for all the time, my parents and grand-parents generation fought hard in Sweden to get what we have there now.

Now, it’s my responsibility to show and model trust, openness and transparency at the Bucharest Lounge too. 
I don’t say its easy, maybe I am crazy, but I just have to try.

Patrik Iorga: What made you start “The Bucharest Lounge”? 

Yvette Larsson: There were two reasons.

1. As I came back from my first visit, discovering Romania anew, in September 2011, I wanted to show my friends the beautiful and meaningful parts of Romania, as opposed to the stigmatized picture that still exists abroad about Romania.  Name one place outside Romania where people think well about Romania. It’s like Romania is a hidden gem. A treasure nobody sees. The world outside Romania is so preoccupied with all the negativity about Romania.

Very few people /organizations are inviting people back to Romania. The ones who are doing the best job, in my opinion, are the people and organizations that are active within social media. However, I still would like to see more pages writing in English if they want to include the foreign reader, and the future visitor to Romania.

I write in English because I can reach out to more people. Don’t forget, my own language is Swedish. I have many people coming to the Bucharest Lounge  thinking my own mother tongue is English, for some reasons.  I don’t come from an Anglo-Saxon culture. I come from a Scandinavian culture.

I use English as a powerful tool to spread my message to  more people. Can you imagine the difference if I only wrote in Swedish ? Now, switch that and then you realize what it does to write only in Romanian. My advice to Romanian Facebook-pages, that  wants to reach out abroad,  is to write their posts in English too.  Then they include both the Romanian and the foreigner readers.

The tourism sector was booming in the 80’s in Romania. Now you see very few  foreign people in Romania. I believe that if Romanians want to change the bad image abroad there is one thing needed : get people back. Get people back, to see Romania with their own eyes. To experience the country first hand: nobody will go back home unmoved.  In a formula: rebrand, market and invite people back.

Second reason for starting the Bucharest Lounge was because of the ONEITEM project I am doing together with a friend. We needed a means of communication to reach out to the people who were donating things and therefore the blog was a good tool for communication.

After a few month I also set up the Facebook page. Now, the Facebook page is the more active one, where I make updates at least twice per day : morning and evening. I work as a teacher and can not be on Facebook in the daytime.  The blog is more like a web page now. I post one interview per week there on Thursdays.

Patrik Iorga: When did you visit Romania for the first time?

Yvette Larsson: In 1985 when I was 13 years old. I went there as a tourist with my parents and grandparents. We were in Mamaia and stayed at the Dacia Hotel.

Patrik Iorga: What made you fall in love with it?

Are there other countries you feel the same about?

Yvette Larsson: I find it difficult to answer that question. I can name a lot of things and it still doesn’t make justice. It’s like when you fall in love  with somebody, you just do.

No. I can’t love one country in the same way as the other. That is like saying I love a person in the same way as I love another person. It doesn’t work that way for me.

I love other places for other reasons. I love the area around the Mediterranean : Italy, Spain and France. Especially France. Maybe because I have a French name and that shaped me in my early days. I wanted to learn French because of my name. Yvette is not a common name in Sweden.

Patrik Iorga: Did you ever consider moving for good over here? Which is the longest period of time that you have spent in Romania?

Yvette Larsson: I was an expat for 13 years by choice because I love languages, meeting people from other cultures, learning about the world. Last year I tried to get a job in Bucharest. After a year of trying to get a job  there and even refusing a job offer from Cambridge in UK, I decided to get a job in Sweden. I had a couple of dissapointments from employers in Romania.

My places to be are Romania and Sweden. There are no other places I want to live now. It’s either there in Romania or here in Sweden, or I will manage to make a division. Live there in Romania during summer, as I am a teacher, and in Sweden through the rest of the year.

The longest period I spent in Romania was 5 weeks last autumn when I wanted to have a concentrated period of finish writing the book.

Patrik Iorga: Why “The Bucharest Lounge” and not some other city from Romania?

Yvette Larsson: Because I think Romania needs to promote itself in a smart way. Bucharest is the name of the capital, but most people can’t even separate Bucharest from Budapest. Make a test with other European people and see how many manage to get it right. Bucharest is the capital. You need to place the capital on the map before starting to put other cities in the blender.

Patrik Iorga: Name 3 positive and 3 negative aspects of Bucharest.

Yvette Larsson: I am going to name 20 positive aspects of Bucharest instead !

Eclectic, dynamic, friendly, kind, crazy ( in a good way) , beautiful, intriguing, exciting, cool, fashionable, photogenic, full of soul, romantic, sexy, warm, inviting, full of potential, generous, enduring and strong.

Patrik Iorga: What impressed you more? Seeing the way life is at the countryside or the way it is lived in a big city?

Yvette Larsson:I don’t judge it as one thing  is more impressive than the other. It’s just different.

On a personal level I like both. I want my capuchino in the morning at a cafe, I love  the buzz of a city slowly waking up.  I love being active, work and meet people, talk and be able to have cultural events just around my corner.

I also need the peace and serenity of the countryside. I need to rest my eyes on natural surroundings. I was born in the north of Sweden where space seems endless. Nature is amazing there. If I am in the city too long I can feel my longing to the countryside becomes omni-present.   Luckily in Sweden we have lots of space and we are indeed nature lovers. Many people have cabins that they go to in the weekends. We have an active “cabin life”. Often cities are empty in the weekends because people escape to the country side.

I see this division between contry and city as the balance of life. The action and the stillness. I need and I like both.

Saying all this. Cities are becoming too much alike now. I remember before, only ten years ago,  I could be so happy, going for example to Rome in Italy and secretly bringing home a small Parma ham in my suit case . What a joy ! Now I can find Parma ham at my corner store in Sweden.

All the main streets in most European capitals look similar with regards to what to find,  with regards to shops. I hope this will not continue. I hope we can stop for a moment, and stop this craziness of wanting to be all the same.

The strength of Europe is not to be all the same. The strength is our variation. I hope this mainstream culture will not continue. I hope people will stop and start nurture local things. Local food, local architecture, local designers, local traditions, local language.

In Romania you still have areas where unique traditions are still alive. I hope that  you will treasure those areas and traditions.

Patrik Iorga: I heard you are writing a book. What is it about and where are you planning on releasing it (Romania, Sweden or both)? 

Yvette Larsson: It’s about who we are at the core and how the society we live in has an impact on us. It’s about my penfriend from Romania and how he manage to keep strong throughout his challenged-filled life. It’s based on our letters and other correspondence  that we had between 1985-2003. I hope it will be published in 2013. I don’t have an answer  yet.

Patrik Iorga: Which is the most meaningful moment in Bucharest for you? What about in Romania? Why?

Yvette Larsson: I have so many. First of all: every day has meaning.

So, Bucharest and Romania in general,  it often comes down to the people I meet and the talks we have, the generosity and kindness I meet. I feel so at home in Bucharest. I don’t know why. Every time I land there at the airport I smile inside and I relax for some reasons.

I see a lot of meaning with the work of Father Tanase in Prahova. His way of being moves me. He creates meaning in the way he set up the village and the children’s camp in Valea Screzii. Every time I go there, there are moments of meaning.

My meeting with the Romanian orthodox church too. When I go into an Orthodox  church I become calm and peaceful, I am swept away by the beauty and the rituals and it’s like balm to my soul.

The markets with the handcraft. Seeing the colorful art coming from the hands of Romanians. I love it !

Patrik Iorga: As a closing message for the interview, what would you transmit to the readers of photoeXplorers?

Yvette Larsson: This is something I live by every day: Never give up on things you believe in. There will always be hurdles. They come to check us, how dedicated we are in our goals and dreams.