In early 2005, BUCHARESTBUSINESS caught it's first shape. Uploaded on a free server, free domain, it was a big hit for Romanian writers, as there was no other website to present the real graffiti scene in Bucharest. From the beginning, the thing that helped me was being a close friend to all the writers that were making a difference. At first, the website contained only little material, but that only because I kept a very close eye on what was going online. The real boom was in the summer of 2006 when writers like ERPS, SAINT and RTMO hooked up and started painting together. I dropped out painting and started going to actions only to document the scene, either by photography or video. After the first 3-4 actions, the site caught it`s actual shape, I had loads of good material which meant that I could maintain the initial credo, which was to only upload the best photos and not more than three photos from one action, including the final photo of the piece.
As things evolved, western writers started contacting us, after hearing from early interrailers (DAOR, ROFD, EIERCREW) the potential of doing subways, as it was impossible to do in other western countries. The subway workers strike, back in 2006, had a major impact on the Romanian graffiti scene, as only few subways were still running. Less running subways meant more parked ones. There were places with up to 7-8 parked subways, lay-ups, where we could enter in the morning and exit in the night. I spent most of my time going to subway actions back then and as more and more tourists came, we sometimes had days with 3-4 actions. We went, we did our gig, get out, eat, drink, come back again and hit another train.
After the strike ended, everything went silent. Trains were being pulled out of the layups, straight to the buff zone, every station had security patrols (dressed as security officers or civilians), new cameras were installed as before then, the system had the cameras that were mounted by Ceausescu back in 1979 and other security features. Nevertheless, toys started to go off as they had no idea how to enter the yards or layups in normal, non-strike conditions.
Nowadays, the whole thing comes down to one simple rule: watch and be watched.