Uchronic Bucharest is the capital of Romania in Antiterra, called by its guidebooks the “Paris of the East” or “Little Paris”. In July 1901 A.D.A. it was the scene of an inheritance investigation and a night battle against vampires in Natalia Petrovna’s Mansion.
| Type | Place (capital city) |
| Other names | Paris of the East, Little Paris, Old Bucharest |
| Houses of the Cycle | ☯ House of the Twin Cosmos · ☷ House of the Descent |
| Spanish entry | Bucarest Ucrónica |
Description
The city follows Haussmann’s model: wide boulevards, arcaded squares like Catalan ones, ground-floor taverns where lawyers sit with conspirators. In 1901 electric streetlamps coexisted with gas.
The official entrances admit a guest of the regime. The group, the Time Bandits, came instead by marsh waters and back roads, on the yacht of Meteora, at a thousand francs a head, buying three days of invisibility.
The summer of 1901
The group arrived on 4 July 1901. Their aims were to investigate the murder of Vice-Consul Bandy (29 June, reported by telegram) and the Vivescu inheritance, about fifty thousand francs settled at a bank on the central avenue. The two threads met: the inheritance went to an heir the vice-consul had named before dying, who ceased to be heir after his death.
Bases
- The hereditary house of Moni Vivescu: a safe meeting and regrouping point with contacts among lawyers and bankers.
- Natalia Petrovna’s Mansion, in the northwest suburb beside the cemetery: black velvet salons, red-tinted windows, cellars with coffins (some holding vampires), signs of black masses, and a maze of adjoining glass-filled houses.
- The Beer Carousel tavern, where André Bar gave word of a secret midnight meeting.
- The Bank of Bucharest, handling the inheritance under regime surveillance.
The night of the mansion
On the night of 5–6 July 1901 the group entered the mansion through the adjoining maze. The fight spread across several rooms and successive cellars, against the vampiress Natalia Petrovna, a corrupt armed Orthodox priest, pale cold guards, with political prisoners in cellar cages. André Bar was hypnotically dominated by the vampiress. By dawn Natalia was dead and survivors had fled; the group found that the “empty” coffins had simply opened in time.
Politics
The regime controls only the façade. Active in the city are anarchists (Brock, André Bar, Erzebeth); Serbian conspirators, the Black Hand and the Circle of the Serpent, whose link is confirmed here; corrupt officers, with Colonel Apis as nexus; and aristocratic vampires around Petrovna. The Black Sea lies adjacent as an exit route.
Conflicting accounts
- Three operating bases are counted, but four are listed.