Obor
Encyclopedia
Obor is the name of a square and the surrounding district of Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....

, the capital of Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

. There is also a Bucharest Metro
Bucharest Metro
The Bucharest Metro is an underground urban railway network that serves the capital of Romania, Bucharest. The network is run by Metrorex. It is one of the most accessed systems of the Bucharest public transport network with a ridership of 177.23 million passengers in 2010...

 station named Obor
Obor metro station
Obor is a metro station in Bucharest, located next to one of the largest open-air markets in Bucharest, Obor. The station was closed for over 10 months, until May 25, 2008, for refurbishment and in order to facilitate the building of a new overground passage for the tram.-References:...

, which lies in this area.

Obor stands in the place of "Târgul Moşilor", a fair
Fair
A fair or fayre is a gathering of people to display or trade produce or other goods, to parade or display animals and often to enjoy associated carnival or funfair entertainment. It is normally of the essence of a fair that it is temporary; some last only an afternoon while others may ten weeks. ...

 famous throughout Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...

, which was held twice a week. In old Romanian "obor" meant enclosure, corral. Located outside the city, in the 18th century, it was also the place for public hanging
Hanging
Hanging is the lethal suspension of a person by a ligature. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", though it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain...

s.

The Obor market (Piaţa Obor), the direct successor of the original fair, was, until 2007, Bucharest's largest public market. It covered about 16 city blocks and included a variety of indoor and outdoor market spaces, with goods ranging from compact disc
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...

s to live chicken
Chicken
The chicken is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird...

s. Informally, the market spilled into the surrounding neighborhood, both in terms of street vendors and in terms of the nearby Magazin Universal ("Universal Store") named Bucur Obor, a large commercial building that has been parcelled up into hundreds of small, independent retail stores. The market was demolished, not without public outcry, in order to pave the way for a modern mall, new apartment buildings and a small park, thus ending a 300 year tradition.

Obor is near the quarter of Colentina
Colentina, Bucharest
Colentina is one of the main neighborhoods in Bucharest's 2nd district located on the north-east of the city. A local folk etymology says that the name is derived from "colea-n-tină" , this being the answer given by a spătar to Matei Basarab, who asked the former where he had defeated the Ottoman...

 and Moşilor
Mosilor
Moşilor is a residential quarter in Bucharest's Sector 2.It houses the Foişorul de Foc and Silvestru Church. Its name derives from the main avenue Calea Moşilor which in turn is named after a well-known fair held in Obor square from the 18th century up to the 1950s...

.
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