Adriana Irimescu, a producer at TVR, recently made an interview-reportage with Doina Ruști, walking through the Bucharest of Zavaidoc. Interested in the interwar period and an avid reader, Adriana said about the novel Zavaidoc in the Year of Love by Doina Ruști that it is a very contemporary work:
Throughout the novel, it seemed to me that you constantly refer to contemporary society. Heavy perfumes, a pretzel shop in Buzău. I laughed. A lot. I also cried while reading it. more
A walk through Bucharest with the writer Doina Ruști turned into a film filled with adventure and the fragrance of another era. University Square, the Military Circle, and above all Cișmigiu Garden are only some of the places included in this journey, which can also be followed in the film posted below.
Adriana Irimescu asked the questions, and Doina Ruști answered them. The topics ranged widely and revolved around the year 1923, music, and literature—but above all around Zavaidoc.
Zavaidoc remains one of my most fragrant characters, and the novel is an epic experiment built around sensational news. I reconstructed the year 1923 through a love story unfolding against the backdrop of everyday Bucharest, where balls and royal events intertwine with heated affairs: scams, kidnappings, and an enigmatic crime that many generations have tried to solve. In that magnificent year, Zavaidoc sang—and fell in love.
Doina Ruști
All this, together with the journey filmed by TVR through today’s Bucharest, forms the subject of a film worth preserving in the archives of TVR. Listening to Doina Ruști, one gains the certainty that the city still preserves the memory of the year 1923.
Adriana Irimescu is an actress, moderator, and producer of radio and television programs, an online content creator, and a university lecturer in Acting. She was born on June 9, 1976, in Râmnicu Vâlcea.
Since 2025, she has brought major cultural events into focus on the program “Conviețuiri”, broadcast on TVR 1.
Adriana Irimescu made her stage debut at the age of nineteen, even before entering UNATC, performing on the main stage of the National Theatre of Craiova in The Danaids, directed by Silviu Purcărete. She later collaborated with renowned directors such as Liviu Ciulei (Hamlet) and Gelu Colceag (Job Offer).
She has also appeared in the drama Modigliani (2004), directed by Mick Davis, and in Youth Without Youth (2007), directed by Francis Ford Coppola, where she shared a scene with the main character played by Tim Roth. more, TVR
