Cismigiu Garden, not only one of the most beautiful parks in Bucharest but in all of Europe, is a green oasis surrounded by a bustling city too occupied with its daily businesses to notice its charm. Designed hundreds of years ago, it is the oldest park in Bucharest – and in addition to its wonderful green lanes, it boasts many amazing flowers and birds. Some exciting statues are not particularly impressive in size but their delicacy. A sort of modesty characterizes them, many of them placed in such a way that it seems that they‘d rather not disturb anybody with their presence. Not all of them are famous Romanians, like the statues that are part of the Romanian writers’ collection. Some of them are just little mysteries.

Sissi Creek is one of them. Located in one of the few bustling areas of the park – the children’s playground – this statue is a gentle presence, a fountain of tears. The statue represents a young woman holding a pot with an opening for water. The young woman pours the water in what seems to be a creek channel formed by stones. The entire monument is surrounded by columns, stone ornaments, or marble which were once part of various palaces and great houses. Some of them are older than the statue itself. In fact, this was a widespread custom years ago: to keep old artifacts around the house (e.g., the stones gathered in the courtyard of the Stavropoleos Church).

The monument is dedicated to Stefanidi Sissi, a woman who died in 1914 when she was just 21 years old. Her mother had asked the sculptor Ion Dimitriu-Barlad to create a statue revealed to the public in 1927. Unfortunately, the romantic statue was destroyed by hooligans and remained without ahead for several years. It was eventually found by the daughter of the sculptor and put back in its rightful place. For many years the stream of water remained dried out, but the mechanism bringing water into the pot was finally repaired in 2001.a