Tran Phu Street evokes "a time of street"

(Baonghean) -The bustling specialized street of buying and selling still carries the color of time of the old street. The new modern architecture and urban space that has sprung up reminds many people of the city of the old names and architectures that were once so familiar... That is to say, Tran Phu Street - Vinh City.

In the 90s of the last century, Tran Phu Street and Phan Dinh Phung Street were considered the most standard roads in Vinh City. The two-way road, with two additional side paths on both sides, was probably reserved for cyclists (!) The rows of planted mahogany trees, now with their early ages, were once the “symbols” of Vinh’s street trees.

Tran Phu Street starts from Vinh Market Crossroads and ends at the roundabout in front of Phuong Dong Hotel; the southern side of the street is the residential area of ​​Hong Son Ward, the northern side belongs to Le Mao Ward and Truong Thi (now the park area). With the importance and significance of a main street that increasingly plays a prosperous role in Vinh type 1 urban area, Tran Phu Street deserves to be named after the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam.

Panoramic view of Tran Phu street.

Located on National Highway 1A through Vinh Street, although built at the same time and in the same "class" of road, connected directly, the construction speed and the bustle of Tran Phu Street are much higher than Phan Dinh Phung Street. Now Tran Phu Street is called a street specializing in interior and exterior decoration products; but in reality, except for nearly half of the street on the North side of Phuong Dong Hotel which is the fence of Central Park, the rest is used for services with a variety of products. Perhaps Tran Phu Street is the street with the most supermarkets on the street with two large supermarkets: BigC at the North end of the street and Intimex at the South end of the street.

In the middle are many mini supermarkets selling electrical appliances, bicycles, motorbikes, souvenirs, along with Thanh Vinh Bookstore and a row of shops selling cigarettes and foreign wine in front of Tra Bong Hotel at Nga Sau. A special feature of Tran Phu Street is that the southern side of the street specializes in high-end wooden handicrafts, while the northern side specializes in bronze and sophisticated wooden worship items. The northern end of the street is bustling with electronic goods with the "sound" of Vinh market spreading out and the most bedding in the city; at the end of the street there is a row of Cau Thong draft beer stalls that are as bustling as a beer street. But at night, Tran Phu Street is quieter than other streets, because there are very few night food stalls. There is only a banh muot trung shop near BigC Supermarket and a few night porridge stalls at the gate of the City Hospital next to Nga Sau and under Cau Thong...

Going back to the 1980s, Tran Phu Street was often mentioned with the names Ba-rac (perhaps a transliteration from French), Nga Sau (where it intersects with Le Mao Street), Tra Bong (one of the first state-owned hotels in Vinh)... Ba-rac is the area where the new Eurowindow urban complex is now located to the north of the street; including the old city martyrs' cemetery, and the Post Office housing complex that has existed for many years, built of bamboo, palm leaves and oil paper. But the name Ba-rac is remembered for a long time, perhaps thanks to the bunker built during the French period, which has now been demolished, and the famous Lam coffee shop has long since taken down its signboard.

It was also at this street corner that once gathered all the faces of people with the old Vinh urban nuances, called "original people", including tea vendors, three-wheeled or horse-drawn cart drivers, key sellers, shoe repairmen and people hanging around "trading" groups, Thai goods smuggled from Laos; at the same time, it was also the place where at the beginning of each Vinh market, city people who grew vegetables and farmed quickly bought and sold quickly, wholesaled bunches of vegetables and chickens, the calls and bargaining were always harsh... Perhaps that was why there were very few civil servants in the Post Office and old offices here at that time, or to be more exact, they were very afraid to go out to watch the street, if there were, there were only a few retired old men wearing old wool coats and felt hats sitting and sipping ready-made coffee, smoking rolled cigarettes soaked in sweet banana oil...

Six-way intersection seen from Tran Phu street.

Nga Sau is also a Vinh landmark. That once quiet intersection, for some reason, is now associated with many rumors about the street... For example, Vinh people often talk about social evils, fights between children that have happened or are happening at Nga Sau! Perhaps it happened somewhere around here, but people still use Nga Sau to "define the location". Before building and then demolishing the Nga Sau gas station, there was a small market there that was later moved deeper inside. Now Nga Sau is an important traffic junction, especially when Le Mao Street opens to Vinh Tan urban area in the future...

Further down the Phuong Dong Hotel, right at the current location of the Nghe An Printing Joint Stock Company's headquarters numbered 216, used to be a cultural address of Nghe An: Vinh Temple of Literature was a gathering place for writers, literati and artists of ancient Nghe An, built in 1803, and almost completely destroyed in 1948. According to historical researcher Nguyen Minh Sieu, "with nearly 150 years of existence, Vinh Temple of Literature is truly a symbol of a land of talented people. The magic of this location has been proven: Since the establishment of Vinh Temple of Literature, Nghe An's education has reached its highest level of success. In the Nguyen Dynasty alone (from King Minh Mang to King Khai Dinh 1820 - 1919), Nghe An had 91 people passing the imperial examinations, accounting for 16.5% of the total number of people passing the imperial examinations in the whole country. Or under King Duy Tan (1907-1916), during this period, the number of The number of people passing the imperial examination in Nghe An was 16/33 people, accounting for nearly 50% of the total number of people passing the imperial examination in the whole country.

Thanks to the increasingly high achievements in studying and taking exams of previous generations, it has contributed significantly to making Nghe An, which was a camp area, a border area in the South under the Ly-Tran dynasty, become a cultural land under the Le dynasty, famous for its rich Nghe An characteristics under the Nguyen dynasty. In addition to the only remaining ruins, the Dai Bai house, which has seriously degraded and is used as a warehouse, what reminds us of the Vinh Temple of Literature is the small street next to Nghe An Printing Joint Stock Company with the sign "Van Thanh". Currently, Vinh City also has a project to restore and embellish the Vinh Temple of Literature...

People who have lived in Vinh for a long time, now walking on Tran Phu street, looking at the newly modern urban space growing up, always recall with fondness the names and architecture of old Vinh for that reason.

Comrade Tran Phu was born in Tung Anh commune, Duc Tho district, Ha Tinh province; born on May 1, 1904 in Tuy An district, Phu Yen province, where his father Tran Van Pho was a teacher. At the age of 10, Tran Phu lost both his parents and had to live through difficult years of studying from the beginning to the National School in Quang Tri and Hue. In 1922, after passing the Thanh Chung exam, Tran Phu was assigned to teach at Cao Xuan Duc Primary School in Vinh... After a period of wandering activities and training at home and abroad, at the first meeting of the Party Central Committee (October 1930), Tran Phu presented the Political Platform he himself had drafted; this was a great contribution of Tran Phu, outlining the path for the Vietnamese revolution. At the age of 26, Tran Phu was elected the first General Secretary of the Party, then he went to Saigon to continue leading the revolution. While the movement was rising and the work was in disarray, he was captured by the enemy. In prison, the colonialists used all kinds of brutal torture but could not subdue him. Due to the harsh prison regime, his illness became more serious, and Tran Phu sacrificed himself at the age of 27 (in 1931). Comrade Tran Phu's name was also given to many major roads in cities across the country.

Article and photos: Anh Vu