Massive building testifies to Romanian dictator's excesses

This building was built at a time when most Romanians across the country could barely feed themselves. Romania back then and now has very rich farmland and during the Communist reign, almost all the food was exported leaving the people in a grave state. I have taken the tour and recommend it to anyone going to Bucharest.

Massive building testifies to Romanian dictator's excesses
07:38 PM CST on Friday, February 25, 2005
By LARRY BLEIBERG / The Dallas Morning News

BUCHAREST, Romania – It should be easy to hate the Palace of Parliament.

Constructing the 3,000-room building nearly bankrupted a nation. It employed 20,000 construction workers and sapped so many megawatts of power that Romania faced years of electricity shortages. At one point, it's estimated that a third of the nation's gross national product was devoted to this one site.

And the result – the second-largest office building in the world, after the Pentagon near Washington – was meant to celebrate a tyrant.

But visitors make a startling discovery.

For all the pain it caused, the neoclassic building isn't horrible.

At 12 stories and 3.75 million square feet, it certainly isn't subtle. But there's no denying the craftsmanship. The carved marble, the gold leaf, the 5-ton crystal chandeliers and hand-woven tapestries were all Romanian products. And the sheer audacity of the project, most of it completed in five years, makes it unlikely there will ever be anything built like this again.
The building presides over central Bucharest. The city was once called the Paris of the East, and the boulevard leading up to the building was fashioned after the Champs-Elysees. It's lined with fountains and flanked by luxury apartment buildings that were intended for Communist Party leaders, and are now privately owned. About 50,000 residents of the area were moved to Stalinist apartment blocks on the city's fringes.

The palace is now open to tours and is the future home of the nation's senate.

But the site will always be linked to Nicolae Ceausescu (chow-CHES-ku), who presided over one of communism's most notorious police states. He and his wife, Elena, personally oversaw the construction of what was then called the People's Palace. At times, the couple ordered entire sections ripped out and reworked. The building is said to have secret passageways and a nuclear bunker. None, alas, is on the tour.

Part of the building's mystery is that few details are public.

The end came for Ceausescu shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. While other Eastern Europe nations peacefully shed communist leaders, Ceausescu clung to power until the country revolted. He and his wife were executed on Christmas Day, 1989, after a quick trial. Videos of their death were televised around the world.

An exhibit tucked away in the National Military Museum hints at the upheaval. There are pictures of college students who died in the street fighting after Ceausescu fled public protests. Display cases hold bloody clothing, family pictures and other artifacts that put a face on the victims.

The palace tour doesn't dwell on Ceausescu. Instead, a guide leads groups through endless shiny marble hallways. Visitors peer into meeting halls and cavernous conference rooms.
The view from a front portico is magnificent, though. One can imagine Ceausescu standing here, addressing a crowd of hundreds of thousands. From this perspective, they would have looked quite small.

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