Here you can see the only positive thing that came out of the Ceaușescu era: The Bucharest Palace of the Parliament, which is the largest administrative building in the world currently in use. The building itself is absolutely mesmerising, even though the history behind it is gruesome.
by zoltan1882
39 comments
Is it “positive” to have a massive administrative building though? Especially one with that stench of meglomaniacal dictator that can’t ever be fully aired out.
I’ve been there. They mentioned that the Pentagon in US is bigger. Still an incredibly massive building.
I would use “impressive” instead of positive. If I’m not mistaken only a quarter is functional because of the immense maintenance costs.
In 1990, the American tycoon Rupert Murdoch tried to buy the building, for 1 billion dollars, but his offer was refused.
That thing is why half the country was starving.
Neither positive nor “mesmerizing”, just big and ugly
As a Romanian I can say that it’s very ugly and we hate it because of the history behind it, the soviet style architecture and what it represents. The reason it was not taken down is because now that we have it, without Ceausescu asking the people if we really want it, it’s because it’s not reasonable to take it down.
Ceaușescu demolished more than 10% of historical centre to build it.
Yeah. You can always rely on a communist dictator to find some frivolous vanity project.
Useless. And in order to build this piece of crap a really large area of the city centre had to be razed to the ground. Buildings with actual purpose and historical relevance. But hey, it’s almost the biggest in the world so that s something.
I went there recently and it smelled like pee inside whenever i was like remotely close to a toilet
i mean… Bucharest metro system is way better than a big half abandoned building…
It’s a useless block of cement.
Only a very, very small part of it is functional and used or open to public. The rest of it just… is.
It is a symbol of a megalomaniac dictator that literally flattened an entire neighborhood to build something just to have his ego tickled by this ginormous ugly shit, while the people were literally starving and freezing.
Edit: wow, I got my first reddit cares message
Far from positive, this building symbolizes the excesses of the Ceausescu regime while his people were starving.
And it’s a fugly building. I was inside. Waste of stone and money, and probably lives.
There’s nothing positive about this monstrosity. The only reason it still stands is because it would be too expensive to demolish it and rebuild the area left behind.
Didn’t Top Gear drive through the building or something?
Like any dictator, he did everything according to his own mind and not for practical reasons. That building Is just a financial black hole.
It is impressive looking from a distance, not so much on the inside… Romania has long had a problem with “forms without foundation” politics.
From a Romanian citizen from a village that was without paved roads, electricity, running water, sanitation or a health centre when they built this monument to hubris… Sincerely fuck you Ceașcă.
It’s ugly, a terrorising scar, and soon to be overshadowed in the kitch skyline. The Church is building the “National Salvation Cathedral” on the neighbouring hill, as to show who currently holds the power. A giant monstruous “mall church”, built from public money, of course, while hospitals and schools are literally crumbling down from lack of funds and neglect, killing children inside.
When you see either the mega-palace or the mega-church, think of the out of touch totalitarian mentality that built them.
The tours are not worthy. The “palace of the people” might be an awe-ing sight due to its sheer size from the outside, and watching the city from the balcony is nice. But the tours are boring, empty space, lack of style, a general coldness and kitch, and you aren’t presented the sheer size of the suffering:
– a huge historical neighbourhood torn down and people forcibly moved. Arguably, the coquet houses on narrow cobble-streets would’ve been a better tourist attraction nowadays. But alas, thousands of people saw their house tore down and relocated in unsanitary small flats.
– hundreds of workers died building it. And unknown and still secret number. Rushed and unregulated planning on the dictator’s whims.
– all the country (22 million people) left in cold in the winter, power cuts, lack of basic foods for years. One day you stayed in a 3-hour queue where you might’ve (not certain) get milk, next day repeat to maybe get stale bread, repeat. Starvation and deprivation, of course one must also remember the huge number of abandoned children. All to “pay the external debt”, as in all national production was for export in order to sustain this monstruous building.
Of course, all blame was put on Ceausescu. People hated Ceausescu. But he wasn’t alone. They realised that he became a liability, killed him and his wife (they deserved it), but all the rest remained in power.
Who inhabits the building now: Ex-communists and their “capitalist” kids rule from the parliament. MP seats are sometimes hereditary in the hegemonic parties. The secret service, Securitate renamed SRI, guards the country from above, they killed innocent people at the revolution and after. Final noteworthy tenant, the Constitutional Court, ruled until recently by a communist prosecutor. It’s only role is to retain priviledges for the elite in case the opposition does something in the parliament (strike down the laws).
There is nothing positive about this. Story or the building itself.
Positive?! If that monstrous piece of rotten shit got nuked the fuck out of Earth’s orbit, I gather less than five percent of romanians would care.
It’s an eyesore uselessly taking up space that I would gladly convert to the largest public toilet in the world and it would still be a better use.
And it currently hosts the romanian parliament, one of the most corrupt things to have ever existed in Europe.
Positive Thing. You make me laugh . This thing made people starve and you call that positive?!
“Positive”? It’s a symbol of everything that was wrong about the dictatorship.
It’s always interesting to see that foreigners are impressed with the Palace of the Parliament. Most people within the country seem to think of it as an ugly POS.
This should be in r/evilbuildings.
It sits on the demolished Uranus district, ruined to make space for it
Huge buildings, high salary, free food in restaurant, cars, all for corrupt politicians.
I think it’s also the heaviest building in the world?
I’d make a strong argument that the only good thing is the Bucharest metro, something actually useful.
Ok now that is weird, what is up with so many posts about Romania all of the sudden?
Is like we are getting discovered barely now.
It is an impressive building, I want to hate it but I can’t, however I hate the story behind it, as a big part of the population was starving in order to build this Palace, but that was in the past
There’s nothing positive about this building, an entire historic neighborhood was destroyed to make room for it, many people died building it, a lot of resources were wasted, it’s not finished to this day and it costs a lot to keep it functional without any real benefit.
Its architecture is ugly and it’s surrounded by a fence so people cannot get close to it anyway.
Not the only positive thing, there are many others (like the Bucharest metro) but sadly, some were built with a huge loss of life (Danube-Black Sea canal, Transfăgărășan).
I don’t know. I once wanted to visit it and it’s the only place in the EU where I was asked to leave my passport at the counter before entering. That’s was weird and disturbing. We ended up not visiting it.
no positive imho , costs of maintenance are through the roof!
Nah, fuck this place, just a another POS dictator’s dick measuring contest attempt. Countless people died for that garbage
Lol, this is very plain and dull, I would dare to say it is ugly. I don’t think that was worth the death of millions.
During the Ceausescu era, when a couple got married, the state gave them a house to live in, for free..
So this building isn’t the only good thing from that time.
I have scrolled for too long waiting for the Top Gear comment and sincera I didn’t see it I’ll make it.
The first time I have heard of this building was when Top Gear made the special episode on Romania.