Ceausescu Palace in Bucharest: the largest building in Europe and the second largest in the world. Palace of Ceausescu and the ruins of communism
Nicolae Ceausescu was born on January 26, 1918 in the village of Scornicesti in the family of a poor peasant. After he finished four classes, his parents decided that the extra mouth was useless (Nick was one of nine children) - and attached an 11-year-old boy as an apprentice shoemaker in Bucharest. Four years later, he joined.
He was arrested more than once for inciting a strike and distributing leaflets, which only added to his respect in the eyes of his fellow party members. In prison, Nicolae's communist convictions only strengthened, and besides, there he met the future Romanian leader Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, immediately entering the circle of his entourage. After his release from prison, the former cellmate began to actively promote Nicolae up the party ladder.
Photo: Steve Burton/Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Having occupied the presidency after the death of Georgiou Deja, Ceausescu at first was known as a liberal: he softened the regime, gave limited self-government to enterprises. In addition, on the shelves in bookstores foreign literature appeared, Romanians were no longer imprisoned for talking with foreigners.
Of course, it was not without demonstrative severity: having decided to fight for an increase in the birth rate, he banned abortions and contraceptives, raised taxes on childlessness and complicated the divorce procedure. However, in the country this was treated with understanding.
The year 1968 seemed to be the height of liberalism in Romania, when Ceausescu not only did not send his troops to Czechoslovakia to disperse the Prague Spring, but also condemned the actions of the USSR. In Romania itself, this was received with enthusiasm: in the wake of his popularity, he held the 10th Party Congress, at which he got rid of disloyal party members. Now Ceausescu's hands were untied: nothing could stop him on the path to unlimited power.
gray cardinal
In all decisions he was supported by his wife Elena, whom he met at a military parade in 1939. Ceausescu's wife also failed to graduate even from a rural school, but this did not moderate her ambitions.
As soon as she became the first lady, she imagined herself to be a great scientist and began to take part in various scientific conferences. Romanian scientists, in order to avoid problems, were forced to adhere to one rule: in all their publications, be sure to indicate the name of Elena Ceausescu as one of the co-authors.
In fact, she was the gray cardinal of this regime. She held several high positions at once and used them very skillfully. As Minister of Culture, Elena emptied museums to furnish her residence, and her relatives occupied all sorts of sinecures.
In the footsteps of Mao
A trip to China had a great influence on both spouses Ceausescu and North Korea in 1971. Nicolae was fascinated by East Asian socialism: cheering crowds met him everywhere, workers worked in factories, portraits of comrades Mao Zedong and Kim Il Sung smiled at him from every wall.
Returning to his homeland, he enthusiastically undertook to plant a cult of personality. With his light suggestion, journalists and writers began to practice fawning, vying to invent new epithets for the Carpathian leader: the Genius of the Carpathians, the Danube of Wisdom, the Treasure of Reason and Charisma, the Source of Our Light, the Creator of the Age of Incomparable Renewal. Gradually, he himself began to believe in it.
The president was portrayed as a godlike great leader, his speeches were met with staged applause. “The Queen herself could envy the receptions and celebrations organized in his honor,” she wrote on this occasion. Wherein locals behind the eyes compared him with Vlad the Impaler - Count Dracula.
Elena also sought to snatch a piece of the government pie. Noticing how much power is concentrated in the hands of Mao Zedong's wife, she decided to follow her example. Returning home, Elena, who easily pushed her husband around, easily convinced him to appoint her first deputy prime minister. In fact, she became the second person in the state, although many Romanians were sure that in fact it was she who was behind all the decisions in the country. As The Telegraph notes, it is she who is guilty of the genocide of 60 thousand people and the undermining of the country's national economy.
The dictator's wife was glorified no less than her wife. In addition to the title of "Mother of the Nation", Elena Ceausescu was also quite officially called the "Torch of the Party", "Woman Hero" and "Guiding Beam of Culture and Science."
Habits of a dictator
Ceausescu was very concerned about his health and appearance. He ate a balanced diet, didn't eat chocolate, never smoked, and went to bed every afternoon.
State TV channels were ordered to portray the 1.65-meter-tall dictator as physically attractive and masculine. Those who violated this rule faced severe punishments. So, one of the producers, who did not watch the Romanian leader blinking and stuttering from the screen, was suspended from work for three months.
His passion was hunting. Previously, Ceausescu's assistants had to pump the bears with sedatives so that he could shoot as many of them as he wanted. Friends or co-workers who went hunting with him were forbidden to kill more animals than he did.
Despite the fact that the dictator was brought expensive clothes from foreign countries, which he put on for negotiations and official events, at meetings with factory workers or farmers, on the teaching of his wife, he appeared in an old shabby coat in order to show the Romanians that he was a man of the people.
The more power was concentrated in the hands of the Ceausescu family, the more suspicious Nicolae became: he looked for "bugs" in Buckingham Palace, where he was kindly accommodated during a visit to London, he ran to disinfect his hand with alcohol after shaking hands with the Queen.
He constantly carried with him a whole arsenal of chemical protection. Most of all, he was afraid that he would be poisoned. The head of the president's bodyguard tried all the dishes intended for Ceausescu, clothes were sent to him in sealed parcels from Bucharest so that no one could saturate them with poison.
Dog life
Once the leader of the Liberal Party of Great Britain gave the dictator a Labrador puppy. Ceausescu named him Corbu. Soon, a government limousine with a motorcycle cortege began to drive around the streets of the Romanian capital - the personal transport of "Comrade Korbu", as the people called the dog.
Korbu lived in a separate villa, and at night he was taken to the palace to the owner, who loved it when the dog slept at his feet. Subsequently, the dog received the rank of colonel in the Romanian army. In addition, the Romanian ambassador in London had to buy dog food at Sainsbury's supermarket every week, which was delivered by diplomatic mail to Bucharest.
On the road to the abyss
The economic model chosen by Ceausescu did not justify itself: if in the early 70s production in Romania grew by an average of 10 percent per year, then by the end of the decade it did not exceed 3 percent. The country was slipping faster and faster economic crisis. However, the dictator also wanted to show the whole world that the country is able to pay off its foreign debt.
It was at this time that he decided to immortalize his name in stone and at the same time confirm the status of a dictator - to build something gigantic, one of a kind. They became the Palace of Parliament. In order to make room for such a large-scale construction, the Romanian leader wiped out 19 churches, 6 synagogues and 30,000 houses. From 1983 to 1989, about 40 percent of the country's GDP was spent on the construction of a palace with an area of 333,000 square meters. By the way, despite the huge financial and human resources spent on construction, the building was completed after the death of the couple. It currently houses Parliament. The palace is inferior in size only to the American building.
However, because of such gigantic spending and the desire to pay off the national debt, he introduced an austerity regime in the country: no more than 15 percent of local textiles got into stores, no more than 6.3 percent of the fuel produced in the country reached the population, and there was not enough medicine and food.
With special diligence in the country they saved electricity: television broadcast only two or three hours a day, it was allowed to keep no more than one 15-watt light bulb in apartments. At night, all of Romania, except for the dictator's palace, was plunged into darkness. The residence of Ceausescu continued to shine with all the lights.
However, the goal for which this was all started was achieved: if in 1980 the external debt was $ 11 billion, then by 1986 it had dropped to $ 6.4 billion, and in April 1989 Ceausescu triumphantly announced the full payment of external debt. No other socialist country could boast of such an achievement. Then Ceausescu could not even think that a little more than six months remained until the end of his presidency and life itself.
In 1989, in the predominantly Hungarian town of Timişoara, small protests broke out over the arrest of a local priest, which gradually spilled out of the city. The atmosphere quickly heated up: strikes and demonstrations swept the whole country. On December 20, Ceausescu flew to Iran on an official visit, but returned the same day, as the situation was already out of control. On December 21, the dictator gathered a rally in the Romanian capital and addressed the people with a speech in which he branded Timisoara hooligans.
However, instead of the usual applause and cheers, Ceausescu heard cries of indignation. The dictator, together with his wife, decided to flee, but failed to escape from the country. The military went over to the side of the rebels and handed over the couple to the tribunal of the National Salvation Front. Ceausescu was found guilty of the genocide of the Romanians and sentenced to death penalty. According to eyewitnesses, there was no end to those wishing to carry it out. Nikolai and Elena were taken to the courtyard of the barracks and shot near the soldiers' restroom. A news anchor on one of the Romanian TV channels stated in live: "The Antichrist was killed on Christmas Day."
During the reign of Ceausescu, the Romanians experienced serious shortages of food, fuel, electricity, they lacked medicines and many things. The country was dominated by nationalism and the cult of personality brought to the point of absurdity. The policies of Nicolae and his wife Elena were cruel and repressive. Despite this, according to the results of a public opinion poll, 46 percent of the population said they would vote for Ceausescu if he were to take part in the elections now.
Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest (Romania) - expositions, opening hours, address, phone numbers, official website.
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The visiting card of Bucharest, its main asset and pride, the largest and heaviest in the world civil construction, as well as a controversial symbol of dictatorship and oppression - all this is the Palace of the Parliament, the famous architectural monument of Romania. For its impressive size, he even got into the Guinness Book of Records, and twice. The Palace of the Parliament was built during the period of the Socialist Republic of Romania, between 1984 and 1989, but in a short history it managed to change several names. The first name of the attraction is "House of the Republic", in the post-revolutionary era - "House of Nations", but the name "House of Ceausescu" has stuck among the people, exposing the former leader of the country. As a result, when the troubled times for the country ended, the administrative building was assigned official name Palace of Parliament.
The hallmark of Bucharest, its main asset and pride, the largest and heaviest civil structure in the world, as well as a controversial symbol of dictatorship and oppression - all this is the Palace of Parliament, the famous architectural monument of Romania.
Description of the Palace of Parliament
The palace is an eleven-story building, consisting of 1100 rooms, of which 440 are given over to offices, about 30 are ceremonial halls and salons, and among the premises there are four restaurants, three libraries, concert hall, equipped with two underground parking.
In the mid-1990s, the cyclopean building was moved Legislature authorities - the Chamber of Deputies, and in 2005 the Senate (by the way, Ceausescu also planned to do this at one time). In 2004, in the western wing of the E4 palace, National Museum contemporary art (MNAC), which occupied several floors at once. At the same time, the Museum of Totalitarianism and Socialist Realism joined it.
For ease of access to them, a glass extension was built with panoramic elevators that take tourists upstairs. The chic legislators' restaurant was also renovated in the mid-2000s.
Construction of luxury marble castle against the backdrop of the general poverty of the Romanian population, it caused natural hostility and condemnation of the inhabitants of Bucharest. The amount of labor and materials used for the construction and interior decoration of the palace is impressive. More than 3500 tons of crystal, about one million cubic meters of marble, 900 thousand cubic meters of valuable wood, 200 thousand meters of high-quality wool carpets were spent. In addition, fantastic funds were spent on luxurious brocade and velvet curtains trimmed with gold and silver embroidery and beads.
Where do you think the heaviest building in the world could be located, and what it could be. The first thing that can come to mind is some skyscraper and most likely from the Middle East, or maybe some mega-structure from the Middle Kingdom. However, in both the first and second cases, the guesses will be wrong, since everything is much simpler. To date, Romania is the owner of such a building, and the Palace of Parliament in Bucharest has become a nominee in this category.
The Palace of the Parliament, as it is not difficult to guess from the name, is the seat of the Romanian Parliament, and it is located, respectively, in the capital, the city of Bucharest. According to the Guinness World Records, the Palace of Parliament is the heaviest building in the world. The structure consists of 700 thousand tons of steel and bronze, combined with 1 million cubic meters of marble, 3.5 thousand tons of crystal and 900 thousand cubic meters of wood.
The most interesting thing is that the Palace of the Parliament was erected during the reign of Nicolae Ceausescu, when Romania was communist. At that time, it was a rather unprofitable investment, since many sectors of the economy were experiencing difficult times and were more in need of financial inflows than in the construction of a structure that showed the “favorable” position of the country to the outside world.
Ceausescu did his best, despite the fact that several decades have passed, today the Palace of the Parliament takes first place in several categories. For example, this building is the largest civilian administrative building in the world (the largest administrative and non-civilian is the Pentagon). The Palace of Parliament also ranks third in the Massive Buildings category, behind the Vertical Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and a temple in the abandoned Mexican city of Teotihuacan.
In terms of size, the Palace of the Parliament reaches 84 meters in height, which should correspond to 25 floors, but the building contains 12 floors. total area the building occupies 365 thousand m², and the base area - 66 thousand m². In volume, the Palace of the Parliament is quite impressive in size and amounts to 2.55 million m³. The number of rooms placed in the building is 1100.
The building has become famous for its contents. The rich interior decoration, the Senate, the Chamber of Deputies, the International Conference Center, the National Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Communist Totalitarianism and Palace Museum inside which is another palace. In addition, various city events, symposiums, conferences, and exhibitions are regularly held inside the house. But even with this, the Palace of Parliament is only 30% occupied!!! The remaining 70% of the building remains permanently empty.
After the anti-communist uprising and the advent of democracy in the country, in 1990 an Australian businessman, Rupert Murdoch, wanted to buy the Palace of Parliament, and offered 1 billion US dollars for it, but the offer was rejected because the new government was not really fully established, and the movement funds would be out of control. Today, the building is estimated at 3 billion euros, and is the most expensive office building in the world, and at the same time unprofitable. For example, the Palace of Parliament in maintenance costs the country equivalent small town. The treasury has to spend 6 million US dollars annually for utilities and house maintenance alone.
The prehistory of the building begins in the 1970s. After the infamous Carpathian earthquake on March 4, 1977, Ceausescu developed a plan for the reconstruction of Bucharest, and the Palace of Parliament in his plans was the central figure of the new city. A similar project has already existed since the "pre-communist" times, when King Carol II ruled Romania in the 1930s, but due to the coming war, this remained only in the plans. The Commander-in-Chief announced a competition for a new building project, during which Anka Petrescu won, and she was appointed chief architect.
The Palace of the Parliament began to be built on June 25, 1984, then a grand opening was held with the participation of Nicolae Ceausescu. Anka Petrescu was assigned another 10 more experienced architects, since at that time she was 28 years old. In total, during the construction, 700 architects were given submission to Anka. The Palace of the Parliament began to be erected on the site where previously there were several factories, workshops, a monastery, a hospital and the National Archives.
The demolition of the ruins began in 1982, 7 km² of the area was cleared for construction, 40 thousand inhabitants were resettled, and soldiers were involved in order to reduce the cost of construction to a minimum. The Palace of Parliament came at a high cost. Ceausescu attracted the number of workers to the general work, which regularly varied between 20 thousand and 100 thousand people. Not a small number of those who died during construction is also given, today about 3 thousand workers are announced.
Initially, the authors of the project expected that the Palace of the Parliament would be ready for operation in two years from the start, but after a real assessment of the possibilities, the deadline was pushed back to 1990. In fact, today the building is considered "unfinished". By the time of the overthrow of Ceausescu, the structures were erected, as planned, but the finishing work is still ongoing. Palace of Parliament on this moment almost 40% finished on the inside.
Since Nicolae Ceausescu was afraid of nuclear war, eight levels were also built under the building. In the underground rooms, the Palace of the Parliament contains a bunker with 1.5-meter concrete walls that does not allow radiation to pass through. The vault also contains the main hall, telephone lines, headquarters, and several residential apartments for officials, in the event of a nuclear war.
Sometimes in the world the Palace of Parliament is called the "pharaonic" building. This is due to the fact that the volume of the building exceeds great pyramid Giza is only 2%, and also because of the "royal" decorations. Chandeliers, lamps and mirrors are made of crystal, many doors and window frames are made of bronze, parquet and wood finishes consist mainly of walnut, oak, cherry, elm, maple and sycamore. The total area of carpets is 200 thousand m², and they were woven directly on the spot, special machines were transported inside the building.
Another frill of the "creation" of Ceausescu are brocade and velvet curtains, decorated with embroidery, beads, and some are even trimmed with silver and gold. Ceausescu, as a true "patriot" of his country, took all the materials for the Palace of Parliament directly from inside Romania, only the doors of the hall were received as a gift from Mobutu Sese Seko, the ruler Democratic Republic Congo. To date, there is one negative point, due to the heavy weight of the building, it sags, annually the Palace of the Parliament sags by 6 mm.
We bring to your attention material from the site archive - the text of the transfer of the Russian service of the Romanian foreign broadcasting dated 12/13/2004 about the building, which is the unofficial symbol of Bucharest - the Palace of Parliament. Recall that this cyclopean building began to be built at the direction of the then Romanian communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu in 1984 as the residence of the president, government and parliament. The building is marked by the Guinness Book of Records as one of the largest and most expensive administrative buildings in the world. In the course of clearing the site for this structure, the elegant quarters of the center of Bucharest were destroyed, which cost the city the loss of the unofficial title of "Paris of the Balkans". At the time of the overthrow of Ceausescu in December 1989, the palace was not quite ready. (There were interior finishing works in a number of rooms). By the way, according to a number of Romanian publications, with the exception of the sandal wood from which the ornaments in one of the conference rooms were made, all the material used to build the building is of Romanian origin. The Palace of the Parliament is still the symbol of modern Bucharest, despite the reconstruction and restoration in last years some historical buildings and quarters of the city. So far, Bucharest has failed to regain its pre-war charm. And now let's turn to the original source - the Romanian essay.
Palace and Civic Center District
« The Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest is the second largest and third largest building in the world. Until 1989 it was called the “House of the Republic”, after 1989 it was called the “House of the People”, and since the mid-1990s, after the transfer of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate there, it was called the “Palace of Parliament”.
The building rises above the capital and is a real magnet for foreign tourists who called it the "Palace of Ceausescu".
On the one hand, such a nickname is justified, since the idea of its construction and the choice of architectural and artistic style belong to the former leader of communist Romania.
But on the other hand, it is by no means justified by those sufferings and hardships, by the too high price that the Romanian people paid for it.
The Palace of the Parliament was conceived as the core of the new urban center of Bucharest, which Ceausescu began to build in the mid-1980s. Communist propaganda called it the "Civic Center", since all central institutions, from the presidential headquarters to the Academy of Sciences, were to move into the future palace and nearby buildings. (The "Civic Center" district became famous throughout the world in 1989 during live television broadcasts, after one of its squares (now bearing the name "Revolution Square"), near the building of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party, began with a rally organized by Ceausescu in his support Romanian revolution, while the parliament building at first remained aloof from these events, it is located at some distance from this square.
The axis of the new city center was a wide boulevard with the characteristic name "Victory of Socialism". Today it is called "Boulevardul Unirii" (Unification Boulevard). It begins in the square, above which, on a hill in the center of a vast space, rises the palace.
The "Civic Center" itself was part of an extensive program of systematization of cities and villages, launched in 1976-1980.
The basis for the new economic and ideological policy of Ceausescu was the documents of the IX Congress of the Romanian Communist Party in 1974, incl. the Program of the Russian Communist Party adopted there. In 1974, the Law on Systematization was issued settlements, and in November 1977 the Office was abolished historical monuments responsible for the protection and conservation historical sites and monuments. The devastating earthquake of 1977, which damaged many buildings in Bucharest, also served as a pretext for the start of mass demolition of buildings in old, historical quarters capital Cities.
Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu conceived the "Civic Center" as a symbol of his power, determined to leave a mark not only in the history of Romania, but also in the architecture of the capital. The “Civic Center” was characterized by the width of the Victory of Socialism boulevard unusual for Bucharest, large open spaces and huge buildings. Not only the palace, standing on an artificial hill, impresses with its size, but also the administrative and residential buildings surrounding it. In style, the Palace of the Parliament is a classic example of the architecture of communist totalitarianism, says historian Adrian Majuru, a specialist in the history of the city of Bucharest:
“The “House of the People” is not only one of the symbolic monuments of the era of Nicolae Ceausescu. This is a typical example of the communist worldview. Marxist-Leninist teaching spoke of the transformation of the world. Marx himself in his “Theses on Feuerbach” wrote: “Philosophers limited themselves to explaining the world. However, it is more important to change it.” Nicolae Ceausescu, a dogmatic communist, steadfastly followed the teachings of the fathers of communism, who proclaimed the unlimited power of man over nature. He was not only their faithful follower, but also a prisoner of the world in which the ideologists of communism lived. The imprint he left on the architecture of today's Bucharest refers us to the utopian beginnings of communism and gives a ruthless vision of what the future under communism could be like.
The construction of the palace began on June 25, 1984 and only until 1989 cost the Romanians about three billion lei and several hundred lives. Military builders and conscript soldiers worked at the gigantic construction site. 480 thousand cubic meters of concrete and 42 thousand tons of rolled steel were used. The building was placed on the former Arsenal hill, in the Uranus quarter. For it picturesque corner old Bucharest and the historical and architectural monuments razed to the ground. Here are a few more figures characterizing this palace, included in the Guinness Book of Records, in the section “administrative buildings”. Its height from the base of the foundation to the top is 178 m, of which 92 m is underground and 86 m is on the surface. The area occupied by the building is 330 thousand sq.m. (second place after the Pentagon). Volume - 2.5 million cubic meters (third place in the world after the American space center at Cape Canaveral in Florida and the Quetzalcoatl pyramid in Mexico, but before the largest Egyptian pyramid Cheops). The main facade of the palace has a length of 270 m, the side - 245 m. The palace has two courtyards. The eleven-story building has the shape of a three-stage pyramid with a flat top. The building has dozens of halls for receptions, meetings, negotiations, offices, Big hall meetings of the Chamber of Deputies, offices, restaurants. Since the 1990s, the largest international conference center in Romania has been operating in the Palace of the Parliament, where numerous congresses, conferences, and seminars are held every month. Recently, the Museum of Modern Art was opened in the Palace of Parliament.
Construction and interior decoration The palace was completed in general in the 90s, after the overthrow of Ceausescu, although the work is not 100% completed even now. Those who see the palace for the first time are surprised not only by its huge size, but also by its strange eclectic style. Adrian Majuru tells about the symbolism of the building:
"Ceausescu's plans to create a new capital date back to the mid-70s. Then a strategy was developed for a new Romania, a new capital, in which the "Civil Center" was to become the central axis of Ceausescu's power. The palace impresses not so much with its huge size, but with its amazing impact on the mind of the viewer, although it properly stands out against the background huge area, the building of the palace oppresses the surrounding landscape, suppresses it. According to him, it is easy to establish the psychological image of the regime under which such an idea arose: building a dominant power, oppressing a citizen instead of giving him a sense of security, symbolizing the will of the people.
In the early 80s, Bucharest was constantly shrouded in a cloud of dust, which arose due to the destruction of old quarters and the construction of the "Civic Center". Now, when the dust has cleared, the memory remains strange building in the city center and photographs reminiscent of forever lost monuments and houses.
This material is based on the text of the transmission of the Russian service of the Romanian foreign broadcasting "Radio Romania International" dated 13/12/2004 from the archive of the site;
Compilation and notes site
This gigantic monster of engineering is to this day the largest building in Europe and for a long time was the second largest building in the world, after the American Pentagon. But even now it is the heaviest administrative building on the planet.
The dimensions of the Ceausescu Palace are 270 by 240 m. Height - 86 m. The underground part of the palace has a height of 92 m. 4 underground levels have been completed and are already in use, and 4 more levels are at different stages of completion. 
480,000 cubic meters were spent on construction. m of concrete and 42,000 tons of structural steel. In addition, about a million tons of white, pink and yellow Romanian marble were used, mainly from Ruschitsa. 
No less luxurious is the interior decoration of the Palace - crystal doors are installed in the halls, marble floors are decorated with inlays, and about 3,500 tons of crystal were delivered from Medias for the manufacture of chandeliers, lamps and mirrors. 
The building has 480 chandeliers, 1409 ceiling lights and mirrors. By the way, the largest lamp weighs almost 3 tons and burns with seven thousand light bulbs. 
And it also took 700,000 tons of bronze and steel for capitals, doors and windows, 900,000 square meters. m. of wood for wall panels and parquet and wall panels (hazel, oak, cherry, elm, maple), 200 thousand square meters. meters of woolen carpets of different sizes. 
Machine tools were even brought to the palace to make some large carpets on the spot. The building of the palace combines elements of various architectural styles and cannot be clearly classified. 
The palace was built on the Spirius hill, which was partially destroyed for this. During the construction of the Palace and the accompanying Oniri Avenue, it was demolished: 22 churches, 6 synagogues and 30 thousand buildings of the 18th-19th centuries of construction, which were the pearl of Bucharest. 
Construction began in 1984 by order of Nicolae Ceausescu. Work began under the watchful eye of the dictator himself. 400 architects were involved in the case, and about 20,000 people worked at the construction site. 
It is said that in just five years (from 1984 to 1989), the construction of the palace cost about three billion lei and several hundred lives. The building was originally intended as the headquarters of the main government institutions. 
The palace was built mainly from Romanian-made materials. During construction, there was such a demand for Romanian marble that even tombstones throughout the country were made from other materials. Construction required the destruction of the fifth part historical center city and caused noisy protests, as many temples were destroyed. 
The palace is surrounded by avenues whose scale corresponds to the scale of the Palace. Unirii (Association) Boulevard leads to its foot, flanked by white high-rise buildings. Before they were built, Ceausescu ordered life-size wooden models of all the buildings to be erected along the new boulevard, so that he could make sure that his plans were embodied on a proper scale. 
Construction was almost complete by the time Ceausescu was executed in 1989. The 12-story Palace has 4 underground bunkers in case of nuclear war and no less than 1100 rooms, including 440 offices, reception halls, conference rooms (ranging from 1000 to 1500 sq. m.), meeting rooms and two monumental galleries, 180 m long. 
Considering that, simultaneously with the construction of the Palace (1984-1989), Comrade Ceausescu paid off Romania's external debt, built a subway and a canal on the Danube in Bucharest, the picture turns out to be quite terrible. Food shortages, especially protein foods, were terrible. 
Under Ceausescu, chicken eggs (not to mention normal meat - the cards were given ribs rolled into a tube on tendons) could not be obtained for 8 months. At the same time, Ceausescu banned contraception and abortion. How mothers raised their children - and how many women died in illegal abortions, it's scary to even think.
“If you are cold, buy a second coat!” - so said Ceausescu, and the House of the People grew prettier and grew, striking in its size and exorbitant luxury ... They say that after the execution of Ceausescu, luxury building wanted to demolish. But after considering how much explosives would be required for this, they changed their minds. 
And today the Parliament of Romania works in the Ceausescu Palace, and majestic building changed its name again. Now it is the Palace of Parliament. 
And we could have such a miracle in Moscow. BUT... it didn't work.
