The beautiful weather outside, the early springtime invites me for a walk. I would have liked it to have been a trip instead of a walk, but, as we all know the sad truth, last year and this year are not friendly with travel. The reason is so well known that I don't even want to name it.
I take a walk through my city and imagine that I am in an unknown city. It really is a city unknown to the vast majority of you. So I've been (I'm) here and I'm trying to help you make an impression of a place in this world.
The city is called Bucharest, it is the capital of Romania. It was a beautiful city, in the last century it was similar to Paris, it was then called Little Paris ... because it was much smaller. The resemblance to Paris comes from the fact that the modernization of the city, at the beginning of the last century, was done by copying much of the architecture of Paris. Romania is a Latin country, the only one in Eastern Europe, and it was a francophile country.
I said above that "it was" a beautiful city. Why do I say that? Because the misfortune of this country and, implicitly, of this city, was the almost fifty years of communism. Communism, meaning totalitarianism! When the will of one man, a dictator, imposed a direction of Romanian society and destruction of European values in terms of politics, art, economy ... The will of an uneducated man who changed the face of an important city such as Bucharest.
My walk was near and around a building that represented the desire and obsession of a dictator. A world-famous building, the People's House. The original name was changed in the Romanian Parliament, after the fall of communism and after the dictator of Romania received a "gift" of lead from the people!
How did the steps take me near this building? I live in the suburbs, on the northern edge of the city, in a quiet area full of greenery. Less polluted, less crowded. I like it so much that I rarely get to the city center. In the past years, I came to the center mainly because of theater performances, but now, due to administrative needs and because most institutions are in the center, I had to get there. After solving a problem at the Court, on the way home I saw a sign that reminded me of the huge building nearby and made me want to see it up close and so I thought of making a post about it.
The building is huge and dominates the place. It can be seen from afar.
From this building begins the boulevard that was originally called "Victory of Socialism" and after the revolution of 1989, when the communist dictatorship was removed, the name was changed to "Decebal" (the best-known leader of the Dacians, who fought in 102 with Emperor Trajan, leader of the Roman Empire). At construction, this boulevard had to be the most important and beautiful in the city, full of artesian wells (now non-functional, due to winter).
So I started the walk on Decebal Boulevard, towards the Romanian Parliament building.
Although it seems close, due to its large size, it was still a walk. The steps took me back in time, to the 1700s. Until I reached the great architectural achievement of the communists, I found a small oasis from the past, hidden behind the blocks. Very close to the Parliament building, no more than 500 meters. Looking ahead, the symbol of the communist past ...
...looking to the left, a sample of what the city looks like three hundred years ago.
Behind the high blocks, hidden by the high blocks, there is an old monastery and very important for the history of the city and for the culture of the Romanian people. Antim Monastery!
A joy to see the beauty of the past, something so special compared to the surrounding blocks.
The name of the monastery comes from Antim Ivireanul, metropolitan of Bucharest. Of Georgian origin, he became the greatest printer in Romanian medieval culture and founded the first public library in Bucharest. In this monastery, he printed several religious books. I went in to visit the monastery, in fact only the inner courtyard.
Although the blocks can be seen over the walls of the monastery, I still feel that I am traveling in time, I feel the peace and beauty of the past.
Some details of the entrance to the monastery church, with large icons made of mosaic.
In Orthodox iconography, at least in Romania, God is represented as a dove. Before leaving the monastery, I saw this dove on the steps of the church and I wondered ... is it, God?
With this question in mind, I left the monastery and resumed my walk to the great communist achievement called the People's House and then the Romanian Parliament. I took this break in presenting the big building for my pleasure to compare newer and older buildings in my city. For me, old architecture has always won!
Here we are in Constitution Square. On one side is the Parliament building.
This building is the most famous building in Romania. This is only due to the pharaonic dimensions. It's time to give you some details ...
The People's House measures 270 m by 240 m, 86 m high, and 92 m underground. It is the second-largest administrative building for civilian use in the world, and the most expensive administrative building in the world, and the heaviest building in the world.
The building has an area of 330,000 m², registering, according to World Records Academy, in the chapter "Administrative Buildings", on the 2nd place in the world after the Pentagon building, and in terms of volume, with its 2,550,000 m³, ranked 3rd in the world, after the space rocket assembly building at Cape Canaveral in Florida and after the pyramid of Quetzalcoatl in Mexico. For comparison, it can be mentioned that this building exceeds by 2% the volume of the pyramid of Cheops in Egypt!!!
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Here we are in Constitution Square. A place where the Christmas fair is organized (last year it was not) and where there were many concerts with famous soloists and bands, such as Luciano Pavarotti and bands such as AC/DC, Bon Jovi, or Red Hot Chili Peppers. I miss such events.
Here we are in Constitution Square. On the other side are the buildings that constitute the so-called Civic Center. Dictator Ceausescu wanted it to be the center of the city and the center of the country, where all the important institutions of the state should function ... which he would lead and supervise from the People's House. That did not make it. The buildings remained.
The dictator's dream, however, came true in a way. In the buildings in this square are the headquarters of almost all ministries and in the People's House is the Romanian Parliament.
It is interesting how both names of this building are used ...
When money is demanded for the maintenance of the building, the parliamentarians say that they are for the People's House and when privileges are discussed, the parliamentarians say that this is the Palace of the Parliament.
On the other hand, this huge building is adjacent to a park, a newly established park (ie the arrangement began with the construction of the building), a park called Izvor. The walk continues through the park, a park that is also dominated by huge construction.
This construction was made out of pride, out of the pride of a dictator who had almost gone mad. Now you can see behind the building that something is being built. The cathedral. The cathedral much desired and dreamed of by the Romanian Orthodox Church. Another pride. They want this building to be taller than the Palace of Parliament. The cross that will be mounted on the cathedral will exceed the height of the Parliament.
Until the construction of the Cathedral is finished, the People's House dominates everything, those who walk through the park always see the silhouette of the huge building.
No matter how far I move away from the building, it is visible and impressive. Impress with size.
The question is ... What good is it?
It's a saying: What does a donkey need a pearl hat? in the sense that why would a small and poor country want to build something so big, expensive and useless?
The answer is that the Romanian people did not want this construction but the one who decided and did everything he wanted ... was the little dictator. Ceausescu paid a visit to North Korea, Pyongyang, and was delighted with what he saw there. He decided to transform Bucharest after the model of the Korean capital. For the construction of the Civic Center and the People's House, an entire neighborhood was demolished, a neighborhood with thousands of old and beautiful houses.
The construction site itself began in the 1980s with the demolition of over 7 km² of the old center of the capital and the relocation of over 40,000 people in this area. Among the missing buildings are Văcărești Monastery, Brâncovenesc Hospital, National Archives, Republic Stadium, etc.
20,000 workers, 5,000 soldiers, 700 architects, an army of so-called "volunteers" worked in difficult conditions, 3 shifts for 7 years.
The building has about 1000 rooms, of which 440 offices, over 30 halls, and lounges, four restaurants, three libraries, two underground parking lots, a concert hall.
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After all these efforts, tens of thousands of people moved from their homes to blocks of flats, after expenses that could not be borne by the country's budget and that deepened the poverty of Romanian society, after hundreds of deaths among workers and soldiers, this huge building remained for several hundred parliamentarians.
It ranks 2nd in the world in terms of "the most expensive, unsuccessful and shameful architectural projects ever made", a ranking made by the world's most visited architectural site, ArchDaily. Although it has cost and costs enormously in money and suffering, 70% is unused!
A sad reality. The building begins to deteriorate, being so large and difficult to maintain. We certainly wouldn't have needed it. It only produces losses.
However, it is the most visited destination by tourists. Attracted both by the story and the size of this unique building in the world. I should be proud to be in my country but I'm not!
