Today we visited the grand parliament buildings, which were the vision of former president and communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu.
He envisioned living and working and here; his dream home which was 100% made in Romania and it is the 2nd largest parliament building in the world.
A very paranoid leader wanted to have all luxuries available to him in one place which he and his wife designed and decorated. The irony is that he never saw its full completion or spent a day in the building as he and his wife were executed by firing squad in December 1989. His regime collapsed after he ordered his security forces to fire on anti-government demonstrators in the city of Timișoara on 17 December 1989. Revolts began all across the country and as he tried to flee by helicopter he was captured by the military forces and tried for many crimes including genocide.
The parliament buildings.
There is over 1 million cubic meters of marble in the building. The main steps replicate those in st Petersburg parliament.
The building is the official offices of the senate and Deputy chambers.
The crystal used here is from Transylvania as Ceaușescu declined the offer of Bohemian crystal from the Czech republic and had a factory built for his parliament in Romania to make the crystal for the building.
Some amazing facts:
The carpets equal 220,00 sq meters and the building houses the largest single carpet in the world.
There are 200,000 square meters of glass for the windows. The building is 2 sq km and the grounds, 3km!
The largest chandelier has 6000 light bulbs and weighs 7 tons.
The building was completed in 2005 but was used in 1989. However, Ceaușescu did not live one day here as he was executed before this.
There are bunkers underground and apartments for his extended family. It was considered the safest place in Bucharest. It was said that he had all of the workers and bankers killed so that they would not reveal the secret passageways to anyone.
There are 30 meeting rooms but the senate has 4 for their meetings from when they arrived here in 2005.
This room is where weekly meetings are held by the senate and international summits like NATO which was held here in 2008.
From 1984-1989 over 5 million people worked in the parliament building - when the population at the time was 22 million; the population now is 19 million!
Over 25% of the workforce worked here which is why it was nicknamed the People's house!
Many Romanians have left their homeland since the fall of communism and Ceaușescu's heavy handed regime.
This room referred to as the "small lobby" is where business meetings are held along with conference registration and Santa Claus visits once a year! The buildings' upkeep is quite expensive so the government rents out many parts to businesses and for special events.
We then moved to the green room or the "wow" room as it is so grand! Green is the colour of the senate hence its name. There are176 of them and here is where they have live transmissions and vote on policies. All political parties are represented here and they invite the press to the balcony spaces as well as members of the public who are allowed to attend. However, many people do not want to be senators as they are only paid 1000 euros a month but are always in the public eye!
We had lunch here and then returned to the school for an afternoon of meetings.
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