This is a fascinating place that has completely taken me by surprise. We were passing by in front of the building when we heard it has recently turned into a museum. I had no idea about its existence so we stopped and decided to visit the place. It is the former Palace of the former communist dictator Romania had until 1989, Nicolae Ceausescu. I am pretty sure many of you have heard the name Ceausescu, but probably fewer of you knew what a life he had.

So I am sharing here bits of information and a few images I took during the visit. We were allowed to take pictures but it was a one hour long guided tour and I did not have time to take all the images I wanted. And to be fair, I realised a bit late I should take pictures, I was taken aback by all the luxury and beauty around me.

So here we enter the story about the Spring Palace of Nicolae Ceausescu, a person who has highly influenced my upbringing. Beautiful gardens I must say!

Entrance and interior yard

We can now continue the visit inside the Palace. Passing through various rooms which included even a private cinema room, we were told the story of this place. As we should all know by now, Ceausescu had a very strong personality cult and we as Romanians had to venerate him on every occasion. All festivities were dedicated to the couple (him and his wife Elena), there were images of him on every book, in every school and perhaps in all houses as well and all TV shows were featuring Ceausescu as the main character. There was very few left that did not include him. One could not even trust people around him as they could all be spies for him and tell on you.

Pretty tough life, if I may say!

Various rooms

Now after you saw a few of the rooms above, I must continue my story so you really understand why I was so shocked and things seemed so farfetched to me. While the above was going on in the Spring Palace, Romanians had to work 6 days a week, had to queue for hours to be able to buy a rationed amount of food and most often than not, bad or rotten. Clothes were scarce, we were having electricity and heating for a couple of hours a day and we could not leave the country. So travelling was pretty much an exotic dream, if ever even that.

So imagine the pain and poverty Romanians were going through and the luxury Ceausescu’s family was experiencing. Totally unfair, but it seems life is often quite unfair.

And just check out the dressing room they had! Regular people had one or two suits, one for every day wear and one for more special occasions, if they were fortunate enough to have even that.

Dressing Room

And then they had all the facilities one is so accustomed to have these days on every corned: gym, spa, hair salon, sauna and probably many other that did not last in time.

Sports and entertainment facilities

The whole house goes against everything Ceausescu said at the beginning of his career when he supported and helped the forced abdication of our former king! He was not agreeing with the king living the life of a king and all the rest of the population remained poor and simple.

Well this is where it got him!

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Photos by moi with the iPhone.

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