Do you know what is the largest building in the world after the Pentagon? This is the Palace of Parliament in Bucharest. Today it is the main attraction of Romania. In the past - a symbol of despotism and oppression that the country hates. What did not like this magnificent architectural structure? What place does the modern Palace of Parliament take in the life of the city and country?
Ruins and tears are his place ...
The decision to build the palace was made in 1980. The bright idea of \u200b\u200bthe erection of a government district - a symbol of the communist regime - belonged to the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. It was supposed to build not only the palace building, but also other state institutions, from the Ministry of Defense to the hotel. According to Ceausescu's ambitious plan, the Civic Center (the name given by communist propaganda) was supposed to symbolize its unlimited power.
Construction began in 1983. To make way for work, it was necessary to destroy the old part of the city, destroy several churches and architectural monuments, resettle more than 40 thousand people. In addition, only Romanian materials were suitable for the palace. So Ceausescu decided to prove the self-sufficiency and power of the country.
Such a global construction could not but affect the economic situation in Romania, where people lacked food. More than four hundred architects, twenty thousand workers worked at the construction site, among whom were mainly conscripts and military builders. The construction of the palace cost the Romanians several hundred lives.
By the time of the overthrow and execution of Ceausescu (1989), the Palace of Parliament was not yet completed. They even wanted to demolish the symbol of the hated system. But the construction decided to continue. And although even today the work is not 100% complete, the Palace of Parliament is open to visitors.
Why did the Palace of Parliament get into the Guinness Book of Records?
Today, the palace building houses the residence of the Romanian parliament, branches of several universities, the Constitutional Court, the Museum of Modern Art, restaurants and libraries. The area of \u200b\u200bthis Bucharest attraction is 330,000 m2. The length of the main facade is 270 m. Two courtyards, 12 floors - above the ground, 8 - underground. To get around all the premises, it will take several days. The appearance of the palace is a typical example of a communist worldview. The goal is to crush everyone around. It is for these oppressive dimensions that the Palace of Parliament fell into the Guinness Book of Records.
Ceausescu Palace is the world's largest civilian administration building, the largest parliament building (350,000 square meters and 2,550,000 square meters), as well as the heaviest building in the world. For a long time, the Palace of Parliament was the second largest building in the world after the Pentagon. Initially, the palace was called the House of the People, but in the post-communist era it was renamed the Palace of Parliament. Despite this, many still call him by his former name.
The dimensions of the Ceausescu Palace are 270 by 240 m. The height is 86 m. The underground part of the palace has a height of 92 m. The palace has 1,100 rooms, 12 floors. 4 underground levels are completed and already in use and 4 more levels are at different stages of completion. About one million m was spent on the construction? marble mainly from Rushkitsa, 3500 tons of crystal (480 chandeliers, 1409 ceiling lights and mirrors), 700 thousand tons of steel and bronze for doors, windows, chandeliers and capitals. It was also used 900 thousand square meters. wood for parquet and wall panels (hazel, oak, cherry, elm, maple), 200 thousand m? woolen carpets of different sizes. Machine tools were even brought into the palace to make some large carpets right on the spot. The palace building combines elements of various architectural styles and does not lend itself to a clear classification. The palace was built on the hill of Spirius, which was partially destroyed for this. Construction began in 1984 by order of Nicolae Ceausescu. The building was originally intended as the headquarters of major 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 demanded the destruction of a fifth of the historic city center and caused noisy protests, as many temples were destroyed. Construction was nearly completed by the time Ceausescu was executed in 1989.
The avenue is surrounded by avenues whose scales correspond to those of the Palace. Unirii Boulevard (Unions), flanked by white multistory bulks, leads to its foot. Before building them, Ceausescu ordered to erect wooden life-size models of all buildings along the new boulevard, so that he could make sure that his plans were implemented with the proper scope.
If, having passed the first guard post, approaching the Palace from the corner of the Boulevards of Freedom and National Unity, for the time being he hides his true scale.
However, reaching the central axis of the facade, it is impossible not to freeze. It is impossible to capture the facade while standing on the upper platform in front of the entrance.
Facades with fantastic generosity lined with white Romanian marble
Through a series of doors we get into the building of the Ceausescu Palace
Huge front hall chandelier
Doors to the meeting room. There are thousands of them in the palace ...
Meeting Room of Ceausescu Palace
Interior Details
The interior of the palace is endless and amazing with its decoration (it’s scary to imagine how much money was invested in this)
If we take into account that at the same time the Palace was built (1984-1989), Comrade Ceausescu paid off Romania’s external debt, built a metro in Bucharest and a canal on the Danube, the picture is absolutely terrible. Food shortages, especially protein foods, were terrible. When Ceausescu had chicken eggs (not to mention normal meat - they gave them curled ribs on the tendons on the cards), it was impossible to get 8 months. At the same time, Ceausescu banned contraception and abortion. How mothers raised children - and how many women died in illegal abortions, it’s scary to even think. “If you feel cold, buy a second coat!” - so Ceausescu said), and the House of the People was nice and growing. Here you can find first-class marble carvings made in national traditions
In the very center of Bucharest is the famous Ceausescu Palace, which is now called the Palace of Parliament. The palace occupies an entire quarter, its dimensions are 270 by 240 meters, and its height is 86 meters. This is the world's largest office building - its area is already 350,000 square meters. It is also the world's heaviest civilian administration building.
The style of the palace resembles the Stalinist empire - it seems that the palace was built in about 30-50, but in fact its construction began only in 1984 by personal order of Ceausescu. “The Great Conductor”, “Genius of the Carpathians”, “Spruce”, “The Beautiful Prince”, “Navigator” (all these epithets awarded to Ceausescu by Romanian writers of the communist years) decided to build a palace in the very center of Bucharest on Sinai Hill, for which they were destroyed one fifth of the historical center of Bucharest, including many architectural monuments. In parallel with the palace, several residential buildings in the same style were designed for those close to Ceausescu.
In 1989, the dictator Ceausescu was executed, and his palace remained partially unfinished. During today's walk, we will walk through the halls of the Ceausescu Palace, go down to the unfinished cellars, and also look at the ruins of the administrative buildings of the communist years that still stand in Bucharest.
02. This is how the palace looks close - the wide street Bulevardul Unirii leads to it, which is something like an alley with fountains. We will still see the road from the upper floors of the palace.
03. The nearby neighborhoods are occupied by residential buildings built in the same style as the palace - the apartments in these houses were intended for the party leadership of communist Romania and Ceausescu's associates. What is interesting - some buildings are not fully completed - until now, here and there you can see the walls of unplastered bricks and the dark dips of glazed windows.
04. Around the palace, lanterns were installed in the same style as the palace - some are in very poor condition.
05. A close-up photo of the palace’s fence - the palace itself was decorated with such a stone and the fence around it was built from something similar.
06. We go inside. The palace is greeted with cool marble halls and colossal volumes of interior spaces.
07. Bronze sconces with pendants made of Romanian crystal.
08. One of the meeting rooms, built on the principle of a theater, has a stage (a frame was taken from it) and several tiers of seats for spectators.
09. Chandelier under the ceiling, also Romanian crystal.
10. Railing. The special pride of Ceausescu was that all the materials from which the palace was built are Romanian. The construction of such a colossus caused a considerable shortage of building materials in the country, but everyone could be told that Romania would never kneel and buy American cement.
11. Staircase to the upper floors with bronze railings. Like many other rooms of the palace, everything is decorated with marble - it took so much to build the Genius of the Carpathians palace that in the late eighties even tombstones had to be made of other materials - marble became a terrible shortage.
12. The entrance hall, which now houses stands with national Romanian clothes, and on the left there is something like a television studio, where some politicians of modern Romania often give interviews.
13. The door handle is made of bronze.
14. One of the meeting rooms.
15. Marble corridors.
16. Let's go to the palace terrace - it is located at an altitude of about 50 meters, and it offers good views of the city.
17. On the terrace you can see the ventilation ducts of the palace.
18. And storm drains covered with metal grates.
19. View towards the city - the street is called Bulevardul Unirii, this is the same boulevard that was laid along with the construction of the palace, destroying part of the historic city. Spit on Istria - "The Great Conductor" was supposed to contemplate the fountains in the morning.
21. And so - the next conference room, reminiscent of not the theater, but the Catholic Cathedral.
22. Do you know what strikes the Navigator’s palace the most? Some terrible anachronism. It is difficult to get rid of the feeling that he had dreamed of such a building since the time of his youth, which passed in the Stalin years.
23. And if in Moscow in the 1930s, such luxury and pomposity can still be somehow understood, then in Romania in the late 1980s it looks ridiculous and ridiculous.
24. The palace looks like a grandmother who bought a dress during the years of her moldiness, kept it in the wardrobe for 50 years and finally decided to put it on and go out - not noticing that the lace frills now cause not envy, but a smile, and the dress itself has faded and it smells of mothballs.
25. The luxury of the palace gradually crumbles and crumbles, cracked marble floors are bashfully covered with stucco.
26. An empty wardrobe that looks exactly like in some Soviet theater.
27. Toilet. "Great conductors" also went from time to time to pee.
28. The toilet has a balcony, on which stands some kind of an ancient and forgotten mop.
29. And now we will go down to the cellars of the palace. A narrow technical staircase leads there, already without marble trim, more reminiscent of a staircase to some kind of nuclear bunker. The basements themselves are in rather poor condition - it is clear that the palace did not have time to finish. Here, gray concrete walls without decoration, some building marks.
30. Cable tracks are hidden behind one of the doors.
31. After another - a construction workbench and traces of some unfinished work.
32. Heating lines and garlands of electric cables pass through the basement.
33. Piles of broken brick are scattered around the corners.
34. And construction waste.
35. On the back of the palace are open sewer manholes.
36. In which, apparently, the homeless live now.
37. And a few blocks from the palace there are two unfinished administrative buildings, which they began to build together with the palace, but never finished.
38. The buildings turned out to be unnecessary for the new Romania - they did not begin to finish building them, they simply fenced them with a high blank fence "as is" and put surveillance cameras.
39. Huge colossi of the Soviet era look at the world with empty eye sockets of window and door openings. The decor gradually crumbles - rains and snow do their job.
40. Metal piles are visible in front of the buildings - probably, it was planned to build something else here.
42. Rusty double tee beams.
43. Modern Romanians are reluctant to recall the Ceausescu era, preferring to talk about the future rather than the past.
From communism, few interesting ruins remained here.
I would venture to be known as an ignoramus in a bohemian party, but I like the monumental architecture. I love the scope of Ancient Rome with its magnificent palaces and avenues, I am impressed by the Great Wall of China, I like the Moscow Stalinki towers, I like the Burj Dubai skyscraper in the Emirates. The unique Parliament of Romania, better known as the "Ceausescu Palace", is not an exception and is undeservedly forgotten by tourists. Meanwhile, this giant monster of engineering science is to this day the largest building in Europe and the second in the world, after the American Pentagon. And let them say that the last communist leader of Romania, Nicolae Ceausescu, demolished half of the old Bucharest in the name of the construction of his palace. What happened is that we cannot change whether we want it or not. Therefore, I propose a walk along one of the most striking masterpieces of monumental architecture in the world.
A few technical details
The size of the building is 240 x 270 meters, height 86 meters, 12 floors (plus 6 floors underground), 1100 rooms. In addition, during the construction the following was used: 3500 tons of crystal for chandeliers, 700 thousand tons of steel, 900 thousand cubic meters of wood, 200 thousand square meters of carpets. Impressive? Crouching from poverty, Romania worked for this palace for its beloved leader, who was shot dead without batting an eye in December 1989 after a fleeting military tribunal. An excellent documentary tells very clearly about the horror that was happening in the country during the construction of the palace and about the last days of Ceausescu. Thanks for the link last_ant -
I will say more. During the construction of the Palace and the accompanying Oniri Avenue, it was demolished: 22 churches, 6 synagogues and 30 thousand buildings of the 18-19th centuries of construction, which are the pearl of Bucharest. View a selection of photos old bucharest , 90% of what is there is already gone nowadays. It is no coincidence that this city was once called the "Paris of Eastern Europe."
The construction of this complex began in 1983 and was originally designed as the Parliament of the Socialist Republic of Romania. But soon Ceausescu made key amendments to the original draft, as a result of which the future parliament turned into the personal residence of Nicolae Ceausescu with his wife. By December 1989, when after the shooting of the demonstrators in Timisorara a popular uprising began, the building was 90% complete. Just Ceaucescu couple did not have time to move into it. They were overthrown and executed just a month before the formal turnkey delivery of the palace.
Currently, several ministries and departments are operating in the building at once: Parliament, the National Senate, and in addition a number of interesting museums. You can read more about this building on Wikipedia, on the website of the Parliament, or on the city website of Bucharest Life.
Below I propose to see how the Ceausescu Palace looks on the map from Google.Earth -
Theoretically, a visit to the palace is not free, yet the building is also the Romanian parliament with security accompanying such a place. Tourists can visit the building (more precisely, some of its internal parts) from its northern entrance, bypassing the security, where you will pass through a metal detector. All tours of the building are exclusively organized, with a guide. You are waiting for a group of people who want to (usually you have to wait half an hour on the strength) and for 45 minutes you are taken to the inner chambers of this double Versailles. Tickets are not cheap: admission is 10 euros, photographing another 10 euros. Frankly, I regretted such a considerable amount for the camera and just looked at everything with my own eyes. Impressive. Reminds the Kremlin, where the President of the Russian Federation receives important guests. I’ll recover right away that Medvedev didn’t accept me, I just saw on TV.
By the way, along the way, I discovered yet another “loophole” on how to get into the building without an excursion and see some of the interior spaces for free. Enter from the south entrance, if you stand facing the palace and your back to Oniri Avenue - left and up. The policeman will ask you where you are going. Say that to the exhibition of postmodernism (the policeman will not understand you anyway, but it doesn’t matter, just the architects rent a part of the building and hold exhibitions there periodically) and he will let you through. Go straight, then right, where are the glass elevators. This is the "exhibition". POKHR will ask where you are, tell me what to the exhibition. He will let you in, as he let me in. Take the elevator up, and there will not be a single living soul - you can get out onto the roof and take a picture from there. Just look, whatever the police would notice you will be in trouble.
As mentioned above, the Ceausescu Palace is only part of the global Bucharest reconstruction project launched by Nicolae Ceausescu. An impressive Oniri Avenue stretches east from the palace, however, I will talk about Bucharest as such in a separate report. For now, just appreciate the magnitude of the accomplished -
After three days spent in the Romanian capital, I decided to drive for a day to neighboring Bulgaria, in the Danube town of Ruse, where I intended to see the museum of old steam locomotives. About what came of it - read
04.02.2016
Bucharest. Palace of the Parliament of Romania
This building is a famous architectural structure and a beautiful capital. Palace of Parliament (Palatul Parlamentului) is the result of the efforts of more than 20,000 people who worked 24 hours in three shifts per day for several years, and during peak periods, in addition, 12,000 soldiers were involved in construction work. As a result, a 365,000 m² building was constructed, which ranks 1st in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest administrative building for civilian use and the third largest in the world in terms of internal volume (2,550,000 m³); it is the heaviest administrative complex in the world.
The construction of the Palace of the Parliament was begun during the existence of the Socialist Republic of Romania in Romania on June 25, 1984, and the construction was completed, mainly by 1989, but to this day there are still some imperfections in the palace.
After the earthquake in 1975, Nicolae Ceausescu initiated a plan for the construction of a new political and administrative center in the area of \u200b\u200bSpiry Hill, which was recognized by experts as seismically safe for the construction of monumental buildings. The dictator's tendency was, on the one hand, to concentrate all the main state bodies in one building, and, on the other hand, to create a safe place for the administrative apparatus and the political elite to withstand even a nuclear strike. 
The total area of \u200b\u200bbuildings that have been demolished since 1980 to build People's house, as it was then called, is the equivalent of a fifth of Bucharest (4.5 km long and 2 km wide), which corresponds to several areas of Paris. At the construction site, many residential buildings were destroyed, hundreds of families were evicted.
Although the initial building project area was 80,000 m², the People’s House was built with an area of \u200b\u200balmost 5 times more. Since Ceausescu could not figure out the architectural plans, a 1000-fold model of the entire city of Bucharest was made, including streets, squares, houses and monuments. The dictator on the model gave instructions for the work. Almost every week, after Ceausescu's visit to the construction site, the model changed.
When the 1989 revolution in Romania began, the building was almost completed. But construction work was carried out later, but at a much slower pace. In 2004, on the occasion of the 140th anniversary of the creation of the first chamber of the Romanian Senate and the beginning of the bicameral system of the Romanian Parliament, the new Plenary Hall was officially opened. Now the building houses public institutions: the Chamber of Deputies, the Senate, the Legislative Council and the Constitutional Court of Romania.
The size and appearance of the building amaze any tourist. The height of the palace reaches 86 meters, and its underground part goes into a depth of 92 meters. The size of the palace is 270 by 240 m. The building consists of 12 floors and 1100 rooms. A lot of marble, crystal, bronze and precious trees were used in the construction of the building. Various excursions are held throughout the Palace, during which you can stroll through the massive stairs and huge marble halls. 
Official site of the Palace of Parliament (in Romanian)
http://cic.cdep.ro/
Strada Izvor 2-4, Bucureşti. Coordinates: 44.427280, 26.092400, Nearest metro stations:
Piaţa Unirii, lines M1, M2 and M3, and Izvor, lines M1 and M2.
Work schedule.
Daily from 10:00 to 16:00 (last tour at 15:30)
Ticket prices.
Adults: overview of the palace - 25 lei (€ 5.60), climb to the observation terrace - 15 lei (€ 3.50), dungeon - 10 lei (€ 2.50)
Students (18-26 years old): overview of the palace - 13 lei (€ 3.00), climb to the observation terrace - 8 lei (€ 2.00), dungeon - 5 lei (€ 1.20)
Children under 7 years old and students under 18 years old (with student card) - for free;
The cost of photo or video shooting is 30 lei (€ 7.00)