I like the city where I live. I have reached, I think, or rather, I hope, that calm maturity that allows me to analyze correctly the feelings, in this case, the feelings about the place where I live.
A rather long existence and the chance (or not) of being contemporary with two different, diametrically opposed political systems, have given me that wisdom derived from observing and living events... Communism and capitalism. Dictatorship and Democracy!
I was born in a dictatorship and hope to die in a democracy!
Bucharest is the city where I live. Bucharest is the capital of Romania. This city has developed, in the last hundred years, in three different orientations. Monarchy, dictatorship, and democracy. All these three have had their influence in the evolution, but also in the involvement of the city and have left, each one, heavy traces in the present aspect. Part of what was built in one era was demolished in the next when it was built in accordance with the respective ideology and the related degree of civilization.
The result is that the city is eclectic, a mixture of styles, of old and new, of beautiful and ugly, an unfinished city look.
I always wondered what to say if a foreigner asked me what I would recommend to visit. I haven't found the answer yet. It is hard to give an answer without knowing what the visitor would like to find, and what their expectations and preferences are.
Fortunately, in such situations, there is a simple solution. Recommend something unusual and unexpected. Something unique. Something the most powerful countries in the world couldn't afford. Something like this doesn't exist in America, Russia, China, or Western Europe...
The Palace of the Romanian Parliament (former People's House)
It's a kind of emblem of Romania, because of the numbers. I mean the size...
It measures 270 m by 240 m, 84 m high, and 92 m below ground..., so it's taller below ground than above!
It is the world's third-largest civilian administrative building by area, the world's most expensive administrative building, and the world's heaviest building. It has nine levels above ground and nine levels deep underground!
People are attracted by such giant constructions. When you read the values above and try to imagine what they look like...you can't really. Then the desire to see something that is similar to the pyramids but was built at the end of the last century is born.
This is why most people who visit Bucharest want to see the Palace of Parliament...
They do not know that, at the same time, this building...
It ranks 2nd in the world for "most expensive, unsuccessful and shameful architectural projects ever made", a ranking by the world's most visited architecture website, ArchDaily. Although it cost and costs a huge amount of money, 70% is unused, much of it structured not for the needs of individuals but for the megalomaniac desires of Ceausescu, the cult of personality has left its mark on this building. Source
Or maybe they know and this is what attracts them even more to see... the "monster"!
I don't like it at all and for this reason, I have never visited it and I will never visit it. I have friends who work there and I myself worked for this monument in the 80s. I used to work in metal construction and worked for the execution of metal lighting poles. Sort of like chandeliers mounted upside down!
With the money and human resources, something great, unique, and modern could have been built. But in a totalitarian society decisions are made by one person, in this case, the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. In general, all dictators are uneducated, uneducated but very cunning people, managing to eliminate all enemies and those who could have taken their place and power. Ceausescu was such a dictator, one of the last in Europe, and he could only be ousted by a bloody revolution, in which more than 2000 people died.
The dictator is dead too. They say he caught a cold from the lead in the cartridges that riddled him at the end of December 1989!
Ceausescu wanted to build a Civic Centre inspired by North Korean architecture. After a visit to Pyongyang, he was astonished and deeply enchanted by both the Korean communist architecture and the totalitarian and extreme communism of that country.
For this, he ordered the demolition of an entire neighborhood covering the Arsenal Hill in the center of Bucharest. A historic district with buildings over a hundred years old was demolished, one of the most beautiful districts remaining from the time when Romania was a kingdom. Tens of thousands of people(40,000) have been removed from their homes and moved into blocks of flats.
The building that Ceausescu cared most about (and which, fortunately, he never lived to see finished) was called the People's House. Because it was built with the effort of the entire people...
20,000 workers, 5,000 soldiers, 700 architects, an army of so-called "volunteers", worked in harsh conditions, 3 shifts for 7 years. The number of victims is not known, as the communist authorities do not want to publish the data, but those who worked on this construction site declare that there were victims, taking into account the number of victims on other construction sites of the scale of the "People's House" carried out during the "communist era", we can say that there were hundreds of deaths. Source
Of course, People's House was only in the name of the people, in fact, Ceausescu wanted it for his own use, it also had a huge bomb shelter underneath. Because, like all dictators (see Putin) he feared death.
A Romanian proverb says... and it turned out to be true:
What you're afraid of, you won't escape!
The question is... why would a small and poor country need such a building? There were huge costs for something that had no operational value, that brought no benefit to the people. It was built for the dictator's megalomania.
In 1989 the building was estimated to cost USD 1.75 billion and in 2006 it cost EUR 3 billion. Source
All this effort, which has contributed to the impoverishment of the country and to an extremely low level of living standards of the Romanians, just to be able to boast about a...
A building with a floor area of 330,000 m2, it ranks second in the world after the Pentagon Building in terms of floor space, according to the World Records Academy, and third in the world after the Cape Canaveral Space Rocket Assembly Building in Florida and the Pyramid of Quetzalcoatl in Mexico in terms of volume, with 2,550,000 m3. By way of comparison, this building is 2% larger than the Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt, which is why some sources describe it as 'pharaonic'.Source
There is one good thing in all this. Life became so hard in Romania because all the country's resources were directed to this construction, as well as to the payment of the country's foreign debt, that the people couldn't take it anymore, they took to the streets and the Romanian Revolution of December 1989 was triggered, which caused the abolition of communism and the country's transition to democracy and market economy!
The question remains... Why does a small country without many resources want to have these pharaonic buildings? Of course, in ancient times they were made for tyrants, kings, and pharaohs who believed in immortality and wanted to spend their time until their return to life in huge, secure, and awe-inspiring buildings, but today, or yesterday, in the twentieth century?
And yet, there is this desire in people for greatness and power, to impress and dominate others. However small and insignificant these people are.
We thought that with the demise of communism, totalitarianism, and tyrants, such initiatives would be no more. We believed that after the disappearance of the single ruler, after the power had reached the hands of the people, they would be able, together, to prevent such things from happening.
We thought in vain! Power is in the People's House but of the people we elected to sit in... the former House of the People, the present Parliament. They, having seen themselves installed in the seats of deputies and senators, behave, grouped together, like some kind of dictator.
History repeats itself!
Now the church has been installed at the lectern, which wants to build (and is building) a Cathedral of the people!!!
The irony is that it is being built behind the Parliament and the ambition of the church leaders is that this cathedral will be taller than the Parliament!
This time the civil society, intellectuals, and artists of Romania protested and tried to prevent the construction, but the Romanian people, the great mass, were religious and easily manipulated by the clergy.
At the same high cost, the construction goes ahead. When asked why the country needs such a huge construction, they answer that in all Western European countries, there are such huge cathedrals.
True, they do exist and they are particularly beautiful and imposing, but they were built a thousand years ago! Then the need for such buildings was to impress and to put fear into people. So when you entered these cathedrals, because of their immensity, people would feel small, small, and vulnerable.
But now, why?
That question remains unanswered... or too many answers. In fact, it doesn't even matter, everything goes on as the crowned (church) heads wish.
All these thoughts, questions with answers and without answers, were generated by the suggestion made by 
Visit one or two cool, unique, interesting, weird, notable, or famous locations in your area, take some photos, and tell us about them. Showcase parts of your home location! Remember to use your own photos.
It seems that I have fallen into the grandeur pity because, instead of finding a small and pleasant place close to home to present here, I chose these two examples of the greatness of the Romanian people!
The explanation is that I wanted to provide some information about Romania, as I like to do in my posts. I understand that a small and distant country can be totally unknown to other countries... small and distant. Maybe even bigger.
I admit here my ignorance of the geography and history of the world I live in and I often read here, in my colleagues' posts, extremely interesting things about the places where they live. I try to do the same.
