Casa Poporului

No trip to Bucharest is complete without at least looking at the outside of the Palatul Parlamentului (Palace of Parliament), popularly known as Casa Poporului (House of the People). It is reputedly the second largest government/administrative building in the world after the Pentagon in the US, and many homes and churches were destroyed so that it (and the surrounding boulevards) could be built in the 1980s - it was intended by the Ceausescus to house all the organs of state and also be the place where foreign dignatories were wooed. Despite having been to Romania (and Bucharest) several times I had never done the tour of the inside before, so as I had a free day that was the activity for the afternoon. We couldn't see the whole place - not least because the Parliament and Senate are now based there - but also because it's way too big. The tour took the best part of 2 hours, and at the end the guide told us we'd only seen around 5% of the building and walked around 3km! We certainly got our money's worth.

It was very sobering wandering round. Of course it's really impressive, but knowing the megalomania behind the conception of the building, and the lives that were destroyed in its construction, meant that I can't truly say I 'enjoyed' it, although I'm really glad I've been inside and seen it.

By the way, the posters on the lamp-post in the foreground relate to this weekend's upcoming mayoral elections in Romania. In Bucharest the election is for both the general mayor (Buch's equivalent of Boris Johnson) and also for each of the 6 city sectors (kind of like London borough mayors). There are also mayoral elections throughout the country - the TV news is absolutely full of it.