Day 21
The Romanian Palace of Parliament
Monday, September 9, 2024
Bună ziua,
This morning we toured the Romanian Palace of Parliament, one of the very biggest buildings in the world.
The building was commissioned by Nicolae Ceaușescu, the Romanian dictator from 1967 until his execution in 1989. Ceaușescu rationalised the construction of the building by wishing to streamline the running of Romania by consolidating the administration within one building. In reality, he also wanted to show off — much showing off.
Construction started in 1984. The site chosen for the building was once a small hill, with a historic old town. The communists cleared the old town, moved the residents elsewhere and then removed the hill. Then they kept digging and digging.
While the building is 80 metres high above ground, it is also 80 metres deep below ground. Under the building is a bunker designed to survive a nuclear bomb being dropped on the building. In the event of a nuclear war, Nicolae would have been able to ride an express elevator from his office to the bunker.
Entry to the Romanian Palace of Parliament is a more complicated process compared to, say, visiting a cathedral or museum. We had to show our passports, which were recorded, then we paid, then we had to line up and go through a security check which was very similar to going through airport security. Our bags were scanned, and we were scanned as well. The Palace of Parliament is the centre of Romanian government, so the extra security makes sense.
As we started the tour we quickly realised why it is called the Palace of Parliament. Nicolae wanted to use this building to show the world how important and powerful he was. This came at the expense of his own people. The building cost billions of dollars. The project employed 700 architects and 20,000 labourers who worked in three shifts. All while the people of Romania were starving.
There are 1,100 rooms in the Palace of Parliament. The hour-long tour focussed on the most impressive and ostentatious. All the while our tour guide derided the hypocrisy of the communist regime that built such a building.
The rooms we were taken through were huge. A hallway 150 metres long. A 2,000 seat theatre featuring a 5 tonne chandelier as the centre piece. Huge banquet rooms and ballrooms. A reception with an impressive pair of grand staircases that mirrored each other. Nicolae would make his entrance from one staircase. Elena, his wife, would enter from the other staircase, and together they would meet at the bottom ready to greet their important guests.
There was even a clapping room. The acoustics in this room were designed so that only a small group of people would sound like a huge crowd as they clapped. Perhaps Nicolae had the same concerns about crowd sizes that Donald Trump does today.
The building was built in the 1980’s, and at that time in Romania there would have been very few desktop computers (if any) for the administration workers. Koro noticed half height server cabinets tucked into the corners of the large ballrooms, with metres and metres of Ethernet cable running along the bottom of the walls to the next cabinet In the next room.
To Nicolae’s great credit (or perhaps to the designer’s credit) construction of the building utilised as many Romanian materials and craftsmen as possible. The marble used to clad the interior walls is very beautiful and is called Ruschita Marble, which is quarried in Romania. The guide said it was literally almost a whole mountain of marble. Marble floors and marble walls were all very beautifully crafted. Then running along the edge of the room, along the walls, around the door jams, and through into the next room were bundles of Ethernet cables, leading to yet another server cabinet. Koro assumed that the cabinets were full of Ethernet switches rather than computers.
Trying to retro fit this enormous building, with its pristine marble walls, for ethernet must be an architectural nightmare. With a building of this size signal attenuation along the cable would be a problem. Trying to install Wifi in the early days of wireless technology would probably not have been an option either. The walls are very thick and made of concrete overlaid with marble. So the solution is the good old, tried and tested, run the cable along the floor methodology.
Koro also noted the use of Tork products in the public bathrooms, T4 foaming soap, T5 toilet tissue, all products that are appropriate for a high volume environment to reduce cost and waste. Someone actually made a smart decision there.
After visiting the Palace of Parliament we walked around the corner to the front of the building which faces Bulevardul Unirii (Union Boulevard). And here was our next surprise.
Nicolae had wanted a balcony on the Palace from which he could address his adoring public. So an enormous balcony was included in the design of the Palace. To create an area below the balcony where his adoring public could gather, he had a large area bull-dozed to create a beautiful wide boulevard.
At the end of the boulevard, under the palace balcony, is a huge, flat roundabout. This roundabout was designed to be easily converted to a plaza for holding large crowds while Nicolae addressed his subjects from the palace balcony. In the modern age, this roundabout is also perfect for use in a drifting competition, which is how we saw it being used yesterday.
In the middle of the boulevard, separating the lanes of traffic is a series of fountains that run along the length of the boulevard. The boulevard ends with another huge roundabout, this one an enormous fountain.
Grandma and Koro walked up Union Boulevard. Halfway up we found a park bench to stop and eat our lunch. Grandma made the mistake of giving a crust to one pigeon. Within thirty seconds we were surrounded by dozens of pigeons.
We walked to the end of Union Boulevard, took some pictures of the big fountain, admired the Palace of Parliament from afar, decided our day was done and wandered back to our apartment. Back to the crazy lift, a refreshing beer and a rest.
This was our last day in Bucharest. We have enjoyed the place, probably more than we did Budapest. If we had a choice, we'd probably choose Bucharest over Budapest. Tomorrow we move on to a new place in Romania.
Love to you all from Grandma & Koro & Buzzy Bee.