The Palace of Parliament - Bucharest



This is my firs post in English. It’s in English because I want to promote the beauties of my country not only to Romanians but also to the hole world. So if you want to know a little about the Palace of Parliament, one of the biggest buildings on earth, follow me.

The construction was started in and raised while many Romanians experienced a period of privations. Probably this is the reason why, at the very beginning the building was the object of their hate.

The building highlights the excessive luxury in which Ceausescu would have lived, in stark contrast to the poverty endured by many people living in Romania at the time.

Built in 1983, the year I was born, The Palace of Parliament is mentioned three times in the book of Records for:

  • The second building in the world as surface area
  • The heaviest structure ever built
  • The most expensive civil administrative building – and you may think we are poor
The Palace of Parliament also named by Nicolae Ceausescu The People’s House is constructed almost entirely of materials produced in Romania.

The impressive construction required the demolish of most of Bucharest's historic district, including 19 Orthodox Christian churches, six Jewish synagogues, three Protestant churches (plus eight relocated churches), and 30,000 residences.

Construction began in 1983 and the building was intended to house all four major state institutions just as the UK Houses of Parliament does. The building’s structure was finished by 1989, when Ceausescu was executed, but the new leaders didn’t continued in investing that amount of money in finishing the building. Parts of the building (some of the west wing, east wing, second floor, basement 3 and everything below) are yet to be completed.



It is said that Ceausescu had built bunkers under the building where he would hide in case of a revolution. The basement of the building also hides 2 anti atomic bunkers, secret passages and connections with the metro line. But the building’s architect says that all these were covered by the army not to be seen by anyone.

The building has almost 1000 rooms from which 440 are offices, over 30 are conference rooms, 3 libraries, 2 underground parking lots and a concert room.

The name of the conference rooms were chosen after 1989, as a way of commemorating important figures and events from our history.

What you must see inside The People’s House:

  • 13 September Entrance
  • The Alexandru Ioan Cuza Room (20 m high and over 2000 square meters)
  • The C.A. Roseti auditorium
  • The Hall of Union
  • The Hall of Human Rights
  • The Gallery of Honor and Official Entrance Hall
More information about the tours can be found on the Palace of Parliament website: http://www.cdep.ro/pls/cic/site.visits?idv=4&idl=EN












The eternal tenants in The People’s House

In all the tourist guides you will read about the material resources used in building this amazing architectural masterpiece, but I will tell you also about the human resources used and the hidden legends.

More than 20000 people worked day and night at building Ceausescu’s dream. Also this is the number of people that were sacrificed for keeping the secret of the basement passages and shelters.
The legends says that the Constitution Square is paved with the bodies of the people that died working here.

The night guards and the staff say that the building is hunted by those people’s souls.