Who is Ceausescu? The famous Romanian dictator

Scornicesti – The birthplace of Ceausescu

Location: Google Maps

Once upon a time, in the small town of Scornicesti, Romania, a delusional little boy named Nicolae was born. His birthplace nowadays even has a…unique statue. Some would describe it as humorous, others as creepy, and Dracula would blankly describe it as unfortunate.

Photo taken from https://andreicraciun.eu/

Romanians have a saying that applies to this piece of art, “the candy on top of the coliva” (Bomboana de pe coliva) – “coliva” being the Romanian funeral cake.

Read more about coliva below:

Latest pictures seem to point out that Ceausescu still has a lot of haters:

Picture taken from https://www.vice.com/ro/article/884a43/cum-e-casa-lui-ceausescu-din-scornicesti

Bucharest – The Spring Palace – The House of the Ceausescu family

Location: Google Maps

If you are looking to see how our little dictator loved to experience equality with the everyday Romanian, you should visit the place where he lived.

Brasov – MADC – The Tales from Communism Museum

Location: Google Maps

To contrast the luxury in which our dictator lived, you need to experience the story of the common Romanian, and this is why we encourage you to visit the Tales of Communism Museum in Brasov. If you love reading, you will get a kick out of it by experiencing the stories of people who lived in that period of time, good and bad, put together to give you a feeling of what life felt like.

The House of the People – The Palace of Parliament

Location: Google Maps

Or the Palace of Dictatorial dreams, it is the fourth largest building in the world in terms of volume and the second largest administrative building in the world, volume wise.

Why is it in Romania? Because Ceausescu wanted it. As you can imagine, there are some really crazy stories ranging from the dictator demanding changes on a whim, hiding statistics of how many people died, tunnels, and the expropriation of 50.000 people from the Uranus neighborhood. Come and visit: http://cic.cdep.ro/en/opening-hours-and-tariffs

Image by frimufilms on Freepik

The Garrison of Targoviste – The place where Ceausescu was executed

Location: Google Maps

Ceausescu ended up in Targoviste, be it caught by the revolutionaries or an underhanded coup organized by the secret police (Securitate) it ended up being his resting place. The trial took 20 minutes to finish, and the firing squad was waiting outside.

Fun fact: It took the month of December for the Revolution to happen. It was a speed run revolution, and the process was live on TV.

TVR archives

Ceausescu’s grave

Location: Google Maps

People gather at Ceausescu’s grave every year on the day of his death 25th of December.

Picture taken from https://www.inyourpocket.com/bucharest/nicolae-ceausescus-grave_14779v

In one of our first articles we mentioned going to Ceausescu’s Wake:

Also one of the most interesting playlists Dracula has ever made:

Ceausescu vibes – Remixes

6 responses to “Top things to visit in Romania if you want to get the Ceausescu experience”

  1. We visited Romania in 2008. It was guided by my son’s water polo coach (a Romanian Olympic gold winner) and I and a guy called Jim were chaperones. We visited Bucharest and Transylvania (where he was from). In Bucharest we visited The Palace of Parliament, which was enormous and very impressive. He told us a story related to Ceausescu. He was at a gathering in Bucharest where people were going to listen to Ceausescu, but instead of cheering him on they started booing and then the military started shooting at people. He was there and he hid behind some taller sidewalks to avoid the bullets. He crawled and ran to the American embassy and applied for asylum, which he got. Not soon after Ceausescu’s regime fell but he stayed in the United States to teach water polo.

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    1. Revolution was harsh and the aftermath off the regime and the chaos afterwards is still felt to this day. Hope you had a good time in Romania and hope you visit once more 😀

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      1. Yes I can imagine. I should say I read a little bit about and the coach, Mihai, told us about it. I should say that he eventually moved back to Romania. A few years ago. I loved our trip to Romania and Mihai made it fun for the kids with the Dracula theme. I would love to go back.

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      2. Dracula is indeed our biggest selling point, hence the name of our blog :)))). A good guide makes experiences more memorable.

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