Rex Vallachorum

Anybody guessing?pic.twitter.com/xnZH4Z6761

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It's The People's Palace (Palatul Poporului) in Bucharest, Romania. You probably had no idea, didn't you? Built at the apogee of the socialist regime, the building consumed 40% of Romania's GDP between 1983-1989. Yes, you read that right: 40% of the country's GDP for 6 yearspic.twitter.com/G3Y5D3ngaJ

I was an eye witness when the bulldozers started tearing down the walls of the Brancovenesc hospital, Romania's oldest hospital in existence and a historical architectural landmarkpic.twitter.com/jvkKYZola1

Built in 1838 for the city poor it survived the German artillery shelling in WWI and allied bombings in WWII only to be turned to rubble in 1984. By a one in a million chance I was waiting at the bus station when the demolition started and I remember people watching and cryingpic.twitter.com/i13BORPaKR

Here is a list of the churches turned to rubble to make room for People's Monstrosity (partial list) -The Postavari White Church, attested in existence in 1595; at 420 year old it was the second oldest in Bucharest,pic.twitter.com/aqIuoYh2v2

built 181 years before the American Revolution, 25 years before Mayflower -Cotroceni church, built between 1679-1682. Turned to rubble after 302 years. In this church was located the printing press where the first Bible in Romanian language was printedpic.twitter.com/7JUKt1k4Jl

-St. Nicolae Jitnița church, built 1590 -Pantelimon Monastery church, built 1745 -Văcărești Monastery, built 1716, largest monastery in all South-East Europe -Spirea Veche Church, built 1740pic.twitter.com/9vGppKwria

-St. Nicolae Crîngași church, built 1564 -St Nicolae Sirbi church built, 1692 -St. Vineri Herasca church, built 1641pic.twitter.com/wh6fUELSmS

Back to the (socialist) People's Palace: At the time the socialist regime was overthrown the building was still in construction. There are 1,100 rooms of which only 400 and 2 large halls are in used today by Romania's democratically elected Parliament.pic.twitter.com/dXu0f5ZyJ8

The rest are just sitting empty because nobody found a way to make a use of them. For the next couple of tweets I will post two pics side by side, first from the People's Palace built for the Party elite, second from regular working class people's dwellings built during the erapic.twitter.com/Y9xLHoB8tc

The People's Palace has 12 floors plus 8 levels underground, 84 acres of floor space and an unknown number of secret escape tunnels. The entire building is naturally ventilated, no A/C. Socialist Romania was green before green movement was trendy in the Westpic.twitter.com/3278DIBnlD

There are 480 crystal chandeliers in the palace, some of them have 7,000 bulbs each. For decorations they used 3,500 tons of crystal, 1 million square meters of marble, 900,000 square meters of wood essences, 220,000 square meters of carpet, 3,500 square meters of calf skin.pic.twitter.com/wClAI1pz9q

All the materials used to build it were obtained domestically - the wood, the crystal, the marble, you name it. There was no cheaping out on on inferior products like granite or glass. 400 architects had drawn the plans and the chief architect was a 28 year old woman.pic.twitter.com/I1uWtPoTfn

According to some historians over 160 construction workers died in work related accidents while working on this building. Urban legends say most of them were "accidented" while on the underground tunnels built for Ceausescu's planned escapepic.twitter.com/JwEpVl5UnG

And now that you already seen how wonderful living conditions in socialism used to be, let's see how awful capitalism is, after my misguided generation decided to abandon and discard the socialist utopiapic.twitter.com/ywXoMALpT0

Of course not everyone can afford to buy a new apartment in a new building, and the majority of Romanians still live in the socialist era dwellings, but things are starting to look up.pic.twitter.com/3ZY34T8wNK

So my dear Bernie bro socialist millenials, please tell me where would you rather live? In a capitalist built and owned apartment building or in a socialist one?pic.twitter.com/iPEsR4yzse