Europe - Romania's Palace of Parliament

The symbol of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu’s megalomania and desire for grandeur is Palace of Parliament in Bucharest - the 2nd largest office building in the world, beaten only by The Pentagon. It’s also the heaviest in the world.
Ceausescu’s inspiration to build this most imposing palace, came when he visited North Korea and made the most of the destruction caused by an earthquake in 1977 to rebuild the city to his own taste.
Everything in the way was demolished - churches, hospitals and factories, as well as the houses of more than 40,000 people who were stripped of their properties and forced to move.
Time was of the essence, more than 100,000 people worked 24 hour shifts 7 days a week. Many people died - thought to be buried under the concrete. Costing the equivalent of 5 years of the country's budget, Ceausescu took on considerable foreign debt, which he paid back, plunging the Romanians into misery.

Our 1 hour tour hosted by Monica took us through about 8 rooms, quoting a myriad of statistics as each room became even more impressive.
All the construction materials were sourced in Romania, except for a set of sturdy mahogany doors gifted by his good friend in North Korea. As Romania had no silk of its own, silk worm farms were set up to enable the silk carpets to be made locally.
The statistics are mind blowing: 1,100 rooms across 9 floors, with a further 8 underground which includes a nuclear bunker and allegedly tunnels to other parts of the city. Inside 200,000sqm of rugs and 900,000sqm of inlaid timber cover the floors. We heard that if all 2,800 chandeliers are lit, they’d consume 25% of Bucharest’s power supply.

At least today, it’s a working building, housing Romania’s parliament with all the relevant staff offices located within. Rooms can be hired for conferences.
Recently an international gamers convention hired every single room including those of the Parliament. That’s a lot of gamers! Ceausescu certainly achieved his aim of grandeur!
Despite his need for speed, he did not see his precious project completed as he was executed in 1989, 8 years before the building was finished.
The Palace of Parliament is situated at the end of a 1.4km avenue of fountains - longer than The Champs Élysées in Paris as ordered by Ceausescu.
At the centre of the boulevard, glass mosaic tiles cover the largest system of fountains in the world, offering a fabulous multimedia choreographed show of light, colour, water and sound, on some evenings in the summer. The project to refurbish the fountains was awarded to Ezarri in 2018, a manufacturer of mosaics, to celebrate the centenary of the unification of the country, which took place in 1918.1
The video below gives us a birds eye view of this spectacular show - a celebratory and fitting end to a wonderful month touring so many highlights of Europe.
Credits:
1. Ezarri.com