More of Bucharest

There is so much history here and we’ve been swamped wit information and visuals on our tour today – in a good way, of course. Now to attempt to condense it.

First of all – our beautiful hotel which we discovered was quite the den of iniquity in its former life.

The historic luxury hotel, Athénée Palace, in Bucharest, originally opened in 1914. It was arguably Europe’s most notorious den of spies in the years leading up to WWII and only slightly less so during the Cold War. The Athénée Palace was built in the Art Nouveau style between 1912 to 1914.

During WWII it was home to both British spies and the Gestapo. A. L. Easterman called it the “most notorious caravanserai in all Europe. …the meeting place of the Continental spies, political conspirators, adventurers, concession hunters, and financial manipulators. “

In 1948 the Athénée Palace was nationalized by the new Communist government who famously bugged every room, tapped every phone (and every pay phone within 800 metres (0.50 mi)), and staffed the entire hotel with informers. Dan Halpern writes, “The hotel’s general director was an undercover colonel in the Securitate’s Counterespionage Directorate; the hotel’s deputy director was a colonel in the DIE, the Romanian external intelligence organization. The doormen did surveillance; the housekeeping staff photographed all documents in the guests’ rooms. The prostitutes in the lobby and in the bar and in the nightclub reported directly to their employers; the free-speaking bons vivants and Romanian intellectuals hanging around the café, not to mention a number of the guests, had been planted.”

The Athénée Palace underwent a $42 million renovation from 1995 to 1997, financed by the European Bank forReconstruction andDevelopment and reopened in October 1997. In 2005, Romanian businessman George Copos purchased a controlling interest in the hotel’s ownership company, Athénée Palace SA from the EBRD. In 2021, the hotel rooms in the 1965 “new wing” were fully renovated. It joined Intercontinental hotels in January 2023.

Just down the road is Revolution Square is where the devout would gather to listen to triumphant speeches given by their communist leader, Ceausescu. The most famous and important were in August 1968 and December 1989. His speech on August 22, 1968 marked the highest point in his popularity, when he condemned the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. His speech on 21 December 1989 was presented by the official media as a “ spontaneous movement of support for Ceausescu”, but things went desperately wrong for him when a popular revolt led to him fleeing by helicopter with his wife, Elena. They didn’t go very far and were arrested on December 22 and executed on December 25, 1989.

The large obelisk in the center of the Square, which stands at 82 feet and has a bronze sculpture, is referred to by locals as “the pierced potato”. It Commemorates and pays tribute to those who lost their lives during the revolution.

 

Known as the the Palace of the Parliament, and colloquially as the People’s Palace, this immense structure, the second largest building in the world after the Pentagon, was ordered to be built by Ceausescuand constructed over a period of 13 years (1984-1997). He ordered that all materials (marble, glass, crystals, carpets, silk for the wall coverings) come from Romania – along with all the workers. The order was based on his fear and paranoia rather than helping the local economy!

Ironically, the “people’s cathedral” is being constructed right next door to the building that Ceausescu ordered and which the people wanted demolished in the early ‘90’s until economic sense prevailed.

The Romanian Athenaeum opened in 1888 and still holds regular concerts. The ground floor hosts an ornate conference hall as large as the auditorium above; in the auditorium there are 600 seats in the stalls.

We ended the day on a much lighter note with a walk around the delightful open air village museum, with houses and structures from all the regions of Romania.

Soviet style apartments