Gypsies, cornmeal porridge called mamaliga, Count Dracula... For most tourists, this may be the list of associations with Romania. And only having visited this beautiful country, you realize how ignorant you were. Bucharest alone is full of mysteries and unexpected discoveries. But to arrive in the capital of Romania and not visit the Palace of the Parliament is like to arrive in London and not see Big Ben.

The first thing that will impress you in the palace is, of course, its size. It is not only the largest but also the most expensive parliament building in the world. More than one billion dollars were spent on its construction. Let alone the fact that 16 buildings in the historic city center were demolished to make room for it.

In the early 1970s, the last ruler of socialist Romania, Nicolae Ceausescu, returned from a trip to North Korea. He was so impressed with the scale of the palaces there that he decided to build one in his homeland. The historical center was chosen as the site for that. Unfortunately, there were other buildings here: schools, hospitals, churches, and houses of citizens. All of them were demolished, and people were relocated to other districts.

The construction began in 1977. But it took so long that Ceausescu was not destined to see it in all its glory. When the Romanian leader was overthrown and shot in 1989, the palace had not been completed.

Today, the Palace of the Parliament is a giant marble structure in an eclectic style with an area of 350,000 square meters. The building totals 12 floors and more than 1,000 rooms. Many of them are not used, and in some, the interior works haven’t even been completed. The building was supposed to become a symbol of the power of Romania and a refuge in case of a war or an earthquake. For this, eight underground floors were planned, four of which were completed. Today they house a museum of the Soviet period. The main building of the palace houses the Romanian Parliament, ministries, and the court.