Romania intends to sell Ceausescu's Spring Palace
The private residence of the late Romanian dictator - Nicolae Ceausescu - in Bucharest has been put on sale because the state no longer has any use for it. The luxury mansion is called "Spring Palace". The authorities said it became a burden for the state, considering the taxes of support, as it has an adjoining 14000-square-metre plot of land.
“Analyzing current activities led to the conclusion that the building is not used for it legal purposes given that there are no more than three or four delegations per year that need to utilise the space”, said the Administration of the State’s Patrimony, RA-APPS, in a statement.
“Administration costs are very high, which implies a high rent for potential tenants and makes the building unattractive on the local rental market”, it said.
A starting price was not announced just yet, nor a timeline for the sale.
The residence was built in the mid-1960s on the request of former communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena.
Images from the Ceausescu’s residence, including luxurious chandeliers, mosaics and the bathroom with gold faucets, firstly emerged in December 1989, soon after they were shot by a firing squad after a secret military tribunal found them both guilty of crimes against the state.
The couple were notorious for enjoying an extravagant lifestyle while the rest of the country languished in poverty. Ceausescu's fortune was never officially evaluated.
Many of Ceausescu’s possessions have been sold off at public auctions in recent years.
But RA-APPS announced last week that clothes, shoes, furniture items that belonged to the Ceausescu family and didn’t attract buyers at auctions will be lent to museums, or given away free to social services. Anything that cannot be sold or given away will be destroyed, it added.
In 2008, a court decided that Valentin Ceausescu, their eldest son, had the right to claim back the couple's works of art that had been confiscated by the state.
The art works in question included paintings by the Spanish master Goya and objects of silver and porcelain lodged in the National Art Museum in Bucharest.
Almost 25 years after Ceausescu’s execution, surveys suggest that many Romanians have revised their opinions of his once-hated regime.
Faced with the difficulties of a transition towards a market economy, many now say life was better under Ceausescu, with higher standards of living and job security given as the main arguments. Among the negative aspects of his era cited in the surveys are the lack of freedom and lack of food.
A plot belonging to Spring Palace's garden, the one near the street, belongs to Embassy of Kuwait. Whoever will buy this palace, might one day see in process of building a 5 floor embassy office, since that place belongs to the dynasty which rules Kuwait.
