The Conducator

In 1971, Nicolae Ceausescu toured North Korea, China and Vietnam with disasterous results. The Cultural Revolution and Kim Il Sung's cult of personality left a lasting impression upon Ceausescu and within days of his arrivial back in Romania, the dictator (conducator) commenced his own grandiose visions of eastern European Neo-Stalinism.

By 1972, Ceauşescu had instituted a process called "systematisation". Promoted as a way to build an ideal socialist society, the program consisted of demolition, resettlement, and the re-construction of Bucharest and much of the countryside. In the capitol, over one fifth of central Bucharest, including dozens of churches and historic buildings were demolished in the 1980s to rebuild the city. The People's House (presently the Romanian parliament, but then know as the House of the People or "Casa Poporului") became the world's second largest administrative building after the Pentagon. Ceauşescu also destroyed hundreds of villages in order to move the peasants into blocks of flats in the cities, as part of his urbanisation and industrialisation programs. Today Bucharest is a bizarre mix of old style Parisian buildings, socialist megoliths, and increasingly American style suburban sprawl spawned by the increasing economic growth and prosperity.