#Communist Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu

[captain-price-unofficially]

Romanian citizens gesticulate as communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu flees the Romanian Communist Party Central Committee headquarters. December 1989

[horsesarecreatures]

Book review: I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys

This book is grim, but I’m glad I read it. It is a very eye-opening look into Romania under the rule of it’s communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. The main character is a 17 year old boy named Cristian Florescu, who lives with his parents, sister, and grandfather in a one bedroom apartment in Bucharest. One day while he is at school, he is pulled aside by a Securitate agent. The agent somehow knows that he accepted American stamps from the son of his mother’s employer, an American diplomat, which is illegal. The agent blackmails him into becoming an informer on the diplomat family, first by threatening to arrest him, then by threatening to arrest his whole family, and finally by promising him medicine for his grandfather with “leukemia” (is is later discovered that the grandfather was actually poisoned with radiation by the government). Cristian has to decide whether he will fully comply, partially comply, or try to sabotage his missions. 

................................................................................................................................

I knew from watching travel shows like Globe Trekker that things were pretty bad in Romania during that time, but the things I read in this book still shocked me. Ceausescu in some senses put Stalin to shame, and the fact that he was critical of other communist leaders made the West turn a blind eye to the atrocities that were happening under his rule.  Before Romania became the last country in the soviet bloc to have it’s revolution, some things that became normalized in there included:

- Extreme food restrictions that were more severe than the rations during World War II. People had to stand in lines for hours in the cold after their 12 hour work shifts just to get something like a small piece of bread, or cooking oil. If a person over purchased food, they could be imprisoned for 6 months to 5 years.

- Due to Ceausescu wanting to increase the worker population, he encouraged women to have 10 children. They had to undergo forced, unsanitary monthly gynecological exams at work. If they were pregnant, the state tracked their pregnancy. Birth control and abortions became banned.

- The majority of orphans in the state weren't parentless; they just had parents that couldn't afford them. Most orphans were indoctrinated by the state to become Securitate agents. Others were deemed "deficient” and kept in concentration camp-like conditions. 

- It is estimated that about 1 in every 10 people in Romania was an informer at the time. Everyone informed on everyone, and people’s homes were bugged and had hidden cameras in them. It wasn't enough for Ceausescu to isolate the country from the rest of the world; he also had to isolate citizens from each other by creating an atmosphere is mistrust. 

- Children of political dissenters were also at risk of being sent to prisons were they were tortured along with adults. 

- Citizens went years without ever eating fruit. All of Romania’s “good” agricultural products were exported to pay off the debt Ceausescu plunged the country into with his failed oil investments.

- People never knew when they were going to have electricity. This wasn't just due to energy shortages; it was a strategy of the regime to keep citizens powerless through the unpredictability of their lives. Babies in incubators died at hospitals all the time when the power went out without warning. It was also illegal for temperatures to be heated above 16 degrees in the winter.

- Citizens had to report all contact they had with foreigners. It was illegal to own many items, from foreign currency to sofas to unregistered typewriters. 

- Romanians could not leave the country or apply for passports without the risk of being arrested. They also could not choose their own homes, or freely change jobs.

- When Bucharest’s historic buildings were raised and replaced with cement apartment buildings, the dogs that previously lived in the destroyed homes were forced to the streets. As they were starving, they often brutally attacked and killed citizens in packs. 

[mariacallous]

Rooted in the communist era, the politicisation of education remains widespread in Romania, fostering a culture of cheating and deception that’s proving tough to root out.

Had she not been her father's daughter, she would have been only a decent mathematician. But, as the daughter of Romania’s former communist dictator, Nicolae Ceaușescu, Zoia Ceausescu accessed the highest academic positions in the country.

The recent sale of her PhD thesis in a public auction in Bucharest raised not only interest from collectors of memorabilia.

It also stirred memories about how a corrupt and politicized regime could also destroy the reputation of the education system. Which, more or less, is the same situation in contemporary Romania.

[suetravelblog]

Palace of the Parliament Bucharest Romania

Palace of the Parliament Bucharest Romania

Palace of the Parliament – DestiMap The Palace of Parliament or People’s House is “according to the World Record Academy, the heaviest and most expensive civil administrative building in the world”. Completed in 1997, it cost almost 4 billion Euros to build. In the administrative building category, it’s second in size only to the US Pentagon. The building has 12 levels above ground and 8…

[max-e-doodle]

A Rumanian soldier giving the V for victory sign after the revolution in 1989.

Ending 42 years under Communist Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. 

His Soviet ‘Hammer & Sickle Star has been removed from his hat. Ushanka.

[popolitiko]

Most Dictators Self Destruct. Why?

In most cases, democratization has followed an authoritarian ruler’s mistake.

BloombergLeonid Bershidsky

With authoritarian rulers ascendant in many parts of the world, one wonders what must happen for their countries to liberalize. The likes of Vladimir Putin in Russia, Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey or Xi Jinping in China are entrenched, experienced and not unpopular — so should their opponents simply resign themselves to an open-ended period of illiberal rule?

According to Daniel Treisman, a UCLA political scientist, that's not necessarily the case. For a recent paper, he analyzed 218 episodes of democratization between 1800 and 2015 and found they were, with some exceptions (such as Danish King Frederick VII's voluntary acceptance of a constitution in 1848), the result of authoritarian rulers' mistakes in seeking to hold on to power. The list of these errors is both a useful handbook for authoritarians and a useful reminder that even the most capable of them are fallible, with disastrous consequences for their regimes.

According to Treisman, deliberate liberalization — whether to forestall a revolution, motivate people to fight a foreign invader, defeat competing elite groups or make a pact with them — only occurred in up to a third of the cases. In the rest, democratization was an accident: As they set off a chain of events, rulers didn't intend to relinquish power. Some of them — such as Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet president — have admitted as much.

Treisman's list of mistakes is worth citing in full. There are five basic ones:

Hubris: An authoritarian ruler underestimates the opposition's strength and fails to compromise or suppress it before it's too late. King Louis Philippe of France was deposed in 1848 after, as Treisman puts it, turning "a series of reform banquets into revolution by refusing even mild concessions." Romanian Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was making a routine speech when he realized he was being overthrown. Indonesian President Muhammad Suharto believed he could get the country under control right up to the moment of his resignation.

Needless risk: A ruler calls a vote which he "fails to manipulate sufficiently" (like Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1988, when he lost a plebiscite on whether he should be allowed to stay in power) or starts a war he cannot win (like Leopoldo Galtieri in Argentina with the Falklands conflict of 1982).

Slippery slope: That's Gorbachev's case: a ruler starts reforms to prop up the regime but ends up undermining it.

Trusting a traitor: This is not always a mistake made by the dictator itself, although it was in the case of Francisco Franco in Spain, who chose King Juan Carlos, the dismantler of fascism, as his successor. In Gorbachev's case, it was the Politburo — the regime's elite — that picked the wrong man to preserve its power.

Counterproductive violence: Not suppressing the opposition when necessary can be a sign of hubris in a dictator, but overreacting is also a grave mistake. The example Treisman gives is Bangladeshi President Hussain Muhammad Ershad, who was forced to resign by an uprising that started after police shot an opposition activist at a rally. But the error was also made by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2013, when his riot police descended on a few hundred peacefully protesting students and brutally beat them, setting off the much bigger protests that resulted in Yanukovych's ouster.

These are all very human errors of judgment. Dictators are people, too, and sometimes they'll act on imperfect information or erroneous gut feeling. But Treisman makes the point that they may be prone to such errors precisely because they are dictators. They'll be fooled by polls which people don't answer sincerely, taken in by their own propaganda (like Malawi ruler Hastings Banda, who called and lost a referendum in 1993 because he'd been impressed by the high turnout at rallies in his support even though people had been forced to attend them). And sometimes they'll rule for so long that their mental faculties will be less sharp than at the outset.

I have a particular interest in watching Putin for any of the errors on Treisman's list. So far, it's as if he'd read the paper before Treisman wrote it. His suppression has been timely and cleverly measured, his election manipulation always sufficient, his temporary successor, Dmitri Medvedev, avoided the liberal slippery slope, and he's only started wars against much weaker rivals. He helps his regime's propaganda by treating it as truth, but he doesn't buy it to the point of losing vigilance. In the 2018 election, he kept his main opponent, Alexei Navalny, out of the race, mindful that modern technology allows a rival to loosen media restrictions -- something Treisman notes can lead a hubristic dictator to an electoral loss.

But even Putin, after 17 years in power, is in danger of making a miscalculation one day, perhaps finally misreading the mood of the increasingly cynical Russian public that keeps registering support for him in largely worthless polls. It's easy to imagine the choleric Erdogan getting into an armed conflict Turkey cannot sustain or using disproportional violence as Turks' patience with his reprisals wear thin. It's a possibility, although a remote one, that, after Xi's power consolidation, the Chinese Communist Party will opt for a more liberal successor and he won't be able to hold the reins as tightly.

Treisman notes that in 85 percent of the episodes he studied, democratization was preceded by mass unrest. Sooner or later, people tend to get tired of regimes in which they have little say. Then, it only takes a misstep from the one person at the center of such a regime. Dictators often overestimate the external danger to their power, the plots of foreign or exiled enemies. In the final analysis, they are the biggest threat to themselves.

Leonid Bershidsky is Bloomberg Opinion's Europe columnist. He was the founding editor of the Russian business daily Vedomosti and founded the opinion website Slon.ru.

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[toscanoirriverente]

[Arafat] The KGB's Man

By Ion Mihai Pacepa

Before I defected to America from Romania, leaving my post as chief of Romanian intelligence, I was responsible for giving Arafat about $200,000 in laundered cash every month throughout the 1970s. I also sent two cargo planes to Beirut a week, stuffed with uniforms and supplies. Other Soviet bloc states did much the same. Terrorism has been extremely profitable for Arafat. According to Forbes magazine, he is today the sixth wealthiest among the world's "kings, queens & despots," with more than $300 million stashed in Swiss bank accounts.

"I invented the hijackings [of passenger planes]," Arafat bragged when I first met him at his PLO headquarters in Beirut in the early 1970s. He gestured toward the little red flags pinned on a wall map of the world that labeled Israel as "Palestine." "There they all are!" he told me, proudly. The dubious honor of inventing hijacking actually goes to the KGB, which first hijacked a U.S. passenger plane in 1960 to Communist Cuba. Arafat's innovation was the suicide bomber, a terror concept that would come to full flower on 9/11.

In 1972, the Kremlin put Arafat and his terror networks high on all Soviet bloc intelligence services' priority list, including mine. Bucharest's role was to ingratiate him with the White House. We were the bloc experts at this. We'd already had great success in making Washington -- as well as most of the fashionable left-leaning American academics of the day -- believe that Nicolae Ceausescu was, like Josip Broz Tito, an "independent" Communist with a "moderate" streak.

KGB chairman Yuri Andropov in February 1972 laughed to me about the Yankee gullibility for celebrities. We'd outgrown Stalinist cults of personality, but those crazy Americans were still naïve enough to revere national leaders. We would make Arafat into just such a figurehead and gradually move the PLO closer to power and statehood. Andropov thought that Vietnam-weary Americans would snatch at the smallest sign of conciliation to promote Arafat from terrorist to statesman in their hopes for peace.

Right after that meeting, I was given the KGB's "personal file" on Arafat. He was an Egyptian bourgeois turned into a devoted Marxist by KGB foreign intelligence. The KGB had trained him at its Balashikha special-ops school east of Moscow and in the mid-1960s decided to groom him as the future PLO leader. First, the KGB destroyed the official records of Arafat's birth in Cairo, replacing them with fictitious documents saying that he had been born in Jerusalem and was therefore a Palestinian by birth.

The KGB's disinformation department then went to work on Arafat's four-page tract called "Falastinuna" (Our Palestine), turning it into a 48-page monthly magazine for the Palestinian terrorist organization al-Fatah. Arafat had headed al-Fatah since 1957. The KGB distributed it throughout the Arab world and in West Germany, which in those days played host to many Palestinian students. The KGB was adept at magazine publication and distribution; it had many similar periodicals in various languages for its front organizations in Western Europe, like the World Peace Council and the World Federation of Trade Unions.

Next, the KGB gave Arafat an ideology and an image, just as it did for loyal Communists in our international front organizations. High-minded idealism held no mass-appeal in the Arab world, so the KGB remolded Arafat as a rabid anti-Zionist. They also selected a "personal hero" for him -- the Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, the man who visited Auschwitz in the late 1930s and reproached the Germans for not having killed even more Jews. In 1985 Arafat paid homage to the mufti, saying he was "proud no end" to be walking in his footsteps.

Arafat was an important undercover operative for the KGB. Right after the 1967 Six Day Arab-Israeli war, Moscow got him appointed to chairman of the PLO. Egyptian ruler Gamal Abdel Nasser, a Soviet puppet, proposed the appointment. In 1969 the KGB asked Arafat to declare war on American "imperial-Zionism" during the first summit of the Black Terrorist International, a neo-Fascist pro-Palestine organization financed by the KGB and Libya's Moammar Gadhafi. It appealed to him so much, Arafat later claimed to have invented the imperial-Zionist battle cry. But in fact, "imperial-Zionism" was a Moscow invention, a modern adaptation of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," and long a favorite tool of Russian intelligence to foment ethnic hatred. The KGB always regarded anti-Semitism plus anti-imperialism as a rich source of anti-Americanism.

The KGB file on Arafat also said that in the Arab world only people who were truly good at deception could achieve high status. We Romanians were directed to help Arafat improve "his extraordinary talent for deceiving." The KGB chief of foreign intelligence, General Aleksandr Sakharovsky, ordered us to provide cover for Arafat's terror operations, while at the same time building up his international image. "Arafat is a brilliant stage manager," his letter concluded, "and we should put him to good use." In March 1978 I secretly brought Arafat to Bucharest for final instructions on how to behave in Washington. "You simply have to keep on pretending that you'll break with terrorism and that you'll recognize Israel -- over, and over, and over," Ceausescu told him for the umpteenth time. Ceausescu was euphoric over the prospect that both Arafat and he might be able to snag a Nobel Peace Prize with their fake displays of the olive branch.

In April 1978 I accompanied Ceausescu to Washington, where he charmed President Carter. Arafat, he urged, would transform his brutal PLO into a law-abiding government-in-exile if only the U.S. would establish official relations. The meeting was a great success for us. Carter hailed Ceausescu, dictator of the most repressive police state in Eastern Europe, as a "great national and international leader" who had "taken on a role of leadership in the entire international community." Triumphant, Ceausescu brought home a joint communiqué in which the American president stated that his friendly relations with Ceausescu served "the cause of the world."

Three months later I was granted political asylum by the U.S. Ceausescu failed to get his Nobel Peace Prize. But in 1994 Arafat got his -- all because he continued to play the role we had given him to perfection. He had transformed his terrorist PLO into a government-in-exile (the Palestinian Authority), always pretending to call a halt to Palestinian terrorism while letting it continue unabated. Two years after signing the Oslo Accords, the number of Israelis killed by Palestinian terrorists had risen by 73%.

On Oct. 23, 1998, President Clinton concluded his public remarks to Arafat by thanking him for "decades and decades and decades of tireless representation of the longing of the Palestinian people to be free, self-sufficient, and at home." The current administration sees through Arafat's charade but will not publicly support his expulsion. Meanwhile, the aging terrorist has consolidated his control over the Palestinian Authority and marshaled his young followers for more suicide attacks.

Mr. Pacepa was the highest ranking intelligence officer ever to have defected from the former Soviet bloc. The author of "Red Horizons" (Regnery, 1987), he is finishing a book on the origins of current anti-Americanism.

[anti-imperialist-squad]

Plaques dedicated in memory of 'dictators' such as Kim Jong-il and Colonel Gaddafi have mysteriously appeared on benches in a Dulwich park.

The plaques on benches in Goose Green are dedicated to the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il; Colonel Gaddafi of Libya; Romania’s Nicolae Ceascecu (sic); and the Russian revolutionary Peter Kropotkin.

Each of them has a bizarre tag-line. Kim Jong-il’s plaque reads: “Kim Yong-il, 1942-2011. Always preferred George Lazenby.” 

A plaque for Colonel Gadaffi, who was killed after his capture by a militia in 2011, has the barmy caption: “have i told you lately that i love you?”

Another is for the communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu, who was executed by firing squad on Christmas Day, 1989. His memorial plaque states: “1918-1989. Do ya think I’m sexy?” 

A fourth, and final, plaque dedicates itself to Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin, which has a tagline from an advert for the cleaning product, Cillit Bang. It reads: “Bang! And the dirt is gone!” 

Baffled park-goers in Goose Green did not appear to know much about the plaques when asked by a News reporter this afternoon. 

One woman, who had been sitting on a bench dedicated to Kropotkin, was unaware of the anarchist, and had thought he was a deceased local whose family members had donated a plaque. 

Another person had stopped to take a photo of a plaque dedicated to Ceascecu (sic), because of its bizarre tagline, but did not know who he was.  

Asked why he thought the plaque was there, he said: “I don’t know, it is one of those modern art things, like a Banksy?” 

Mystery surrounds the plaques – but this is not the first time plaques dedicated to despots have been spotted in a London park.

In 2018, a plaque dedicated “in loving memory” of Saddam Hussein was spotted in Wanstead, east London. Nobody ever came forward to claim responsibility for the plaque, which had sparked a backlash among some for insensitivity.

Redbridge Council later removed it. Southwark Council has been contacted by the News for information about the plaques and whether they will be removed.

[earthstory]

The Palace of the Parliament: The largest building you’ve never heard of

If I were to ask you where the world’s largest civilian government building stood you might suggest countries such as America or China, after all the Pentagon is the world’s largest building. However, this prestigious title goes to the city of Bucharest in Romania, and that’s not the only title they hold. In fact the Palace of the Parliament, or the People’s Palace as it is often known, is also the worlds heaviest (yup, someone worked that out) and most expensive building, with the total cost coming in at 3 billion euros.

It was built under the instruction of the then communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. He raised 1/5th of the city to the ground in order to build a new ‘civic centre’ including the construction of the largest, most decadent, palace in the world. 700 Romanian architects are thought to have come together to design the building with 12 stories on the surface and at least 8 underground, although not all are complete.

The materials used within the building are purported to have all been locally sourced including 1 million cubic metres of Transylvanian Marble obtained from the Carpathian Mountains. It is estimated that 20,000 workers were used to build the palace toiling almost 24/7 in a bid to get it built on time, although official figures don’t exist (at least in the public domain).

The grandeur and almost obscene size do not end with the building though. The boulevard leading up to the palace was deliberately made 1m wider and 6m longer than the Champs Elysee in Paris, and forms a formidable site when viewed from one of the buildings many balconies.

So how do you pay for such an extravagant building? Well Ceausescu had to borrow money from other countries and, when they started demanding to be paid back, he ordered all of Romania’s produce to be exported to raise funds. This left very little for the Romanian people and they began to starve. Daily blackouts and food rations became part of everyday life while Ceausescu continued to live his lavish lifestyle. Unsurprisingly, as the palace neared completion the Romanian people rebelled, and in less than a month Ceausescu was captured, charged and executed by firing squad on Christmas Day, 1989.

Recently the palace was host to the NATO Summit in 2008 and is still the site of the Romanian Government although they use less than half of the 1,100 rooms available.

Watson

Image Credit: 

Watson

Building – Tourist Attractions: http://bit.ly/1DYZby4

Reference: http://bit.ly/1zzQDpN

[m14012-megan-seeney]

Geamana, Apuseni Mountains, Alba County, Romania:

During the 1970′s it was discovered that copper was found in the mountains above the Romanian village of Geamana. This copper mine- named Rosia Poieni- is to this day one of the largest copper reserves in Romania and eventually lead to the destruction of the valley. The wastewater from the mine needed to be disposed of, leading to the communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu ordering for the town to be evacuated and flooded. The ghost town now lies under blood red toxic waters, leading to some haunting images. There are still around 20 villagers living in the valley, but the water rises every year by 3 feet. Many residents remain upset due to the neglect towards Geamana’s flooded grave site. They claim that the Romanian government promised to relocate the graves, but even after 40 years they still remain unmoved. It is this location in particular that I find the most interesting due to the fact that everything still remains underneath the water and the injustice done to the residents. The images above really capture the apocalyptic feel to the town, especially the church spire, which still remains visible. It seems almost ironic that only a holy place would seemingly survive out of everything in the whole town, overall leading to a feeling of melancholy and loss when seen, an ideal heterotopia. 

[skippyv20]

Thank you! 🙏🏻❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

        Queen Elizabeth II 

As Britain’s longest reigning monarch in history, the Queen has witnessed pivotal moments in history, from the fall of the British Empire and the Berlin Wall to the arrival and departure of 12 British prime ministers and has entertained a variety of heads of state with grace and diplomacy during her 67-year reign.

Since coming to the throne at the tender age of 25, Her Majesty has also come into contact with a number of key political figures of the last century. In turn, the Queen has found herself in close quarters with some of the world’s most feared dictators and leaders with less than perfect human rights records. 

The Queen accompanies Chinese President Xi

 Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan, during their state visit in 2015.

Protesters gathered in central London to demonstrate against China’s human rights record during President Xi Jinping’s 2015 visit, which was aimed at strengthening economic ties between China and the UK.

US President George W. Bush and the Queen at the end of a three-day state visit to the UK in 2003.

Anti-war demonstrators swarmed the British capital when US President George Bush made a state visit to the UK in 2003.

Putin and the Queen share an open carriage along the Mall following his arrival in London in 2003.

President Vladimir Putin made the first state visit to the UK by a Russian leader in more than 125 years when he arrived in London in 2003. The trip was met with protests over Russia’s role in the Chechnya conflict and concern over the Kremlin’s support for Iran’s nuclear program. It also came on the heels of tensions between the two countries over the US-led Iraq war, which Britain supported but the Kremlin opposed.

Queen Elizabeth II receives Asma and Bashar al-Assad on December 17, 2002 at Buckingham Palace.

In 2002, President Bashar al-Assad became the first Syrian leader to make an official visit to the UK. While it wasn’t a state visit, but he still met the Queen at Buckingham Palace. The four-day trip was partly sidetracked by a public disagreement between Assad and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair over a possible war in Iraq.

The Queen, Prince Charles ® and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia look on during a ceremonial welcome for the King at Horse Guards Parade in London in 2007.

The Saudi monarch’s 2007 visit attracted controversy for a number of reasons, including the Kingdom’s treatment of women and the gay community.

President Robert Mugabe has visited the UK on multiple occasions over the years, pictured in 1994.

Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe was greeted by the Queen and her husband, Prince Phillip, at Buckingham Palace during his state visit in 1994. He was given an honorary knighthood during the trip, though he would later be stripped of the award. Mugabe resigned as his country’s president in 2017 after 37 years of autocratic rule.

The Queen with Ceausescu in 1978.

Queen Elizabeth hosted the Romanian communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1978.

Ceausescu ruled Romania from 1965 using secret police to brutally repress his people. The Queen was displeased that Ceausescu had been invited to the UK but handled it with grace and diplomacy.

Mobutu Sese Seko with the Queen in December 1973.

Mobutu Sese Seko, President of Zaire – now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo – embarked on a UK state visit in 1973. He seized power in 1965 and led one of the most brutal African regimes for the next three decades. Western support for the dictator waned in the early 1990s after years of allegations of human rights abuses and rampant corruption, and he died in exile in 1997.

[fortunatelylori]

Hey, GOT! Turn on the freaking lights!

I don’t know if I’ve ever talked about this on my blog but I’m from a little country in Eastern Europe called Romania. I was born and raised in Bucharest, as was all of my family dating back centuries. 

One of the most important landmarks in Bucharest is this building right here: 

It’s called the House of the People or, more recently, Parliament House. This is so huge that you simply can’t escape it. At times it feels as if the whole of Romania lives in the shadow of this structure. 

It was built by Nicolae Ceausescu, our once communist dictator. Everything about it is meant to intimidate and impress. Entire neighborhoods and monuments dating back hundreds of years were torn to the ground in order to make room for it. 

It’s impressive in all its megalomaniac glory and the inside is just as over the top. You’ve got entire rooms made of marble, with columns so high it makes you dizzy just looking up. When you enter you’re greeted by a huge staircase made of marble as well and wall high paintings of the Ceausescu spouses going about their communist life:

Looking at separate elements, there is beauty there and even artistry. Taken as a whole, it’s a fucking architectural, visual and cultural disaster. 

Now, I’m not suggesting HBO and the Ds are communist tyrants but what I am saying that that a huge amount of money, time, talent and effort is being sunk into this tv show and the results are the story telling equivalent of the House of the People. There are good things sprinkled in there but the basic structure and flow of this story has sunk to such depths that it’s hard to find the experience of watching GOT pleasurable anymore. It’s become an exercise in futility and wasted potential. 

This episode is even worse because GOT has so much money to burn that usually you can at least enjoy the production values and the visual spectacle that offers you. This episode is, unfortunately, called the “Long Night” so buckle up for an hour and a half of complete darkness, punctuated by brief flashes of human forms darting back and forth on your TV screen. So this is the equivalent of the House of the People at night, covered in thick fog, when the electricity has gone out. 

The bad news about having the episode filmed in darkness is that it’s practically impossible for you to be invested in the action since you can’t see who is doing what or what they are going through while doing it. The good news is that the story tellers will do their utmost to make sure you also don’t give a shit.

General Impressions

This episode we are fortunate enough to get a respite from David Nutter, one of the worst directors I’ve ever had the misfortune of directing tv shows I like and we are treated instead to the talents of Miguel Sapochnik. I’ve loved most of his work on GOT, with my favorite episode of his being Hardhome. And I’m sure he did a fantastic job in this episode, coordinating what is essentially an hour and a half long battle. However, since I couldn’t really see much of what was going on in the action packed sequences, I’m basing that assessment more on faith, than solid proof. 

This episode also has the distinction of completing Jon Snow’s journey into complete irrelevancy.  Jon doesn’t do much of anything of consequence. Instead he simply stumbles from one failure to another: from following D*ny in destroying the wights army instead of getting to Bran (if D*ny wanted to destroy the wights, why couldn’t Jon hop on Rhaegal to go to the Godswood? why do both of them need to be there to burn the zombies?); to his almost success in taking down wight Viserion only for it to go to nothing when the dragon is still alive and proceeds to burn down Winterfell; to charging the Night King through a field of dead bodies only for the most obvious twist of the NK raising the dead to stop him in his tracks and finally completely abandoning his ethos to protect those in need by leaving Sam to die at the hands of the wights in order to get to Bran. He, of course, never makes it to the Godswood and ends the episode jumping from behind a rock to scream at wight Viserion, without even pulling out his sword to attempt to fight back. It’s enough to make one ...

My thoughts exactly, Jon. 

What a complete and utter waste. 

Talking of wastes, we are now 3 and a half hours through this season and the Starks have yet to be together in the same room, having a conversation. All through the seasons we have waited with baited breath for these kids to be reunited. The Ds, trolls that they are, baited us with just that at the beginning of season 7, only for it to never materialize. Now they have outdone even themselves by putting the Starks under the same roof and using every trick in their troll textbook to make sure we get absolutely no satisfaction for our Stark itch. 

On top of that, we have been led to believe that these 4 people (ok, 3 since Bran is a robot now) care about each other. You’d think that they would seek each other out and at least hug before the battle that could potentially kill one or all of them. That doesn’t happen. 

I think the reason why it doesn’t happen is because the Ds felt there was no point in wasting time on that when all 4 of them were going to survive. The problem is that the audience doesn’t know that and should at least fear that they won’t survive. 

Most importantly, the characters themselves have no idea that they got a death immunity card for the greatest battle to visit this planet in 8000 years. So to have them completely forget about one another is just piss poor writing. 

The closest we get is this scene between Arya and Sansa: 

Arya: Get down to the crypt. 

Sansa: I’m not abandoning my people. 

Arya: Take this and go. 

Sansa: I don’t know how to use it. 

Arya: Stick them with the pointy end. 

This might as well be a conversation between two strangers who kind of decided they really don’t like each other very much, instead of two sisters who might never see each other again. Sansa goes as far as to refuse to leave not because she doesn’t want to leave her sister but because she doesn’t want to abandon “her people”. 

It’s not wrong of Sansa to want to stay with the people of Winterfell but it does make the conversation less poignant and emotional because there’s nothing personal about this exchange. Nor do these two even spare one tearful glace for one another. That is reserved for this scene: 

That’s where the show’s priorities lay. Why did they include this scene? Was it only to fan the flames of the Sanrion ship? I would say no. I think they’re laying the groundwork for whatever plot point Sansa and Tyrion will be involved in, which will inevitably circle back to Cersei one way or another. 

And while it was a poignant scene, I can’t help but begrudge that they gave us this at the expense of the Sansa/Arya scene or a potential Sansa/Jon scene. 

Also, a lot of people are now complaining that Sansa didn’t fight during this episode which makes her useless (the same old tired argument so no surprise there) but they completely miss the point as to why her lack of fighting is frustrating. It isn’t because Sansa didn’t turn into Xena, the warrior princess, in this episode. It’s because the Ds set up something but then didn’t follow through. Sansa received a dagger and advice on how to use it. Normally that would lead to her having to do just that, particularly when in the scene above she pulls out the very same dagger. But wouldn’t you know it? Once she stands up and charges, she does absolutely NOTHING! It isn’t that she fails. It’s that the writers didn’t even feel the need to show her try. They set up that plot point and then left it dangling with no pay off. 

There are multiple examples of this type of tepid storytelling though out the episode but I think the most glaring one is Bran. He has been building up to his confrontation with the Night King since season 1. And all of that amounted to what exactly? Bran did nothing but sit in the Godswood and wait for the NK to try to kill him. So why did he go through that entire, excruciating journey exactly? What vital information did he discover that led to the demise of the NK? What magical abilities did he posses that were crucial against his greatest foe? He didn’t even warg a dragon for Pete’s sake even though that should have been a given. 

In the behind the scenes commentary, the Ds said that the key to destroying the NK was either stabbing him directly in the spot where the COF inserted the shard of dragon glass or killing him next to the Weirwood tree, depending on what you understood by their comments. 

Either way, that information did not make it into the TV show. Bran never says that, despite having opportunity to do so during the council meeting in episode 2. So it doesn’t matter what the Ds say in interviews. If it isn’t on screen, it doesn’t exist. 

On the whole, the most frustrating part of the episode was the actual battle. Leaving aside the poor lighting, what I got form this episode is that 130.000 men (based on my super duper math skills utilized for ep 2) had absolutely no strategy and no stamina to at least attempt to fight a hoard of mindless zombies. It took all of 10 minutes for all these hardened soldiers (with one exception which we will discuss later on) to break ranks and flee for their lives. 

Also why did Jorah lead 100.000 of those men, consisting of the entire Dothraki khalasar acting as the Winterfell army’s cavalry, on a charge into the darkness of certain death? I don’t know a lot about battle strategy but I do know that when you have a key position (in this case Winterfell), you don’t charge. You wait for the enemy to come to you. And once the army broke, everyone of those people were running around like headless chickens, with no clue how to regroup or mount an effective defense of one of the most impenetrable castles in the whole of Westeros. Robb Stark must be spinning in his grave like kale in a hipster’s smoothie. Imagine what he could have been able to do with 130.000 men. 

It pains me to say this but the Night King was genuinely the only one on that battlefield who had an actual plan, could adapt to what was thrown at him (the trenches, falling off the dragon etc.) and complete his mission. He was defeated in the end but his defeat consisted not only of the unexpected in the form of Arya and her FM training but also on the lack of reaction of all the wights and the white walkers that were there which, frankly, stretches disbelief. 

PS: While sparing not one single moment for character or plot development, GOT did find the time to rip off How to Train your Dragon ... again ...

Give it up, guys. You don’t have half the vision and talent of the HTTYD squad. This just makes you look silly. 

Favorite scenes

The “Blood of my Blood” scene: 

I loved the whole sequence of D*ny and Jorah. From Jorah sweeping in like a knight in shinning armor to protect D*ny, to him getting up through multiple stab wounds because he couldn’t give up on trying to save her, to D*ny picking up a freaking sword and fighting despite not knowing how to try and defend him, to her break down over his dead body and Drogon coiling up around her to try to comfort her. 

Just looking at these gifs makes me want to cry. One of the only truly meaningful and emotional moments in the whole episode and an apt ending to the most important relationship in D*ny’s life. Kudos to Emilia and Iain on giving it their all in this scene. 

The “You’re home” scene: 

Speaking of acting chops, Alfie Allen, ladies and gentlemen! Truly one of the best actors in this cast. And this scene really brought Theon full circle. The man who didn’t feel like he belonged anywhere, who went through hell and back, who lost his humanity and clawed his way back to it, died defending the only place he’s ever known as home. Alongside the D*ny/Jorah scene, this really broke me down. Also this: 

Bran: Theon! You’re a good man. Thank you. 

cue the ugly crying right now

Just wonderful! I hope Alfie has a long career in front of him because he’s sooo good. 

The “Final atonement” scene: 

The reason why I loved Mel’s death scene so much is because it brings to completion the burning of Shrieen. Despite her religious fantaticism and her ruthlessness, sacrificing that little girl did take it’s toll on Melisandre. It shook her to her core. So much so that she walked into the frozen wasteland, took off her necklace and killed herself. The fact that the entire sequence is punctuated by Davos watching her walk to her death makes it all the more meaningful. 

It surprised me that they chose this way to bring an end to her character but I feel it enriched her story and my perception of her. 

Episode MVPs

The Unsullied: 

I was curious about what they would do with the Unsullied during the battle because their fighting style is perfectly suited to castle defense. Also, because of this story from the History and Lore series: 

The Unsullied are known for their discipline and willingness to stand their ground against the greatest adversaries. They are canonically so impressive that not only did they beat the Dothraki but all the Dothraki riders cut off their braids and placed them at their feet to honor their bravery and prowess.

Considering that not only were the Unsullied the only soldiers at Winterfell to actually stick to their guns and fight strategically and bravely but they also ensured the retreat of all the other forces, the people of Winterfell need to be cutting off their own hair and honor these brave men. 

Arya “It is Princess after all” Stark: 

Aaaa ... yeah, she is the princess that was promised, y’all!

Arya’s story in this episode was the most complete and compelling one. Starting off with her “I know Death. He has many faces. I look forward to seeing this one” bravado, to her rawness and vulnerability when she realized what she was up against to her putting all that Faceless Men training to good use and managing to sneak up on the Night King just enough to end him. 

Arya Stark has just killed Death! A true warrior, if there ever was one! I hope this marks an end to her FM arc and a gradual return of at least part of the kindness and empathy Arya was defined by in season 1. 

Daenerys “Why do you want me to feel sorry for her?” Targareyen: 

Well, this is strange ... I never thought I’d make D*ny an MVP in these reviews but fair is fair. The girl was a champ this episode. 

I know some people seem to think that she’s the reason why the battle plan went haywire because she decided to attack the wight army after seeing her khalasar wiped out. However ... for one, she had just seen all of her Dothraki cut down. Clearly whatever strategy they had going wasn’t working. Secondly, I seem to remember in episode 2 that Tyrion offered to wave the torch so Dany could set the trench on fire so obviously she and Jon were not suppose to just stick to the Godswood for the entire duration of the battle. 

Still, I think the reason why I found D*ny so formidable this episode was because she was placed directly in contrast with Jon and unlike Mr. Can’t seem to get anything right these Days Snow, D*ny did actually put up a fight, saved Jon’s life even at the risk of injury to Drogon and attacked the Night King head on. 

Yes, dragon fire was ineffectual against the NK but she gave it her all and I appreciate that. As thanks for her bravery and loyalty (despite now knowing that Jon is her rival to the IT), Jon abandoned her without hesitation, proving once again that he genuinely doesn’t give a shit about her. At this point, I honestly don’t understand why D*ny stans are shipping her with Jon. They should have higher standards for their fave. 

The way they chose to portray D*ny in this episode is interesting because, despite D*ny’s actions, dark D*ny and the Dance of Dragons is still happening, in my humble opinion. That means that we are left in a bit of a conundrum: D*ny has now fulfilled her end of the bargain. She has fought the army of the dead and lost a significant percentage of her army and Jorah in the process. Which leaves us with the inevitability that Jon and the Starks will not only go against the woman that helped them protect their home but will prove themselves mercenary and dishonorable for doing so. Also because of the prolonged absence of Jon’s POV and the lack of scenes of the Starks together, D*ny, being the only one we have clear access to narratively, becomes more and more sympathetic. 

In some ways this choice frustrates me because D*ny has done some truly horrific things and story-wise those have yet to be addressed or paid off. By making her more and more sympathetic and the Starks more antagonistic in relation to her, it makes it harder to deliver the comeuppance she has earned over the seasons. 

On the other hand, there is something about this type of narrative choice that appeals to me. The line between hero and villain is practically nonexistent and it’s up to each and everyone of us to pick a side, based more on our subjective experiences and less on objective narrative reasons.  

It brings to mind the first Dance of Dragons where you could very well make an argument in favor of both the Black and Green factions because there was no clear cut answer on who was right and who was wrong.  

*none of the art work belongs to me. thank you to the content creators!

[xtruss]

Romania Comes to Terms With Monument to Communism 30 Years After Nicolae Ceaușescu's Death

Bucharest’s notorious Palace of the Parliament bears witness to the folly of dictator shot dead on Christmas Day 1989

by Shaun Walker in Bucharest

The Romanian parliament building in Bucharest. About one-fifth of the city was bulldozed to build the so-called House of the People.

Bucharest’s most notorious building sits atop a small hill in the centre of the city, appearing squat despite its 84-metre height, due to its vast length and breadth. The Palace of the Parliament, as it is now called, is a monument to dictatorial folly whose benefactor was executed before he could see it completed.

Christmas Day will mark 30 years since Romania’s communist-era dictator, Nicolae Ceaușescu, was tried and shot dead along with his wife, as the last revolution of 1989 swept through what was perhaps the communist bloc’s most repressive state.

Yet in a strange twist of fate, three decades after the Ceaușescu’s fall, his sinister fortress still dominates a whole quarter of central Bucharest. The building, planned to house every ministry under one supersized roof and act as the nerve centre for the entire communist government, today hosts Romania’s parliament.

A woman walks down stairs inside the Romanian parliament in Bucharest.

As the anniversary approaches, the building is a very visual reminder to the country’s political elite and residents of the capital of the communist past.

Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu, who as president of the Romanian senate until earlier this year had the vast office that in the initial plan was meant to belong to Ceaușescu, said the first thing he did when he took over the office was to get a priest to come in and perform prayers.

Politicians vote during a senate meeting at the parliament building.

“When I first came here there was a huge globe, and I had this image in my mind of the dictator of Chaplin when he’s sitting on the desk and turning the globe,” he said.

He was so disturbed that he had furniture, including a comically large desk, removed from the room. He replaced it with one half the size, that is still several times bigger than any normal desk. Across the room, a table set with 14 chairs looks isolated in the large expanse of the room.

“The office must be a place where when you invite people and they feel a little bit comfortable, and you can make a friendly atmosphere, but this size is exactly the opposite, it’s creating distance between you and your guests,” he said.

The array of statistics about the building are as overwhelming as its never-ending corridors: 1mcubic metres of marble, 3,500 tonnes of crystal, 1,100 rooms. Romania’s state-owned factories were put to use creating the interiors: silver brocade curtains, gold-leaf ceilings.

A woman talks on her mobile in one of the halls of the Romanian parliament building.

Ceaușescu had the idea to construct the palace after an earthquake in 1977 caused damage to much of the city, and he decided to refashion an entire quarter, with the palace as its centrepiece.

About one-fifth of the city was bulldozed to build the so-called House of the People, the surrounding buildings, and the grand avenue the leads into the distance from the palace, deliberately made wider and longer than the Champs-Élysee. Forty thousand residents were forcibly rehoused. Some buildings were uprooted and rebuilt in different locations; others remained and now stand at strange angles to the new buildings.

Nicolae Ceausescu

Ceaușescu laid the cornerstone in 1984, and by 1989, most of the exteriors were completed but the interiors were not. “They couldn’t afford to demolish the buildings but they also didn’t have the money to mute the dreaded feeling that they exude. They were really profoundly monumental remains of this recent past that everyone wanted to forget,” said Emanuela Grama of Carnegie Mellon University.

The decision was taken to plough on according to the original design, excising only symbols of communism and the cult of personality. Along the way, there were various ideas of how the building might be put to use: the world’s largest shopping mall, or the world’s largest casino. There was even a short-lived plan to use US investments to turn part of the building into a Dracula theme park. In the end, the easiest solution was the most obvious: to leave the building as the centre of government, and locate the two houses of the Romanian parliament inside.

Tourists take pictures inside ‘Unirii’ hall, the largest room inside the Romanian parliament building in Bucharest.

Gaggles of wide-eyed tourists are taken around on tours a few times each day, although the two-kilometre walk takes in just 5% of the building’s rooms. Visitors are shown hall after hall of ever more absurd proportions: one is the size of half a football pitch, with eight chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. The spaces designed for huge portraits of Ceaușescu and his wife, one at each end of the hall, are blank.

The four decades of communism has left Bucharest as possibly Europe’s most architecturally eclectic and chaotic capital city. Decaying art nouveau mansions mingle with brutalist communist architecture. The city sprawls over a huge area and traffic is appalling. Masterplans for urban renewal have been written and ignored.

The quarter around the Palace of the Parliament is perhaps the only area with orderly streets and layout, but has a soulless feel. “The whole ensemble makes no sense in relation to the rest of the city, and does not fit on the city’s main transport axises,” said Andrei Popescu, an urban planner and tour guide.

As the 30th anniversary of Ceaușescu’s execution approaches, rather than destroy his centrepiece, a different approach has been taken: build something even taller. Alongside the palace, construction is under way on what will be the world’s largest Orthodox cathedral, which when completed will reach 30 metres higher than Ceaușescu’s palace.

Aerial view of the Cathedral of National Redemption (right), flanked by the parliament building in Bucharest.

The Romanian Orthodox church said it accepted the location “as a moral restoration for the five ‘crucified’ churches, three of which were demolished and two of them relocated by the communist regime, in order to build the House of the People”.

—Guardian USA

[meezer]

last time i went to a fun fair i saw a mug with a picture of  romanian communist dictator nicolae ceausescu on it. right next to a mug with a picture of jesus christ

[whatsonmedia]

Wednesday Wisdom- Book Selection of the Week!

Fictions have always rejoiced the readers, as it paves way for imagination and unfolds many creative illusions of human. Historical fictions explores the bygone eras from long ago. Why not step out of our current context and immerse ourselves in the glorious past? This may help us to learn something new about how and when we have reached our present context. Historical fiction has always been portal to what once was. Traditionally, the genre has been Eurocentric, awash in tales of European royals, or, alternately, about the escapades of pioneers in the US. As T.S. Eliot has written in "Four Quartets", "Time present and time past, Are both perhaps present in the time future, If all time is eternally present, All time is unredeemable." Here are some of the historical fictions to explore the past and also the creative part of our brain for imagination. These books are 2022's most intriguing, well-written, and diverse historical fiction titles. More Thank You'll Ever Know by Katie Gutierrez**** More Thank you'll know If you love murder mysteries, you'll be desperate for the next word, the next chapter, while reading Katie Gutierrez's tale of a woman named Lore who married two men in 1980s. She is only left alone after one husband kills the other when her secrets is discovered. Gutierrez brings to life one of the most complicated female protagonists in literature, while also showing how economic historical events shaped the intimate lives of countless people in the 1980s. Woman of Light by Kali Fajardo-Anstine*** Women of Light Her historical novel is based on her family's stories, set in late 1800s and 1930s Denver. A Western novel exploring a diverse community and family, Women of Light takes readers on an adventure with vibrant characters like Mexican sharpshooter Simodecea, the Sleepy Prophet who took in an abandoned baby, charming and intuitive Luz. Fajardo- Anstine's novel is so good, it'll have you weeping and identifying with a rattler. Groupies by Sarah Priscus**** Groupies Twenty- three-year-old Faun Novak is a rock'n' roll-obsessed college dropout whose mother has just died. With only her beloved Polaroid camera and a Greyhound ticket for company, Faun sets for L.A. to escape her grief and reconnect with childhood friend Josie. Cinematic and glamorous, Priscus's debut follows Faun's descent into what seemed a fairy tale, but turns out to be its opposite. And the groupies! I Must Betray You by Ruto Sepetys*** I Must Betray You It's 1989 in Communist Romanis, amid they tyrannical dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu. No one can be trusted. In this society ruled by fear and control, spies are everywhere. This novel is about the time when communist governments around the world were collapsing, leaving the remaining regimes clinging to power, and enlisting spies to aid in destroying families, and dreams. Cristain, who aspires to become a writer possess threat to the state, is threatened by the police to become informer. He must decide whether to betray the people he loves or use words to help take down one of the Eastern Europe's most brutal dictators. Read the full article