Tag #130179 - Interview #78421 (Gavril Marcuson)

We now live in a country which guarantees the freedom of opinion, so I’m going to exercise this right. The Communists built the largest palace in Europe and second largest in the world. [Ed. note: The Palace of Parliament, or ‘The People’s House’, the second largest building in the world, after the Pentagon, was erected on Ceausescu’s order. It currently houses the Romanian Parliament, an international conference center, and numerous museums.] The current regime would be unable to build such a thing or to furnish a palace that is singular in Europe. It’s emblematic of Bucharest, just like the Eiffel Tower is emblematic of Paris, the Kremlin of Moscow, and the Coliseum of Rome. A huge number of things were built. They don’t build anymore nowadays, and they’re not capable of finishing what was started and is almost done. Had Ceausescu lived another year, we would now have a new National Library, and some hundreds of extra apartment houses, nice apartment houses, with balconies and carefully designed curves. I ride in the bus 104 for kilometers and kilometers, and I see what was built by Ceausescu’s regime; and I also see the cranes from the deserted construction site of the National Library-to-be. They want to turn it into something else – apparently, these people don’t need a library, they don’t need books. However, I am moderately optimistic. We are, undoubtedly, on the right track. Of course, we may stumble from time to time, but it is on the right way that we stumble. I’ll vote for the social democrats [PSD – The Social Democratic Party] in the presidential elections; and I’ll vote for the Menorah [the sign of the candidate of the Jewish Community] in the legislative elections!