My Romanian Trip » Destinations » The Spring Palace – why to visit the Nicolae Ceausescu House?

The Spring Palace – why to visit the Nicolae Ceausescu House?

Spring Palace (Palatul Primăverii in Romanian) was the home of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu for 24 years. Do not confuse the House of Ceausescu with the Palace of Parliament, I notice there is confusion for some tourists about these two. The Palace of Parliament is also named the House of the People and it’s one of the largest administrative buildings in the world, constructed on Ceușescu’s order. However, the subject of this article is Spring Palace, also named the Ceausescu House, Ceaușescu Palace or Ceausescu Mansion. 

How to visit the Spring Palace 

The Ceausescu Palace is located in the quiet neighbourhood of Primăverii in northern Bucharest. It is open to visit for anyone interested in understanding the lifestyle of a dictator and his family.

The Ceausescu mansion is located just a short 10-minute walk away from the Aviatorilor metro station. Follow Calea Dorobanților to Charles de Gaulle Square, and then Primăverii Boulevard. The palace is waiting for you at number 50. 

Spring Palace visiting hours: from Tuesday to Sunday, from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM. 

You can buy tickets online, on the Casa Ceausescu official website. The cost of the ticket is 65 lei (around 13 euro). All the visits are guided in Romanian or English, at choice.

While the tour may be a bit expensive compared to other Romanian museums, it is definitely worth the visit. 

What’s so special about Nicolae Ceușescu’s Palace?  

Spring Palace is very well conserved and gives the impression of being transported back in time and slipping into the intimate life of maybe the most famous couple Romania has offered. According to the guide, the house has remained unchanged since the Ceausescus left for the last time in December 1989.

The Palace of Ceausescu may not reveal its grandeur from the outside and this makes the shock even stronger at your first step in. The palace covers an area of approximately 5000 square meters and has an impressive 174 rooms: 88 rooms in the basement (not open for the standard tour), and over 80 rooms on the ground and upper floors. Visitors can tour the palace and see about 50 rooms in a 45-minute tour.

What can one do with so much space, you may ask? Well, the Ceausescu family had their own wellness centre with a sauna, galvanic baths, ozone therapy, electrotherapy, Scottish showers, a massage room, and even a hair salon. They also had an indoor heated pool surrounded by an impressive mosaic pavement. The artists Olga Porumbaru and Florin Pârvulescu crafted the intricate masterpiece in just two years, with more than a million mosaic pieces.

The indoor heated pool from Ceausescu House was surrounded by a milion mosaic pieces.

There are many things to see on this tour. Paintings from famous Romanian artists, centuries-old Flemish tapestries, silk carpets, gold-plated decorations, and luxurious Bohemian and Baccarat crystal chandeliers. There are also handmade African ivory sculptures, as well as Sèvres and Delft, Rosenthal, and Meissen porcelain vessels.

Another house of megalomaniac horror 

Maybe you already know one or two things about the Ceausescus’ tastes in interior design if you’ve been to the Palace of Parliament. The dictatorial couple participated in the design and decoration of both the Palace of the Parliament and the Ceausescu House. Despite having access to the country’s top architects, they were heavily involved. However, the Spring Palace bears more of Elena Ceausescu’s imprint. She would peruse interior design catalogues and select pieces of furniture to replicate within the palace.

The palace’s architectural design is mostly a combination of Neo-Classical and Neo-Late Renaissance styles. It draws inspiration from Ceausescus’ visits to famous palaces around the world, such as Buckingham Palace and Versailles.

Ceausescu House: Exploring Opulence, Excess, and Contrasts in Romania’s Dictatorial Residence

They liked the luxury, Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu, but you can see they fall into wealth without knowing what to do with it. There is a diversity of amalgamated styles in there that it can become suffocating. Maybe not everyone agrees with the word “opulence” to describe the Ceausescu House. But for sure there is excessiveness there. Indeed, everything is good quality, unique, and custom-made. The infamous couple didn’t need good taste to buy expensive things, and this is obvious. It’s too much of everything, but I guess that’s the standard for a dictator’s home.

The Nicolae Ceausescu Mansion. Interior
The Nicolae Ceausescu House – Interior.

Rococo style dominates the matrimonial bedroom, remembering us that Romania had, until December ‘89 its own Marie Antoinette. However, the lack of taste in combining materials and colours betrays the humble origins and the lack of formal education of the dictator’s wife. The rest of the family bedrooms will walk you through Renaissance, Art Deco, British classic, Baroque, and Louis XIV and XV styles.

Indeed, Casa Ceaușescu may be called even modest when compared with the palaces of other political leaders of the world. For sure, Nicolae Ceausescu wasn’t the only person in the world with a gold-plated toilet. But you can’t visit the palace without thinking of the low living standards of the working class in the 80s. Back then, the public speech was about brotherhood and equality. And yet, while Ceausescu was basking in decadence, the working class was enduring food shortages and various hardships. By the way, the house with everything in it belongs to the Romanian state, it was never private property.

Every Romanian walks out of the Ceausescu House with a different state of mind. Some are nostalgic and amazed by what they just saw, while others are feeling outraged and disgusted because of so much exorbitant.

A short history of the Ceausescus’ Spring Palace 

The first houses in the Primăverii (Spring) neighbourhood of Bucharest, all with ground and first floors, were built in the 1930s. In 1948, after the Communist Party came to power, the party nationalized all properties, including those in Primăverii. The new leaders forced the former owners to vacate their homes and took possession of them.

Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, the first Communist Party leader, mandated that key members receive houses in Primăverii for family living. This centralized residence allowed easy monitoring. Due to insufficient homes for all, additional houses were constructed. Consequently, The Spring Palace emerged as a protocol residence from 1964 to 1965.

In 1965, following the death of Gheorghiu-Dej, Nicolae Ceausescu assumed the role of the country’s most powerful leader. Same time, he claimed the Spring Palace as his own. He started to expand the mansion between 1970 and 1972. The Romanian leader chose the architect Aron Grimberg-Solari to design the palace. Architect Robert Woll and landscape engineer Teodosiu designed the landscape.
After communism’s fall in 1989, a section of the 15,000 square meters garden returned to descendants whose properties were confiscated. The palace remained closed but occasionally functioned as a government guesthouse.

In 2016 the Nicolae Ceausescu House went to a restauration and became open to visitors.

Read more about what else you can do near Spring Palace: North Bucharest on Foot: Village Museum to Victory Square

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