A bit bruised but still standing, old Orthodox churches can be found around Bucharest, having escaped the frenzied demolition of the Romanian capital in the 1980s ordered by ex-communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. At least 10 jewels of Romania’s religious heritage from the 16th to 19th centuries survived due to an engineering tour de force: they were moved and hidden away. Engineer Eugeniu Iordachescu was head of an institute at the time that was confronted with the architectural whims of Ceausescu and his wife Elena.The couple had been impressed with Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, and got the idea to bulldoze the historic centre of Bucharest to make way for a government district dominated by a gigantic “House of the People”.

Weiterlesen auf basilica.ro (11. November 2017)