Centrul Civic District

This place is nothing like the rest of the city. It's a modern section, built by the dictator Ceausescu after the 1977 earthquake. Many of the buildings in this neighbourhood had been damaged, and they were destroyed after they were declared no longer viable. This used to be a beautiful part of the city, with houses built between 1850 and 1930 - houses with small gardens, family homes that passed from one generation to the next. Everything collapsed, including twelve churches, three monasteries and two synagogues. In their place, Ceausescu built the huge group of buildings along the grand boulevard Unurii, and the Palace of Parliament, one of the largest buildings in the world after the Pentagon in Washington.