“Dictator tourism” to be opened in Targoviste

Newsroom 02/09/2013 | 14:10

Ceausescu execution spot from Targoviste will become a tourist attraction, while the barracks where the despot was executed by a former military unit on December 25, 1989, are to be opened to the public in the latest bid to boost “dictator tourism”.

The former military unit at Targoviste, 100 kilometres (60 miles) northwest of Bucharest, is to be turned into a museum and is due to welcome its first visitors in early September, according to an official press release. The death of the Ceausescus became one of the defining images of the revolutions which convulsed eastern and central Europe in 1989 and this is one of the reasons why officials decided to transform the spot into a museum.

The director of the museum, Ovidiu Carstina, told AFP that “Many Romanians and foreigners said they wanted to see the wall against which Ceausescu and his wife Elena were shot on December 25, 1989”. Moreover, he stressed that “We do not wish to stir a controversy but only to speak of a landmark in Romania’s history”. More about this topic, here.