Now here’s something completely different.

If this doesn’t make you shake your head in disbelief I’ll be surprised.

We’ve all heard about the Pentagon. Built during the Second World War, it is the largest public administration building in the world. Just the internal courtyard is 5 acres. More than 30,000 people work there. Here’s Google’s photo:

Now, do you know where the second largest public administration building in the world is?

No? … Neither did I …

Here it is. Courtesy of Google again (scale is the same). In Bucharest, Romania:

Built on the orders of the dictator Ceausescu, this “Palace of the People” is an extraordinary building. The Telegraph, newspaper from London has the story:

The construction, which began in June 1984, was a project akin to the pyramids. During the five years leading up to Ceaucescu’s execution one million Romanians, including military conscripts, political prisoners and a team of 700 architects, worked round the clock to put it up, painstakingly carving huge oak, elm and cherry doors and sculpting giant crystal chandeliers for marble rooms almost as big as athletics fields. Even nuns were forced to work, weaving acres of carpets and embroidering gold-threaded curtains. There were never fewer than 20,000 workers on site at any one time; deaths were common.

The project had a huge impact on the Romanian capital. Three historic districts in the centre of Bucharest — four square miles of the city — were demolished, along with 27 churches and synagogues. Around 40,000 people were given only two days to leave their homes, and some had no alternative but to leave behind their possessions for the bulldozers.

Elsewhere, two mountains were hacked down for the one million cubic metres of white and pink Transylvanian marble required, while entire forests were destroyed for panelling, floors, furniture and doors (Ceausescu insisted that all materials used should be native to the motherland). The cascading chandeliers alone accounted for 3,500 tonnes of crystal; the largest, measuring nine metres in diameter and weighing five tonnes, had 1,000 light bulbs.

By the time the palace was completed, it could burn more electricity in three hours than all of Bucharest’s two million inhabitants consumed in 24. Between 1984 and 1989, while the Romanian people were struggling to survive with limited heating and meagre rations, the building consumed 30 per cent of Romania’s national budget.

Unsurprisingly, I’ve never been into either of these buildings. (Closest was a drive past the Pentagon many years ago.) But like many of you, I suspect, I have been to Versailles. I was blown away by the scale of the place. So here, to give you some further perspective, is Versailles (again on the same scale, courtesy of Google):

Look how small the Palace looks …

There have certainly been some pretty spectacular “waste of money” undertakings in history. Some by people who “could afford it”… but this is certainly not one of those! Then, and to this day, Romania is among the poorest in the poor east of Europe.

What was old Nicholai thinking?