Free Tour of Communism in Bucharest

What was life really like under communism in Romania?

We run Bucharest’s Museum of Communism, and we’ve spent years collecting stories, objects and memories from this period. On this tour, we want to take you beyond the usual story of Ceaușescu and the 1989 Revolution and show you what everyday life was actually like.

We’ll walk through central Bucharest and talk about the things that shaped people’s daily lives: food shortages and queues, communist apartment blocks, censorship and propaganda, surveillance, work and school, as well as the strange and sometimes fascinating ways people learned to cope with the system.

Of course, we’ll also talk about Ceaușescu and his increasingly bizarre cult of personality, his plans to reshape Bucharest, the destruction of entire neighbourhoods, and the events of December 1989.

Expect plenty of stories, unusual details and things you probably won’t find in a standard history book.

If you’re curious about what it actually felt like to live in communist Romania, come and explore that story with the people behind the Museum of Communism.