Ceausescu execution site in Romania becomes a museum
Barracks where Romania's Nicoalae Ceausescu and wife were shot feature in'dictator tourism'
The grim barracks where Romania's brutal communist despot Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, were executed are to be opened to the public in the latest bid to boost "dictator tourism".
The former military unit at Targoviste, 100 kilometres northwest of Bucharest, is to be turned into a museum and is due to welcome its first visitors in early September.
Many Romanians and foreigners said they wanted to see the wall against which Ceausescu and his wife Elena were shot on December 25, 1989
"Many Romanians and foreigners said they wanted to see the wall against which Ceausescu and his wife Elena were shot on December 25, 1989," said Ovidiu Carstina, director of the museum.
The death of the Ceausescus became one of the defining images of the revolutions which convulsed eastern and central Europe in 1989.
On December 22, as angry crowds gathered in front of the Communist Party headquarters, they fled the capital, Bucharest, in a helicopter. It was to be their final journey. They were stopped by the army, detained in Targoviste and shot after a makeshift trial.
It brought to a grisly end more than 20 years of repressive rule, aided by a huge security apparatus, under which free speech was ruthlessly suppressed.
The population suffered from food and power shortages and on top of that, Ceausescu's rule was marked by nepotism, paranoia and a deeply ingrained personality cult. Wife Elena was seen as the regime's second most powerful figure.