At first, the façade of the National Theater had very large arcades. One day I happened to pass by and saw many people working at walling up the openings with bricks. Several days later, the façade was almost blind, only several small entrance doors were left. There was a nice joke about it. A peasant goes to the market place, makes good money for selling his products, then takes a taxi to drive him to the North Station. When they pass by the National Theater, the peasant says, please, pull over, here?s the Station.

The same happened with the Romana Plaza. Changes were continually made to please the Comrade. First they put in the middle of it a huge cement pedestal to support the monument of the subway constructor. First a copy was made of cardboard, of the size of the future monument. It was huge, as high as the Airmen?s Monument. It was the same with the statue in the Obor area ? the peasant in the 1907 war. They were first made of cardboard for the Comrade to see what they looked like and decide weather he agreed with them or not, for he couldn?t figure out much from the mere scale model. (I. P., 37)

Every time Ceausescu went visiting some factory and the official cars passed by, everyone would take their laundry away from their balconies so that it could ?look nice?. (I. I., 56)

FACULTY

Admittance to faculty in those years depended first and foremost on a ?clean? past, particularly if you applied to the faculties of Philosophy, Sociology, or Political Science. The best candidates were the ?simple people?, the sons of peasants or workmen, without a blemish and without any trace of brains, able to obey. The ideology was clear, you had to obey. (O. S., 166)