Few Bidders Turn Out for Ceausescu Auction

Offering paintings, bric-a-brac, luxury boats and kitsch gifts, Romania auctioned off hundreds of items Friday that once belonged to dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, in the fifth such sale of the ousted strongman’s possessions.

“We plan to spend some $8,000 today,” one man said as the bidding on the Ceausescus’ belongings started in the macabre setting of a black marble mausoleum of former Communist leaders in a central Bucharest park.

Two luxury boats and a black Hillman-Hunter passenger car failed to arouse the interest of anyone among the estimated 30 bidders.

“I see this auction both as an investment opportunity and a chance to get a collector’s item,” a young woman said. “I would like to have one of his caps and a chess set.”

A tapestry representing Ceausescu and his wife covered a big marble cubicle on the floor of the mausoleum, once a tomb of Romania’s first Communist leader, Gheorghiu Dej.

Romania’s new authorities removed Dej’s coffin from the mausoleum and buried him in a Bucharest cemetery in 1992.

“We expect to get some 5 billion lei [$250,000] from this auction,” said Ion Porojan, who is in charge of the three-day sale.

“The money will go to the [state] budget. We have enough goods that belonged to Ceausescu for another five or six such auctions,” he said.

Reserve prices ranged from the equivalent of $12 for one of Ceausescu’s caps to $12,500 for a set of bedroom furniture that Ceausescu and his wife never used before they were ousted and shot in a violent anti-communist revolt in December 1989.

Three previous sales--in August, October and November 1999--raised almost $600,000, the bulk of which went to the treasury.

The admission fee was a little more than $10 per person, and collectors also are able to view the exhibits on the Internet at https://www.ceausescu.ines.ro.

More than 10 years after his execution, opinion surveys show that many Romanians, faced with poverty as the country struggles with a difficult transition toward a market system, say they were better off under Ceausescu.