Nicolae Ceausescu

Heavily armed officers from Bulgaria's organized crime unit discovered a painting that looked like it might be the work of the famous American painter Jackson Pollock during a search in Sofia on February 18. There was a dedication written on the back to the actress Lauren Bacall, as well as a signature in Romanian.

The Bulgarian National Radio provided exclusive photos of the painting of Jackson Pollock discovered by the Main Directorate "Fighting Organized Crime".

Photos courtesy of BNR:

The picture of Jackson Pollock, which was discovered in Bulgaria by the Main Directorate "Fighting Organized Crime", was part of the personal collection of the Romanian communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu, reported the Bulgarian National Television from sources familiar with the investigation.

This is evident from a stamp in Romanian on the back of the picture.

The former president of Romania, Ion Iliescu, faces trial once again in the case of the 1989 Romanian Revolution, which overthrew the communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu after military prosecutors re-sent the case file to the court.

Romania's High Court of Cassation and Justice ruled on Thursday in favour of reopening the criminal investigation into former president Ion Iliescu over the so-called "Mineriada" events of June 13-15, 1990.

Iliescu summoned miners from the biggest mining basins in Romania, in Valea Jiului, to Bucharest to "restore order" against pro-Western parties who were demanding new elections.

Closer to home, 40 kilometres west of Budapest, Orban fulfilled a personal dream to build a stadium in Felcsut, the small village of 1,700 people where he grew up. Together with his close ally and mayor of Felcsut, Lorinc Meszaros, the two managed to have a stadium with a capacity of 3,800 built in 2014 for the Puskas Academy team at a cost of 10 million euros.

The first and only passenger plane built in Romania, ROMBAC 1-11, used for the official flights of late dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and recently won at an Artmark auction, was donated to the National Museum of the Romanian Aviation on Wednesday. The collection piece was saved from scrapping by a true collector, a lover of technique, during the Elegance Auction on May 27.

Sales at Artmark auction house in the first half of the year totaled 6.58 million euros, the highest-selling lot being the Rombac 1-11 presidential plane used by former state leaders Ion Iliescu and Traian Basescu, the auction house said in a release. In H1 2021 the total volume of Artmark auctions increased 7 percent from 6.16 million euros in the first half of 2020 to 6.58 million euros.

An online auction on May 27 by Bucharest's bidding house Artmark will give collectors a rare opportunity to acquire an object that perfectly embodies these two features of the regime.

The value of transactions increased by approximately 20 per cent in 2020 compared to 2019, with works by Nicolae Grigorescu, Stefan Luchian and Adrian Ghenie being among the best-selling, according to Artmark.