Former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson visited the Romanian Parliament on Wednesday, October 5.

His visit started in the Senate, where the boxer was officially welcomed by a group of senators, including former Romanian tennis player Ilie Nastase.

Tyson was impressed by the massive building of the Palace of Parliament (People’s Palace), but said that “politics is nasty,” reports local Mediafax.

He wasn’t able to visit the plenary hall of the Senate because it was closed, but had access to the plenary hall of the Chamber of Deputies and peeked in one of the rooms included in the Chamber's visiting route, namely the Nicolae Titulescu room.

He also signed autographs and took photos with some people, most of them employees of the Senate and Chamber of Deputies.

However, not everyone was happy about Mike Tyson’s visit to the Parliament. On Tuesday, Senate president Calin Popescu-Tariceanu said that inviting Mike Tyson to the Senate was not honorable for the Romanian Parliament, reports Mediafax.

“I think that those who made the proposal didn’t think too much about it, unfortunately. It doesn’t seem to be an honorable proposal for the Parliament.”

He also said that he prefered great athletes who also had an irreproachable conduct in their private lives.

Mike Tyson is a former American boxing champion. He was arrested in the summer of 1991 for raping a young girl. In March 1992, Tyson was sentenced to six years in prison followed by four years of probation. He served only three years of his sentence.

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com