December 22, 22 years ago – the day when Romanian communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown. December 22, 1989 - the day when 100,000 Romanians gathered downtown Bucharest. When Romanians who fought the system got to say “We have won!” on National TV, after Ceausescu and his wife attempted to fly the country. The day before, the Army had started to shoot the youth that was protesting on the streets of Bucharest. Shooting continued until the dictatorial couple was sentenced to death and shot on Christmas day that year.

On December 22, when the old system was falling to pieces, a new system was slowly taking shape. Ion Iliescu, a former Communist Party member and Romania's first president after the Revolution (now an MP and honorary head of the Social Democratic Party) held a speech on the national TV station TVR. He talked about democracy, upcoming elections and the separation of state powers. He went on to become the country's elected president two times after being the country's first post-communist president.

Every year on this day Romania celebrates its freedom and mourns its dead. Has the country become what you expected it to be? Is it really a free country? We look forward to reading your comments below.

editor@romania-insider.com

(photo source: Wikipedia Commons; These pictures were taken by various foreign journalists and published in a book entitled: "1989 Libertate Roumanie" by Denoel Paris, dedicated to the French journalist Jean-Louis Calderon shot dead during the events. )