🔒 Doftana prison

Doftana was a Romanian prison, sometimes referred to as "the Romanian Bastille". Now a ruin, it was built in 1895 in connection with nearby salt mines. Beginning in 1921 it was used to detain political prisoners, among them Max Goldstein, a revolutionary whose detonation of an explosive device in the Romanian Senate chamber in December 1920 prompted widespread suppression and detention of political radicals, including Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, who was later the Prime Minister of Romania (1952–1955), and the Chairman of the State Council of Romania (1961–1965), and Nicolae Ceaușescu, who went on to be General Secretary of Romanian Communist Party (1965–1989), and the first President of Romania (1974–1989).