At 86 years old, Ion Țiriac, born on May 9, 1939, in Brașov, admits that he suffered terribly from hunger in the 1950s and started physical work early, at 16, at a well-known company in his hometown, Red Flag.
“I give you my word that I don’t regret a day of my life! I mean, if I were to do it again and do it differently… But given my age…
I lived through the Second World War. I remember the planes and the bombs and all that. That’s why I don’t like war. I don’t like war and I can’t wait for Mr. Trump to end it all. But, it’s not that life was hard and I started from the bottom. In the early 1950s we were very hungry. Hungry, hungry!
To the potato you shared for lunch and dinner. And I’m not lying. Between the ’50s, when my father died, until ’53-’54, that was the potato. That was hunger. Hungry, hungry! But that hunger strengthened you and made you work, I don’t know what, I don’t know how…”, said Ion Țiriac for GSP.
Ion Țiriac’s situation is similar to Mircea Lucescu’s childhood, whose father filled the cellar with sauerkraut and potatoes, so that he and his brothers could eat, and meat was a rarity, receiving it once every two weeks.
Braovian businessman says he became rich “the first day I walked into a restaurant and didn’t look at the menu price“.
The cave belonged to the JN Alexandrescu family
Not only Mircea Lucescu, who died on April 7, arranged his eternal place during his lifetime, being buried at the Bellu Cemetery. And Ion Țiriac invested and bought the most expensive tomb in the cemetery. It is also in the Bellu cemetery and belonged to a great personality, evz.ro wrote 3 years ago.
In the “Garden of Souls of Baron Bellu” you can find the largest number of historical monuments and sculptures. With a fortune of 1.5 billion dollars, the former white sports master did not look at the money when the opportunity arose to acquire one of the oldest and most fascinating funerary monuments in the Bellu Cemetery.
The billionaire learned that in 2022 a rare event occurred: a vault, one of the oldest and most spectacular tombs, was put up for sale. The funerary monument belonged to the JN Alexandrescu family, a wealthy family of Bucharest in 1854.
Țiriac did not miss the chance and paid 170,000 euros, which was what the owner was asking for. He managed to take his ideal place to have eternal rest on the main avenue, next to names like Cantacuzino, Șuțu, Ghica, Aslan and others.
The construction is located in the center of the cemetery and was completed in 1864, almost 6 years after Baron Barbu Bellu, the Minister of Religion and Justice at the time, donated a 15-hectare plot of land to the City Council. The cemetery that bears his name was built on the 15 hectares.
The funerary monument of the JN Alexandrescu family stands out for its neoclassical style with an ornate door and many decorative stone elements, and the eternal place extends, including the garden, on an area of 60 square meters.
The new vault, redone, is made of marble and granite and will have, sources say, 12 underground and 6 above-ground crypts. Any renovation project requires approval from the Ministry of Culture. The billionaire also planned to move the bones of his parents, buried in Brașov, to the new building. His father, Ioan, died when Șiriac was only 10 years old. Țiriac invited his friend Ilie Năstase (79 years old) to see the tomb.
