Pictures: Palaces of Deposed Rulers, From Ukraine to Tunisia
The opulence of deposed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's palace is hardly unique.
A popular uprising has driven Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych out of office and into hiding. On Saturday, anti-government protesters accessed the once heavily secured presidential estate outside Kiev and discovered an opulent mansion, complete with helipad, golf course, yacht, half-built car museum, exotic birds from Burma, and a petting zoo.
Here are pictures of the palaces revealed when some of the world's most notorious leaders were ousted.
Anti-government protesters find exotic ostriches as part of a private zoo on the grounds of Yanukovych's residence, known as Mezhyhirya.
Nicolae Ceaușescu was Romania's brutal communist ruler from 1965 until 1989, when he was overthrown in a revolution and killed with his wife by firing squad after the couple was found guilty of crimes against the state.
His Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest, believed to be the world's heaviest building—it's so large that it can be seen from space—is now a popular tourist attraction.
Tourists view the bedroom of former first lady of the Philippines Imelda Marcos at the Santo Niño Shrine in her hometown of Tacloban. The palatial residence was one of dozens throughout the country built by her and husband President Ferdinand Marcos, who ruled the island nation from 1965 until a popular revolt forced the couple to flee in 1986.
Hundreds of pairs of shoes that belonged to former first lady of the Philippines Imelda Marcos are on display at the Marikina Shoe Museum in the shoe manufacturing district of the country's capital city Manila. Marcos's shoe collection became synonymous with the excess she and her husband exhibited in office.
Tunisian president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali ruled for 23 years before stepping down in January 2011 during weeks of violent demonstrations over soaring unemployment and corruption. The protests and Ben Ali's overthrow were early flare-ups in what would become the Arab Spring.
Tens of thousands of belongings from Ben Ali's opulent palace in Carthage were put up for auction in 2012 to raise millions of euros for the government.
Saddam Hussein, Iraq's despotic ruler for more than two decades, was toppled by a coalition led by the United States and United Kingdom in 2003. He built luxurious palaces in every corner of the country, including this one in the ancient city of Babylon. Turned into a training camp by American and Polish troops, tourists can visit the once glorious palace, and even spend their honeymoon in a chamber that reportedly was one of Hussein's bedrooms.
