Nicolae Ceaușescu the country in the three days since the Ceaușescus fled Bucharest. Similarly, Victor Stănculescu, who had been defense minister before going over to the revolution, said in 2009 that the alternative would have been seeing the Ceaușescus lynched on the streets of Bucharest. The Ceaușescus were the last people to be executed in Romania before the abolition of capital punishment on 7 January 1990. Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu were originally buried in simple graves at Ghencea Cemetery in Bucharest, on opposite sides of a path; their graves were often decorated with flowers and symbols of communist rule. In April 2007,
Hunting in Romania record book of Rowland Ward mentions Romanian lands as provider of world records for stag (by local and foreign sportsmen), chamois (by Frederick Selous) and Eurasian lynx (by the Prince of Liechtenstein). Between World War II and the fall of the communism, big game hunting was extremely limited, and permits were granted almost entirely to the Communist Party members, particularly after 1972. The most famous of all was none other than Romanian former dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu. For years, he was dubbed as "country's first hunter", a title he acquired after claiming many trophy animals including world record European brown bear,