The Country Fighting to Preserve Its Communist History: Bulgaria

Located on the bright and sunny shores of beachy Varna, Bulgaria, stands a tall and imposing block of hard edges and concrete—a monument dedicated to the unbreakable friendship between Bulgaria and the Soviet Union. That friendship has since broken. So, too, has the Soviet Union—at least officially.

Yet, this is not the only monument from Bulgaria’s Communist era that still stands, even 25 years after the country ceased to be a Soviet satellite state. Fascinating.

This got me thinking—everyone knows about the Solidarity movement and protests in Poland that led to the fall of communism there. The crimes and televised execution of Ceaușescu and his wife in Romania are also well known. But what about Bulgaria? How did communism come to an end there, and why is this former Soviet satellite still littered with Communist-era monuments?

Bulgaria was transformed into a socialist republic in 1946 after the invasion of the Red Army. From 1946 to 1990, it existed under the rebranded name The People’s Republic of Bulgaria (PRB). Communist Bulgaria was ruled by a succession of dictators who maintained control through repression, including the arrest of over 23,000 individuals—mostly intellectuals and ethnic minorities—some of whom were executed as “enemies of the state.”

With such a morbid history, why does a monument dedicated to communist friendship still stand by the beaches of Varna? Well, it’s not the only one. Like many other former Soviet states, Bulgaria is still dotted with communist-era architecture.

Take Veliko Tarnovo, for example—the idyllic "mini-Italy" in the heart of Bulgaria. There, you’ll find the enormous Interhotel, a towering concrete slab originally designed as a luxury resort for the communist elite. After the fall of communism, it was abandoned and left to decay until it was repurchased in the early 2000s by Georgi Georgiev.

Not actually a photo of the hotel - just a rather pleasant shot of one of Bulgaria’s most beautiful cities.

The central city of Shumen is home to the breathtaking Founders of the Bulgarian State Monument, which sits atop a hill overlooking the entire city. This monumental marvel is the heaviest communist monument in the world and, in my opinion, the most visually striking. It is genuinely one of the most impressive and beautiful monuments I’ve ever seen. The statues even look like Transformers!

And then, of course, there’s the abandoned Memorial Home of the Bulgarian Communist Party—often simply called The UFO or The Buzludzha Monument—perched atop a mountain peak in the middle of the country. In more ways than one, this monument looks like the lair of a Soviet supervillain. Built in 1981 from steel, glass, and concrete, this Communent (Communist Monument) commemorates a secret 1891 meeting of socialist leaders, led by Dimitar Blagoev, which resulted in the founding of the Bulgarian Social Democratic Party. That party would later evolve into the Bulgarian Communist Party, which, in turn, became the Bulgarian Socialist Party.Because nothing commemorates a secret assembly quite like reducing a mountain’s height by over 1,400 metres to build one of the world’s l argest monuments in your honour.

Even beyond all the giant slabs of concrete, little slabs of concrete are dotted all over Bulgaria - small, square, monuments praising communism and the Red Army for “liberating” the country of Bulgaria and often depicting two men kissing each other on the mouth (Socialist Fraternal Kiss). Even in this modest form, communist architecture is defined by its efficient and brutalist aesthetic—rigid lines standing tall and imposing, as if competing to be featured in the next Blade Runner movie. And while I find the brutalist rigidity of cubist communist architecture fascinating, it’s important to recognise that the impact of communism in Bulgaria extended far beyond making everything a little more square.

Beyond the crimes committed by the communists themselves, Bulgaria under communism saw a drastic increase in desperation and crime among individuals—violent deaths per year nearly doubled between 1945 and 1990 compared to modern-day Bulgaria. And yet, despite this, many still look back on that period with fondness and nostalgia, especially among Bulgaria’s aging population. For them, communism represents a time when everyone had a job, a purpose, and a stronger sense of community. It also brought some positive changes, particularly in education reform, which introduced mandatory public education for all. This gave many disenfranchised youths opportunities for upward social mobility that had previously been unheard of.

While many of Bulgaria’s communist monuments are drab, concrete monstrosities—dedicated to dehumanising the worker and celebrating the Red Army—some, like the Founders of the Bulgarian State Monument, honour something else entirely. This is the case with the Kambanite or Bells Monument, which sits on the edge of Sofia. Built in 1979, it is a dedication to world peace, adorned with bells donated by countries from across the globe, including North and South Korea, China, Yugoslavia, Mauritius, and nearly every nation—except New Zealand, which apparently doesn’t believe in world peace.

And while Australia’s bell may be one of the smallest (and currently broken), at least it has one. What makes these bell donations even more special is the monument’s opening ceremony, which invited children from all over the world to participate in the dedication.

“He who forgets history is doomed to repeat it”
- George Santayana

So how did it all end, and why are these monuments still here?

Well, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, Bulgarians saw freedom within their reach and took to the streets to demand a future beyond the colour red. On January 15, 1990, the leader of Communist Bulgaria—who had only been in power for a few months—declared that the Communist Party would cede its monopoly over Bulgaria’s political system, presumably to avoid meeting the same fate as Ceaușescu just a month earlier.

While many unmistakably Soviet monuments, like Buzludzha and the one in Varna, have been abandoned, others, like Alyosha in Plovdiv, remain standing. Towering 11 metres above one of Bulgaria’s most beautiful cities, this monument is dedicated explicitly to Red Army soldiers. The debate over removing it has arisen multiple times, only for movements in favour of its preservation to deem the issue too divisive to act upon.

The arguments for keeping these monuments are simple: like it or not, communism is a significant part of Bulgaria’s history and should not be forgotten. To some, these structures preserve a long-lost era of architecture and design, making their conservation an act of protecting art. To others, they are nostalgic relics of a bygone time. And for many more, these figures stand as painful reminders of a dark chapter in Bulgaria’s modern history—monuments that must remain, if only to ensure that history is not repeated. “He who forgets history is doomed to repeat it.” —George Santayana.

Yet, despite this sentiment, many of these structures are set for demolition. One example is the Monument to the Soviet Army in Sofia, which local residents have reclaimed through graffiti—turning Soviet soldiers into pop culture icons like Superman, Wolverine, and Ronald McDonald. In 2023, the monument was partially torn down.

Personally, I find these monuments fascinating, both in their history and design, and I hope to see as many of them as I can—while I still can.