TARGET 120125

BUZLUDZHA
A Monument to a Nation's Future

Doorway to a people's dream

There is a monument in Bulgaria, located on Mount Buzludzha (pronounced: Booze-Loo-Jah), in the center of the country. The building sits atop the mountain at an altitude of 1,432 metres (4,698 feet). The building, which has the same name as the mountain it is on, is the biggest ideological monument in Bulgaria. Created by architect Georgi Stoilov, it was built as a tribute to the creation of the Bulgarian socialist movement in 1891.

Construction took seven years of hard work by more than 6,000 workers and 20 leading Bulgarian artists.

As it was before

As it is today

Ever since the ousting of Bulgarian president Todor Givkov and the political changes that occurred in Bulgaria from 1989, the condition of the monument has been worsening. Portraits of Ludmila and Todor Givkov have been voluntarily destroyed. The copper adornments have been stolen. The building is slowly disintegrating; marauders are consistently breaking windows and stealing mosaics and ornaments. Nowadays, the monument is abandoned and no public institution seems to be concerned by the conservation of renovation of the building. The Bulgarian socialist party itself is not taking any action towards the maintenance of its most important symbol.

The big red star attop the huge pylon behind the monument building (pictured below) has been all but destroyed by people who thought it was made out of rubies and who fired rifles at it, trying to dislodge some of them. It turned out that they were merely red tiles for the mosaic.

Now, not even a summertime tourist attraction, it was once the shining symbol of Bulgarian communism. Yet, inside, the splender of this structure is still awe-inspiring.

The foyer as it was

The foyer as it is today

The entrance as it was, with its wide portico welcoming the Bulgarian people.
The large letters of the communist party's hope for Bulgaria lined both sides of the portico.

The portico today still looks out on the fantastic geography of Bulgaria, but gone are the people.

And even the words of hope are now in disarray.

Today, even the snow on the mountainside doesn't even have tracks of skiers.
It can only be reached by farm to market road 5005, where there is a guard's checkpoint
that hasn't had a guard stationed at it in a quarter of a century.
It is totally abandoned.

The monument today is looked on by the majority of Bulgarians as a monument to a communist ideal that turned out to be only graft, greed, oppression, and misery. The communist leader of Bulgaria ruled for 35 years and was then ousted and prosecuted by the people for his misuse of power and his mistreatment of the nation and the people. In the end, the monument - magnificant structure that it was - became for the people of Bulgaria a symbol of miserable oppression by a ruling government which fostered only a lie.

Perhaps the fate of this grand monument is summed up by graffiti that someone painted in large letters over the main entrance doorway. The signs on both sides warn of the danger to those who would enter this crumbling monument to the communist party's promise of hope.

FEEDBACK MAP

If you got impressions for which this feedback is insufficient, please take a look at the following web site for more:

The homepage for the Buzludzha Monument
A video (with English subtitles) recording the history of Bulgaria which led to the creation of the Buzludzha monument.