Eternal friendship

A shot of Buzludzha monument.
I noticed this memorial (with the torches) purely by accident. I couldn't find what it is about, but judging by the proximity of the monument Buzludzha, I guess it's the Bulgarian-Soviet friendship or something.
The monument itself here seems really nice and groomed, but when you go upstairs, turns out it's already dangerous even for passing. The access inside is impossible - there are several rows of bars, and through them you can see some delapidated parts.
There's something alien in this place. Maybe because the monument looks like a UFO…

The story of the place:
In case you are not a Bulgarian, you probably don't know that place exists - it is one of the symbols of the Bulgarian Communist (now Socialist) party. At the very end of the 19th century a guy called Dimitar Blagoev (also known as Diadoto - meaning the Grandfather) founded the political movement on Buzludzha peak (which is a few kilometers away from the iconic Shipka peak).
During the Communist regime (somewhere around the 1960s) the comrades from the party decided to build a monument that would be more spectacular than the one at Shipka. So they did – the monument was a real piece of Socialist Realism – full of mosaics, frescoes of the Comrades and the memorable history of the Party. Why did they choose the UFO look, no one knows. It was used for decades but then, in 1989, the regime fell and Buzludzha was left to decay.
The monument became famous once again when some foreign photographers managed to sneak in and show to the world the state to which it’s reduced to.

  Subscribe
to author

Photo on the map, All photos of the author on the map