"Warrior Lion" Monument and "1300 Years of Bulgaria" Monument
Starting point
The "Warrior Lion" is a reconstruction of part of the destroyed memorial to the First and Sixth Infantry Regiments (1940) by sculptor Mihail Mihaylov, dedicated to those who died in the Balkan and First World Wars. Later, the 35-meter monument "1300 Years of Bulgaria" (1981) by Valentin Starchev was erected on the same site in honor of the national celebrations of the 1300th anniversary of the founding of the Bulgarian state. The project was designed by Lyudmila Zhivkova and envisaged the monument as a "symbol of the eternal spiral," expressing "the dynamic development of the Bulgarian people from ancient times to a mature socialist society," linking it to "the progress of humanity over nearly two millennia of the new era." The monument combines socialist esotericism with historical propaganda and resurgent nationalism. Given all sorts of humorous nicknames by the people of Sofia, the monument began to deteriorate shortly after its opening in 1981, its condition gradually worsened significantly, and in 2017 it was finally dismantled.
"Kravai"
An iconic place for youth counterculture in the 1980s. Since 1983, the password of these angry young people has been: "At Kravai at 7 p.m.". Among the regulars were Vasil Gyurov, Dimitar Voev, Milena, Funky, Kolyo Gilana, and others. This is where the second wave of Bulgarian rock music began. Today it is a fabric store.
"The Hole" in front of the "1300 Years of Bulgaria" monument
In April 1983, this underground part of the now defunct "1300 Years of Bulgaria" monument was the site of some of the first improvised gatherings of musicians, and concerts featuring music considered decadent and Western by the authorities. After about a week, the police cordoned off the area and arrested those gathered, on the pretext that they were drug addicts. However, with some interruptions, the concerts continued almost until 1989.
Fountains in front of the National Palace of Culture
The National Palace of Culture (NDK) is one of the most ambitious projects in Sofia's socialist transformation. It was conceived as the third center of the city after the historic city center (from ancient Serdica to the Kingdom of Bulgaria) and after the unsuccessful attempt to turn the area around the Universiada Hall into the "socialist core" of the capital – where the Bulgarian Communist Party (BKP) held its congresses and where the Ministry of Foreign Affairs moved during the years of the People's Republic of Bulgaria. The palace was opened on March 13, 1981, and brings together different layers – from the symbolism of the facade and the emblem at its opening in 1981, to sculptures and frescoes related to 1,300 years of Bulgarian history, to the esoteric ideas of Lyudmila Zhivkova, daughter of Todor Zhivkov and chair of the Committee for Culture (in practice, Minister of Culture). The basement is reminiscent of the underground of the 1980s, and the so-called English courtyard brings to life the memory of the artistic nonconformity of the era.
National Palace of Culture (NDK)
Lyudmila Zhivkova had broad powers granted to her by her father. She was elected a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party, which earned her the nickname "the red princess of the regime." Driven by enormous ambition, she conceived a grand celebration of the 1300th anniversary of the founding of the Bulgarian state and decided to build the National Palace of Culture and the surrounding area. She was convinced that this project would immortalize her name, and all of the state's resources were harnessed on a massive scale for the construction of the NDK: 335,000 cubic meters of concrete and 10,000 tons of metal were used - as much as for the Eiffel Tower - and 1.7 million tons of earth were excavated and transported. The grandiose project also had a hidden cost: huge overspending on materials, suspicions of corruption, and forced labor. Workers came from Yugoslavia and Vietnam, and thousands of Sofians were obliged to donate a free day's work, as Bulgaria did not have enough manpower to build such a complex. Mandatory donations were introduced at workplaces, which provided an additional 30 million leva at the time. The total cost of the construction exceeded 270 million leva.
Monument to the Victims of the Totalitarian Regime and the Berlin Wall
The memorial to the victims of the communist regime and the chapel next to it are an attempt to comprehend the scale of repression during the communist period (1944-1989). This process is still ongoing. The site is also one of the first in Bulgaria to be created as a public space in memory of the victims of the regime. There are few such memorials in the country - there are some in Plovdiv and Vidin, for example - and they are the result of the efforts of civil society organizations and local authorities; not a single one has been created with the support of the state.
A piece of the Berlin Wall can be found in the garden in front of the National Palace of Culture on Frithjof Nansen Boulevard. It is part of the now defunct barrier that divided East and West during the Cold War - one of the most recognizable symbols of a divided Europe. The monument to the victims of the Holocaust in Bulgaria is located in the park in front of the National Palace of Culture.
