On a Remote Mountain, the ‘Sistine Chapel of Socialism’ Awaits Its Fate
By Andrew Higgins, May 22, 2022, NY Times

Unlike Poland, the Czech Republic and other former Soviet satellite
states in Eastern Europe, Bulgaria never made a clean break from
Communism. The party purged its longtime boss, Todor Zhivkov,
Bulgaria’s de facto leader from 1954 to 1989, and agreed to free
elections in 1990. But the party, rebranded as the Bulgarian
Socialist Party, won those elections and survived as a significant
political force, though it is far less popular today. It has long
resisted efforts to address Communist-era oppression, focusing
instead on the party’s glory years during WWII, when it rallied
partisan fighters to resist fascism. That struggle is celebrated
in the mountaintop memorial complex with mosaics commemorating the partisans’ seizure of power in 1944 and the arrival of the Soviet
Red Army at the end of the war. Most of the Soviet army mosaic
disappeared years ago, apparently stolen by thieves. The partisans
are still there, but without eyes — they were gouged out in what Haralampiev, the conservationist, described as “political vandalism.”

Also vandalized, though this time by the party itself, was a mosaic
that originally featured Mr. Zhivkov. His image was hacked out by
party officials soon after his purge in late 1989. The complex,
which took more than seven years and 6,000 workers to build,
operated for only eight years. Originally the property of the
Communist Party, it was nationalized in 1992. The state, all but
bankrupt at the time, suspended funding, fired the last staff and
left the building to the mercy of bad weather, vandals and thieves
who, according to Ms. Ivanova, “stole everything that could be stolen.”

The destruction turned the building into a ghoulish ruin, which made
it popular as a backdrop for bands to make dark music videos and a
canvas for graffiti artists like Tristan Eaton, who “repaired”
several damaged mosaics by painting his own version of Zhivkov and
other party leaders. The top of its tower, and the roof of the
collapsing main building, also caught on as a venue for so-called
deadly selfies. All of that stopped after Europa Nostra, a heritage organization, listed Buzludzha as one of Europe’s seven “most endangered heritage sites” in 2018 and Bulgarian authorities sent the police to
seal off and guard the premises.

More destructive than the thieves, however, has been the weather,
which has damaged many mosaics. Ms. Ivanova and her team have now
erected a waterproof cloth screen in the main hall to block the rain
and snow that had loosened some of the 2.5 million tessera, small
blocks of stone and glass that were used to make the mosaics.
The next task, which will depend on her fund-raising efforts, is
to repair the roof originally covered in copper but stripped of
that years ago by thieves, who also looted tons of marble, miles
of wiring and all of the windows. To help raise some money for the
huge job, Ms. Ivanova wants to open the main hall as early as this
year to paying visitors, provided their safety can be guaranteed.
The building’s exterior is already a tourist attraction, drawing
more than 50,000 people last year.

“It is so bold and so brutal. I love this stuff,” said Alex
Thompson, a British aerospace engineer and aficionado of “dark
tourism” who recently made a pilgrimage up the mountain.
Benjamin Harper, a friend who traveled with him, said it
reminded him of the partly destroyed grandstand in Nuremberg,
Germany, from which Hitler reviewed Nazi rallies in the 1930s.
“This place is hauntingly similar,” he said. Tearing it down,
said Haralampiev, the conservationist, would delay, not accelerate,
a long-stalled reckoning with his country’s past. “You walk around
here and you can see and feel the scale of what happened. This is
the best way to learn about the regime.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/22/world/europe/on-a-remote-mountain-the-sistine-chapel-of-socialism-awaits-its-fate.html

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