Bulgarian anti-government demonstrations: revolution, evolution, or just a street party

Bulgarian demonstrators asking for the EU help in getting rid of their government. November 2013.

From a distance it sounds like a football match: the pulsating noise of chants, vuvuzelas and whistles. Approaching closer, you start to register separate phrases being shouted out by the crowds: Ma-fi-ja! - Os-tav-ka! - Cher-ve-ni pod-klu-tzi! Then you see them.

Hundreds, on some days thousands of demonstrators: carrying Bulgarian flags or wrapped in them; walking, marching and cycling; people with small children in prams and the elderly; dog walkers and those straight from the office; serious-looking citizens and guys with plastic two-litre beer bottles.

Every day they meet at the Largo, demonstrate there, then march along the Tsar Osvoboditel Boulevard, stop at the Parliament, then continue towards the Sofia University and beyond. Some live in tents in the proximity of the Parliament building. The monument of the Osvoboditel (Liberator) himself, sitting tall on a horse opposite the Parliament entrance, is covered up to the hooves with banners, slogans and perching demonstrators.

For some the demonstrations are a type of social gathering, a street party where new friends are made and romances start; for others it is a very serious business. Some of my colleagues dilligently go there every day after work. I have seen groups demonstrating in front of the German embassy - asking for the Germans' help in removing the corrupted Bulgarian government.

The police fence the access to the main government buildings and close certain streets every afternoon in preparations; TV crews park their vans and wait for that night's spectacle. For journalists, being and working there does not necessarilly mean that their reports will be broadcasted, as much of the media is said to be ruled by the same governing clan.

My relatives abroad find out about the demonstrations months after they have actually started - and I have been witnessing them every single day since the early June. Only in August, the holliday month, the parades had diminished for a couple of weeks in Sofia - but even then there had been some outbursts on the Bulgarian seaside, including one at a beach campsitte. In September Sofian troops were firmly back in the streets of the capital once again.

I have seen masses of people chanting while riding the metro; quiet commuting pensioners with their Bulgarian flags carefully rolled away, dogs dressed in slogan-bearing dog vests. I have felt an air of upheaval and solidarity. The sheer amounts of the demonstrators, especially during the early summer days, were those comparable to only what I had seen as a child back in Vilnius during the Lithuanian 'Singing Revolution'. 

The Bulgarian 'singing revolution', however, was not meant to take over. People are still demonstrating and the same government is still on. Nothing has changed.

When asked who might be a better replacement for the government still in power a few Bulgarians simply do not seem to know any alternatives. 'No political culture here, everyone is corrupted', one of them says.

Then a watching youngish foreigner from Wester Europe thoughtfully suggests the demonstrators set up a party and pick the new leaders from among themselves. 

Below are some images from various days of the demonstration.

 Text and photos (c) Agne Drumelyte, 2013.

Party House, NOT a nightclub

A big red star used to be where now the Bulgarian flag is. Top of the Party House.

Much of what I am telling you here in this post is what I have learned during a pilot tour* to the Largo. The complex allegedly was designed by the best Bulgarian architects of the time, with the supervision by the soviets, and it drew inspiration from the Bulgarian medieval past (see the shapes of the lamps and the arches inside). It just so happened that the architects were trained during the pre-communist era.  

The Party House imitates classicist palaces (Roman/Italian, French) - note the columns; the round foyer & ceiling; the straight axis design. Simultaneously, the building includes decorative elements depicting the fruits and products of the Bulgarian countryside: clusters of grapes, roses, wheat ears, so it brings the palace closer to farmers & proletarians - the 'right' communist folks. Details are a very important element of this building.  

The House was constructed of local, Bulgarian, staples, with the exception of Bohemian glass chandelliers, the material for which was brough over from Czechoslovakia. (The only original chandeliers still in use nowadays can be found at the nearby Hotel Sheraton). 

 *If all goes well, the tour should be up and running from approximately November 2013 - check for the updates here. The tour is part of the Southeastern-Europe-wide ATRIUM project. 

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After the fail of socialism in the 1990s the Largo buildings remained more or less the same, apart from the fact that the hammers-and-sickles were dutifully removed from the decorative ornamentations, as well as the big red star from the top of the Party House. No more Lenins, Stalins and similar figures can be found at the Largo today - if you are feeling nostalgic you can go and see some of them (as well as the said red star) at the Museum of the Socialist Art. Plus, the Mausoleum of Georgi Dimitrov, the former socialist leader, dissapeared from the face of the earth.  

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Now time for some images:

Hammer and sickle removed.

The round ceiling & chandellier.

Decorative elements.

Columns.

Ceiling, the main hall.

Corridor (there are 3 kms of them in the building).

Balconies, with grape clusters & roses.

Hammer & sickle removed.

Text and photos (c) Agne Drumelyte, 2013.

Largo, the scary (not anymore) Triangle of power will open up to the public

The Largo at night. (c) Agne Drumelyte.

Right in the center of Sofia, above where the main street of the ancient city of Serdika was, looms the strict, monumental architectural complex The Largo - one of the more known socialist architecture examples in Eastern Europe.  

It was built in the early 1950s, in the lands freshly-flattened by the WW2 bombings (as much as 1/4 of the city was destroyed beyond repair then - especially the center).  

Rather oversized for the under 7.5 million Bulgarian population, the Largo consisted of functionnaire buildings: Ministries of Electrification & Heavy Industry; the Government; the Party House - that is, the house of the Communist Party, not a nightclub.

It also included attractions like the former leader's Georgi Dimitrov's mausoleum (1949; constructed in only six days as the great Bulgarian socialist leader died unexpectedly during his visit to Moscow); and the TZUM, at the time Bulgaria's most prestigious department store where the products of the socialist workers' achievements were on display for local and international visitors.

The important guests used to stay at the nearby Hotel Balkan, also part of the complex - the building nowadays is used by Hotel Sheraton.  

All of the said buildings, except for the mausoleum that was demolished in the 1999, still dominate the central Sofia today. Most of them, however (with the exceptions of the TZUM and the Hotel Sheraton) can be seen only from the outside. The former communist government buildings are used by the democratic Bulgarian government nowadays.     

There is, though, a hope that the great dinosaurs will open up to the public one day. I have just been on a trial tour to the complex, 'The [Un]Known Largo'*, and have witnessed some of the insides of the former communist Party House - see a post on it here.  

The tour is part of the EU-funded ATRIUM project that aims to create & promote a cultural tour route through the Southeastern Europe, one that is concerned with the totalitarian architecture of the 20th century. Most of the tour's venues are socialist buildings of the Balkans but a couple of right-wing totalitarian venues are on the list too. 

*If all goes well, the tour should be up and running from approximately November 2013 - check for the updates here. 


The facade of the Party House (centre), on the same night.

Text and photos (c) Agne Drumelyte, 2013.