What was the idea? How did they do it? What is inside? What is interesting about it?
Included in the list of the most appealing spots found worldwide, the Buzludzha monument stands atop the Hadzhi Dimitar peak, which was formerly called Buzludzha. Hence the name which the Buzludzha history started with. Recently Georgi Stoilov, the Buzludzha architect, visited the peak to see his creation, and unfortunately saw the present monument of Buzludzha abandoned and derelict. That brought back memories of how much material and work was applied to construct the most beautiful Buzludzha Communist Party monument in Bulgaria.
The Decision for the Construction, the Raising of Funds, and the Inauguration
The decision to build the so called Home Monument of the Party, adopted by the secretariat of the Bulgarian Communist Party, dated from 1971. The construction was started three years later, in 1974. The funds that were used to make the Buzludzha construction reality amounted to 14 million Bulgarian Leva. These funds were raised by the sale of stamps, each of which cost several Leva. Most of the money for the Buzludzha construction has been donated by the supporters of the party. The Buzludzha opening was held on August 23, 1981.
The Architectural Design and the Design of the Structures
The team of architects who created the projects was headed by architect Georgi Stoilov. The structures were designed by a team headed by Prof. Engineer Dobromir Kolarov.
The Buzludzha monument consists of a domed hall and 70-liter double pylon. On top of flagpole there are two mullets with size of 6.50 m and 12 meters. The supporters of the party been told that the red star on the top of the pylon is made of ruby and after the communist regime fell down, the first think they did was to take their guns and start shooting at it. You can imagine their reaction after they realized that all the ruby story was a fat red lie.
The Visual Similarity of the Buzludzha Monument to Other Structures
The monument is visually similar to two other structures. One of them is the Olympic Stadium in Montreal, Canada. The other is a building of a Greek Orthodox church located in Wisconsin, the USA, and designed in 1955 by Frank Lloyd Wright.
The Buzludzha Interior
The Buzludzha monument consists of a domed hall and 70-liter double pylon. On top of flagpole there are two mullets with size of 6.50 m and 12 meters. The supporters of the party been told that the red star on the top of the pylon is made of ruby and after the communist regime fell down, the first think they did was to take their guns and start shooting at it. You can imagine their reaction after they realized that all the ruby story was a fat red lie.
The ceremonial hall has a diameter of 42 meters and a height of 14.5 meters and is decorated with mosaics with a total area of 550 m². The condition of this peace of art deteriorated after the political changes in Bulgaria in 1989. The mosaics evoke the struggles of the Communist Party and the building of socialist society. In the hallway around the hall has 14 compositions that reflect the peace work.
Today the Buzludzha monument is abandoned. Most of the mosaics in the ceremonial hall and the corridors been destroyed. Portraits of the most famous figures of the communist era in Bulgaria as Ludmila and Todor Zhivkov were destroyed intentionally. The copper decorations were stolen.
The Site of the Buzludzha Monument
The Buzludzha monument rises on the peak of Hadzhi Dimitar, which is 1,441 meters high. It is to the northeast of the town of Shipka, in the Balkan range. That place was not chosen accidentally, because it is steeped in history. In the past it witnessed two major events. One of the events occurred in 1868, when the peak became the site of the battle of Bulgarian rebels headed by Hadzhi Dimitar and Stefan Karadzha, who fought against Ottomans. The other event, which signified the beginning of socialist movement in the country, was a meeting held in 1891; then a group of socialists founded organized socialist movement in Bulgaria, and it was also considered the founding event for the Bulgarian Communist Party, which is marked on the peak of Hadzhi Dimitar, in the vicinity of the Buzludzha monument, as an annual event.
To be honest, the Buzludzha monument is falling apart. Today, the place is still abandoned and non of the government institutions are interested in the conservation and restoration of Buzludza. Even, the Bulgarian Socialist Party doesn’t undertake to maintain its most important symbol.
Some Figures About the Buzludzha Project
Commemorating the second event, the monument was built as a complex comprising a round hall and a 70 meters high pylon, with two five pointed stars on both sides. That structure, which was erected using 12 cubic meters of concrete, plus over 300 kilograms of reinforcement iron, was achieved thanks to the work in which over 6,000 people participated. Just these facts alone are sufficient to make this monument rank among the most imposing monuments to have been constructed by people. The people who participated in the construction process comprised volunteers and soldiers from the then existing military parts which worked on construction sites in the country.
The concrete pylon was adorned with two scarlet colored five pointed stars. These were made in Kiev, a city in the Soviet Union. Each of the stars was 12 meters high, and it weighed 3.5 tons. Just the mounting of the stars onto the pylon took over 3 months. The round hall had a diameter of 42 meters and a height of 14.5 meters. The mosaics decorating the inside of the hall covered a total area of 550 square meters. They depicted events both from the history of the Bulgarian Communist Party and from the development of socialism in the country. In the corridor, there were mosaics representing scenes from everyday labor.
The three staircases within the Buzludzha monument were decorated with white crystal glass compositions made by Stanislav Libensky, a Czech sculptor.