site.btaAugust 23, 1981: Buzludzha Monument Is Inaugurated

While interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, possibly sent by an extraterrestrial civilization, is hurtling through our solar system, a bizarre UFO-shaped structure has been sitting atop a mountain peak in Central Bulgaria for 44 years now.

The Buzludzha Memorial House – one of Europe's most iconic and most endangered abandoned landmarks and this country's largest ideological monument – was inaugurated on August 23, 1981.

The ceremony was planned for August 2 – exactly 90 years after the constituent congress of the Bulgarian Social Democratic Party (BSDP), held nearby in 1891, but was postponed because of the death on July 21 of Lyudmila Zhivkova, Culture Minister and daughter of Communist dictator Todor Zhivkov.

The inauguration was also part of a larger programme to mark the 1300th anniversary of the founding of the Bulgarian State in the Balkans in AD 681.

Atheist Altar

The idea of the monument came from architect Georgi Stoilov, whose 1961 design was not implemented at that time. A decade later, top functionaries of the then all-powerful Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) (which claimed succession from the BSDP) asked him to revise his blueprints. The result followed the best (or worst) traditions of brutalism. Stoilov said he was influenced by Mies van der Rohe, Gropius and Le Corbusier, and listed both Rome's Pantheon and the sci-fi films of the 1950s among his inspirations. The building bears visual similarity to the Olympic Stadium in Montreal, Canada, and the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, designed in 1955 by Frank Lloyd Wright.

On March 11, 1971, the Secretariat of the BCP Central Committee adopted a decision on the construction of a Party Memorial House on Buzludzha Peak, touted as "a majestic pantheon of Socialism and Communism".

The extravagant monument took seven and a half years to build, starting on January 23, 1974. The effort involved army Construction Corps conscripts, civil engineers, artists, designers and sculptors – more than 6,000 people altogether. They had to brave harsh weather conditions in the Central Balkan Range: strong winds, dense fogs, and temperatures often falling to minus 25 C. Working in shifts was only possible from May to September, when the climate on the site is relatively milder.

To make room for the construction site, the Hadzhi Dimitar Peak (named Buzludzha until June 1942) was levelled down 9 metres, from 1,441 metres above sea level to 1,432 metres, using TNT. Digging the foundations required the removal of over 15,000 cubic metres of rock. The project consumed 70,000 tonnes (12,000 cu m) of concrete, 3,000 tonnes of reinforcing steel (300 km of rebars), and 40 tonnes of gilded glass.

The giant structure evoked both solemnity and fear, dwarfing viewers and visitors by its sheer size and highlighting the supposedly eternal supremacy of the Party. The circular structure, dubbed a "flying saucer", was actually intended to symbolize a sacrificial tray on an altar or a commemorative wreath, whereas the tower represented a flying communist flag.

Communist Crowdfunding

The project cost 25 million leva (equivalent to USD 62.5 million at present), of which 16 million were raised in the form of "voluntary" contributions from all working Bulgarians: 0.50 leva were discretely deducted from their payslips. Stoilov came up with the idea of this "crowdfunding", which was readily embraced by the authorities, eager to pass over the undertaking as a "grassroots" initiative rather than as a whim of the top crust. Funds were also raised by the sale of 1 lev commemorative postage stamps and of an expressly designed brand of cigarettes, Buzludzha No. 16.

Overwhelming Dimensions

A round Ceremonial Hall, 42 metres across and 14.5 metres high, was roofed with 640 tonnes of copper sheet, totalling 2,500 square metres and divided into numerous concentric rings.

Next to the main building, a stand-alone 70-metres-tall, trapezium-shaped double tower, was 16 metres wide at its highest point and 9 metres at the base. Its foundations went 16 metres into the ground. A lift inside the tower took visitors to an observation deck at the top.

The tower was flanked on the north and south sides by two scarlet five-pointed stars – believed to be the world's largest, sized 6.50 by 12 metres and weighing 3.5 tonnes each. They were made of synthetic ruby glass in Kyiv, USSR, and were illuminated by a series of 32 spotlights, powered by a 70 kW generator. The stars were first lit in 1977, four years ahead of the official opening, to mark the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution. The Buzludzha stars could reportedly be seen from as far away as the border with Romania in the north and the border of Greece in the south.

More than 60 artists and sculptors, including Svetlin Roussev, Velichko Minekov, Valentin Starchev and Yoan Leviev, take credit for the lavish interior decoration of the monument with mosaics, murals, bronze sculptures and crystal glass. Inside the building, mosaics made up of more than two million pieces covered 924 square metres of the walls, depicting international and local communist heroes and landmark events in exalting the party's struggles and achievements and peaceful labour under socialism. The 510-square-metre mosaics in the Ceremonial Hall were made of 35 tonnes of cobalt glass (smalt) imported from Ukraine and came in 42 different colours. That project took 18 months to complete. The mosaic on the ceiling of the interior dome, of approximately 5 square metres, featured a hammer and sickle of glittering gold smalt, framed a quote from the Communist Manifesto: "Workers of the World, Unite!" Fourteen panels of mosaics fashioned from natural river stones of various countries adorned the outer ring of the monument (the observation deck inside the rim of the saucer).

Use and Abuse

After the grand opening, the Memorial House was used for eight years, serving as a political museum and a venue for party ceremonies and meetings. It also emerged as a popular tourist attraction, drawing between 2 and 3 million visitors. The closely guarded site was opened for six hours daily, five days a week. The capacity was for 500-600 people an hour. Admission was free but required permission from the office in Kazanlak, applied for at least three months in advance. The guided tours (one every hour) excluded the tower. Taking pictures was forbidden.

The monument was closed to the public in 1989 and was nationalized in 1992 along with all other Communist Party property. Left unguarded in 1995-1996, the memorial house found itself at the mercy of vandals, scrap-metal hunters, memento collectors, and graffiti artists. The building was stripped of everything of value that could be detached: aluminium window frames, furniture, metal roofing, wiring, glass and other materials. The red stars were shattered by shotguns. Over the years, the dome partially caved in, leaving the interior artwork exposed to the elements. The building that was supposed to epitomize the triumph of communism was reduced to a ghastly ruin.

Curiously, the mosaic portrait of Zhivkov was the first to be scraped off, in 1992 by a decision of his own Communist Party, three years after his ouster in November 1989. The same fate befell the likeness of Zhivkov's daughter.

In 2011, a Council of Ministers decision transferred the property to the Socialist (successor to the Communist) Party, but intervening legal amendments in 2017 made the gratuitous handover impossible.

In November 2024, Kazanlak Municipality, within whose jurisdiction the site is located, initiated a local referendum to find whether residents agreed to a proposal by local government to obtain and use gratuitously the property for ten years. Out of 61,000 eligible voters, 12,074 voted in favour, but the voter turnout was too low for the referendum to stand.

Despite its state of decay, Buzludzha continued to attract some 50,000 urban explorers and selfie-seekers a year from as far as Brazil, Korea, Alaska and Australia. They ignore the posted police orders to keep out and try to sneak in, undaunted by the danger posed by the crumbling structure. The site has garnered social media fame and invariably ranks among the top three Strange Tourist Attractions on the internet. Some Bulgarian and foreign travel agencies even sell package tours to the destination.

Buzludzha Project

Various ideas to reuse the memorial, ranging from a conversion into a hotel to a museum of communism, have failed to materialize through the years – until 2015, when young architect Dora Ivanova established the Buzludzha Project Foundation. Referring to the site as "love at first sight", Ivanova wrote her graduation thesis at the Technical University Berlin, elaborating her concept for a revival of Bulgaria's largest communist-era monument.

Since then, her organization has been busy raising awareness and trumping up financial and human resources for the preservation of the unique structure through dialogue with stakeholders, both public and private, attracting local and foreign investments, and various initiatives like exhibitions, conferences and, most conspicuously, the Open Buzludzha Festival. The idea is to save the landmark from destruction and abuse and adapt it for reuse as a venue for art events, conferences, educational tours, and as a tourist attraction.

In 2018, the Foundation successfully nominated Buzludzha for listing among Europe's 7 Most Endangered Heritage Sites by Europa Nostra. Experts of the continent's leading heritage organization visited the site and described it as "a masterpiece of architecture and crafts, with evident European interest due to its historic significance, its peculiar characteristics and its numerous potential future uses." They noted, though, that "a crucial target […] is to keep the Monument out of future political controversies".

In 2019, the Foundation developed a Conservation Management Plan for the monument, involving over 100 experts from eight countries, and a year later stabilized the interior mosaics with the help of volunteers and Bulgarian, German, Swiss and Greek restorers – the very first conservation measure to be implemented at Buzludzha. Both projects were implemented on grant funding from the Los Angeles-based Getty Foundation.

Acting on Ivanova's initiative, on September 13, 2021 the Bulgarian Culture Ministry designated the Memorial House a "modern-era immovable cultural property of national importance".

As part of an international project on Developing an Inclusive Process for Communicating Controversial Heritage under the EU Citizens, Equality, Rights, and Values (CERV) Programme, the Foundation is carrying out a campaign called Buzludzha's Unwritten Stories, inviting everyone interested to share their personal story and express their opinion about the monument. Bologna University is among the partners in this project.

As its latest achievement, in July 2025 the Foundation helped the Stara Zagora Regional Administration to win BGN 6.93 million in EU funding for a three-year Integrated Territorial Investment (ITI) project of Kazanlak Municipality to build a permanent heat-insulated roof and replace the exterior windows so as to address the issue with the exposure of what remains of the artwork. As an added effect, at least part of the building will become accessible to visitors – something for which Buzludzha Project have been lobbying central and local government for years.

Persistent Controversy over Potent Ideological Symbol

The conservation drive is not without its critics. They oppose the effort as an attempt to obliterate the traumatic, grotesque and tragic aspects of the site. They condemn the cultural heritage designation of the monument and are outraged by the idea of spending public funds on its maintenance, arguing that this violates a law that declared the criminal nature of the communist regime in Bulgaria and is a mockery of the memory of the victims of totalitarianism. They argue that a restoration of the "megalomaniac propaganda structure" is pointless and dangerous.

On the other hand, Bulgarian Socialists continue to rally annually in the area in early August. They are among the staunchest supporters of the revival of the memorial.

"Our objective is neither to forgive nor to forget. Our objective is to remember our past, especially if it is traumatic or difficult," Ivanova responds. "Our objective is to talk, to pass this information on to future generations, and to be able to engage in normal dialogue to reach different points of view and hear these standpoints. We don't back this ideology – on the contrary, we want to be aware of the traces of that past and to be able to comprehend the present."

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In its coverage of the official opening of the Buzludzha Memorial House, BTA said that over 35,000 people attended the event: Communist Party veterans, members of the Communist youth and children's organizations, workers and farmers, scientists and artists, military, and heads of foreign diplomatic missions. Guests had arrived for the occasion from France, Portugal, Laos, Syria, Lebanon, Mozambique, Czechoslovakia, Angola and Poland.

Following are excerpts from the report by the agency's special and resident correspondents, published in the BTA Home News Bulletin of August 23, 1981:

"At 10 a.m., the thousands-strong crowd welcomed the leaders of the party and the State, headed by the Secretary General of the BCP Central Committee and State Council President Todor Zhivkov, with thunderous applause, loudly cheering 'hurrah' and chanting 'BCP', 'Glory to the BCP', and 'Forward with the BCP'."

From Todor Zhivkov's speech: "I am glad to have the historic honour of opening the Buzludzha Memorial House, erected here to commemorate the feats of Dimitar Blagoev and his associates, who 90 years ago set the beginning of the revolutionary Marxist party in Bulgaria. May overgrowth never cover the paths leading to this legendary Buzludzha Peak in the Balkan Range, where the first Marxists came to take up the baton of pure love for the people from the National Revival activists!"

"The most solemn moment arrived. To the strains of 'Glory to Our Party' and the thunderous applause and chants of the thousands-strong crowd, Comrade Todor Zhivkov cut the ribbon and declared the Memorial House open. At that moment, 300 parachutes with red and tricolour flags attached to them were launched into the sky, symbolizing the blossoming of a huge bouquet of scarlet poppies.

Todor Zhivkov and the other party and State leaders toured the majestic monument."

"A materialized apotheosis of the party, the monument impresses with its exceptional ideological content, embodying its heroic path, strewn with battles. The monument reflects the power and grandeur of communist ideals."

"Years will fly by, but the Memorial House will stand tall forever on the rugged slopes of the Balkan Range, just as the lifework of the socialist apostles will live on forever".