site.btaUPDATED August 26, 1990: Communist Party House Arson Motives Veiled in Mystery to This Day

August 26, 2025, marks 35 years since one of the most emblematic events in Bulgaria’s post-communist history: the arson of the Party House in Sofia, which at that time housed the headquarters of the Socialist (ex-Communist). The fire started after Plamen Stanchev, a member of the Civil Discontent Initiative movement, warned that he would set himself on fire if the five-pointed star, which he considered a symbol of a foreign country, was not removed from the Party House spire. At 8:40 p.m., Podkrepa Confederation of Labour President Konstantin Trenchev warned that the building would be stormed unless the star was removed within an hour. At 11:00 p.m., almost the entire building was already on fire. Radio Sofia broadcast an appeal by President Zhelyu Zhelev to all political forces to refrain from violence. The fire was finally extinguished at 3:18 a.m on August 27. Forty rooms were completely burned down. Property in 94 rooms was destroyed and looted. There were no casualties. At 5:30 a.m., law enforcement officers dismantled the City of Truth, which had been set up in the square between the Party House and the President’s Administration after citizen protests began in the summer of 1990.

In 1991, a criminal investigation into the arson concluded that the arson and devastation had been carried out "spontaneously and in an unorganized manner by excited extremists." The court returned the case four times. Thirty-eight people were charged, including Trenchev. The indictment estimated the damage inflicted to property at BGL 7,947,963. On March 14, 1994, the Sofia City Court dropped the Party house arson case and returned it to the Sofia City Prosecution Office for further investigation. On August 23, 1996, the investigation into the arson was conclusively terminated.

The Party House that once accommodated the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party and, later on, the Supreme Council of its successor Socialist Party, was built between 1948 and 1955 after the designs of a team of architects led by Petso Zlatev. One of Sofia’s prominent landmarks, with its colonnaded neoclassical façade, it occupies 40,000 square metres of total floor area and stands at the intersection of three squares and two major boulevards at the very centre of the capital city, next door to the buildings of the President’s Administration and the Council of Ministers. The massive red star that once topped the building’s spire was removed in October 1990 and is now at the Museum of Socialist Art. It has been replaced by the Bulgarian national flag.

Having used the Party House premises for its standing committees and MPs’ offices and part of its administration since 1992, the National Assembly moved its plenary sittings to the reconstructed building as well in September 2023.

Following is an excerpt of the BTA Home News Bulletin coverage of the dramatic events in the centre of Sofia on the night of August 26 to 27:

"Bulgarian Socialist Party HQ Building Set Ablaze

Sofia, August 27, 1990 (BTA) Several hundred extremely agitated citizens attacked the building of the Supreme Council of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (the Party House) in the centre of Sofia last night, smashed the first-floor windows, broke down the doors, and set it on fire, which quickly engulfed the entire building. The attackers threw furniture and documents out of the windows and set them on fire in the square. Some of them carried legs of ham and sausages out of the building and claimed that it was full of other scarce goods.

Militsiya [police] cordoning off the building did not intervene. For two hours the crowd that had gathered in the square would not allow the fire trucks and special militia units to approach the site.

Militsiya officers explained to citizens that they "had no orders to intervene" and were waiting for the President's orders.

Both members of the public, who had talked to the law enforcers, and BTA reporters were perplexed by their inaction.

Meanwhile, Vice President Atanas Semerdzhiev appeared in the square in front of the Party House. He called for calm but found himself mobbed by several thousand people shouting, "Down with the Communist Party!" He was pushed and beaten. It was later revealed that he had kidney colic. An hour later, General Semerdzhiev reappeared alone in the square and explained to angry citizens and reporters that he had ordered the police to refrain from extreme measures.

At that time, the flames spread to the entire Party House building, as well as to neighbouring buildings, also owned by the Supreme Council of the Bulgarian Socialist Party. Several hours after the fire started, firefighters began attempts to extinguish it. But flames and smoke were already coming out of the upper floors and the roof of the eight-story building.

Several people, injured by glass splinters from the fire and objects falling from the building, were treated at the Pirogov Emergency Hospital."