site.btaCouncil of Ministers Funds Security, Scaffolding for Dismantled Monument to Soviet Army

The Council of Ministers allocated additional expenditures for 2026 under its own budget that will cover the Sofia regional administration's activities of providing security for the dismantled bronze figures and bas-reliefs from the Monument to the Soviet Army, including the rental of scaffolding and a fence to secure the monument in the amount of EUR 270,000, the Government Information Service announced on Tuesday.

On December 12, 2023, the dismantling of some of the figures started. The figures on top of the main structure were removed by December 19. Since then, the monument and the area in its vicinity has been fenced off.

The monument was built in 1954 in a large park in central Sofia, called the Knyazheska Garden. It portrays a soldier from the Soviet Army as a freedom fighter, surrounded by a Bulgarian woman, holding her baby, and a Bulgarian man. There are other, secondary sculptural composition parts of the memorial complex around the main monument. The park is a popular place where many young people gather.

The Monument to the Soviet Army in Sofia is the most impressive of several dozen such structures scattered throughout the country and one of over 4,000 memorials to the USSR's drive against Hitler's Germany in WW II across Europe. For long years, there has been talk of taking it down and moving it out of the city centre but the issue has turned out to be too sensitive for some people and political parties in Bulgaria, and the project too divisive for society.