site.btaSofia Mayor Proposes Acquisition of Soviet Army Monument Elements by Sofia Municipality Free of Charge

Sofia Mayor Vassil Terziev proposed that the Sofia Municipality acquire free of charge from the State the sculptural figures and bas-reliefs from the Monument to the Soviet Army, according to a report included in the agenda for the upcoming Sofia Municipal Council meeting on May 14.

The report concerns agreement for the transfer of management rights over a property – private state-owned, as well as ownership rights over movable assets stored there. The property in question is located in the Pancharevo District, the village of Lozen, and is currently managed by Sofia Regional Governor for the needs of the Sofia Municipality’s Emergency Assistance and Prevention Directorate. The site currently stores bronze figures from the Monument to the Soviet Army, including a Red Army soldier, a peasant woman, and a worker. 

The report notes that the Monument to the Soviet Army in its entirety also includes other compositional elements: two compositions – “Welcoming the Soviet Army,” the relief composition “The Patriotic War,” the relief composition “The Rear,” the relief composition “October 1917,” and “Wreaths of Glory,” which are located on a property on Evlogi and Hristo Georgiev Blvd. No. 99-A in Sofia.

With the aim of ensuring the lasting fulfilment of public needs of local significance, it is proposed that the Sofia Municipal Council approve the municipality’s free acquisition of all the above-described sculptural figures and bas-reliefs from the monument. After their acquisition, the Municipality intends to hold discussions and a public consultation on the appearance and location of the artistic ensemble as part of the city’s cultural memory. The total maximum book value of the assets is EUR 12,203,560.18, the report also states.

On December 12, 2023, the dismantling of parts of the Monument began. 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.