On a Remote Mountain, the ‘Sistine Chapel of Socialism’ Awaits Its Fate (Published 2022)
An enormous monument to the Communist Party in Bulgaria is now a decrepit ruin. The country is wrestling with how to deal with a symbol of an unwanted and, in many ways, deeply ugly past.
That struggle is celebrated in the mountaintop memorial complex with mosaics commemorating the partisans’ seizure of power in 1944 and the arrival of the Soviet Red Army at the end of the war. Most of the Soviet army mosaic disappeared years ago, apparently stolen by thieves. The partisans are still there, but without eyes — they were gouged out in what Mr. Haralampiev, the conservationist, described as “political vandalism.”