Road Trip! Bulgarian Roadside Commie Kitsch

The title to this post makes me grin from ear to ear.  It is a microcosm of everything travel-related that I’m living for these days – road trips, Balkan destinations, and the stuff for which this site is named.  I think if a single post were to encapsulate the way I love to travel, it would be this one.  So with that, let’s dive headfirst into the wacky world of Bulgarian monuments.

The major draw to Bulgaria (and the whole Balkan region, to be honest) was the ability to visit Buzludzha (more to come on Buzludzha!), the showcase, now-abandoned, former meeting hall of the Bulgarian Communist Party.  As it is inaccessible without private transportation, we rented a car for the Bulgaria portion of our trip.  A rather unexpected side benefit to this was being able to pull over whenever and wherever (within reason, of course) that we wanted.

As it turns out, there are roadside relics of the Communist era all over Bulgaria.  Quelle fortune!

It seemed as though everywhere we went there was a random, totally wacky structure, monument, or sculpture – and our job was to spot them as we went on the most fun game of “Where’s Waldo” ever played.  

The  fun started in Belitsa, where we we had decided to venture on the first day of our trip instead of seeing Rila Monastery.  Upon entering Belitsa, we were first greeted by this…sign?

And then, less than a mile after, another similarly awesome mid-century modern (Communist chic, I like to say) sign.  Not sure which came first, but they were both awesome, and reaffirmed our theory that there was no fear of color in Communist Bulgaria.

We spent that first night in the town of Kalofer, at the base of the Central Balkan Mountains.  We got lost trying to find our guesthouse – which, by the way, if you’re ever in Kalofer, stay at the Chardaka Guest House and eat the best french toast and banitsa you’ve ever tasted – and stumbled upon a giant monolith shrouded in mist.  First, evidence of said legendary breakfast, and epic accommodations (which we had entirely to ourselves):

And second, fantastical monument, practically fluffing us before Buzludzha.  Sorry, too vulgar?

It is apparently a monument to Hristo Botev, local Bulgarian revolutionary hero.  We spent the morning wandering around it before hitting up the main event of the trip…Buzludzha, the Mecca of Bulgarian monuments.  I’m planning a dedicated post in the near future, but is a photo to whet your appetite.

We spent the night in Veliko Tarnovo that night before heading back to Sofia to return the car.  I had done some internet surfing and discovered the Pleven Panorama (check out this guy’s instagram for some other great brutal spots in the region), an awesome brutalist building built in 1977 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Siege of Pleven – a turning point in the Russo-Turkish War that ended with the expulsion of the Ottomans from Bulgaria.

Rad building:

Rad doggie we met there:

Then, to tie off the trip, was this awesome looking spiral thing sitting literally in the middle of an empty field.  We weren’t entering or leaving any given town.  It was just sitting in the middle of nowhere, waiting for a couple of genial homos to come take a few pictures.  We happily obliged.

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There is a great number of Bulgarian monuments we didn’t get to see due to lack of time.  The Bohemian Blog and Yomadic have documented many of them in their respective pages – when I go back to Bulgaria, first on my list is the Monument to 1,300 Years of Bulgaria in Shumen, the Soviet Bulgarian Friendship Monument in Varna, and the Samara Flag Monument in Stara Zagora.  Needless to say, Bulgaria has plenty of concrete to keep this Brutalist-obsessed traveler interested for future trips in years to come.