Victims of Communism Monument to Be Built in Bulgaria Capital Sofia

The garden before the Sveti Sedmochislenitsi Church in Sofia will be the site of the Victims of Communism monument. Photo by picbg.net

A monument of the victims of communism is going to be erected in the Bulgarian capital after one of the competing projects was approved Monday.

The "Victims of Communism Regimes around the World" monument is an initiative of the Sofia Municipality. The Chief Architect of the Bulgarian capital, Petar Dikov, has announced that the project of the sculptor Valko Tsenov and architect Ivo Pantaleev had won the competition.

The monument is to be constructed in the garden before the Sveti Sedmochislenitsi Church in downtown Sofia. The spot is chosen because in the 20th century there used to be a political prison there.

"Bulgaria is the second EU state after Hungary to construct a monument of the victims of communism", said Vladimir Kisyov, a City Councilor from the UDF party, who chaired the Sofia City Council at the time the initiative was put forth.

"In Bulgaria, communism's crimes need to get greater publicity and to become known to the new generations because the fighting against communism is not just a fighting of words, it is a fighting of memory, and against forgetting", according to Vili Lilkov, City Councilor from the Democrats for Strong Bulgaria party.

The competition for the monument had to take place twice since no project was approved during its first edition in August 2008. 12 teams of Bulgarian sculptors and architects took part in the second edition in 2009.

 

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