Dissident Bulgarian Writer Georgi Markov Monument Planned in Sofia

Georgi Markov was murdered with a ricin-coated pellet, fired from an adapted pen; an umbrella was dropped nearby to distract him. File photo

Bulgarian dissident writer and playwright Georgi Markov, whose mysterious death in 1978 sparked much controversy throughout Europe, will have a monument in his honor in Sofia.

The statue will be erected on "Journalist" square in Sofia, where Markov was born and lived before fleeing to the West in 1969.

A vast number of Bulgarian intellectuals and politicians have expressed their commitment or approval of the initiative, with writers Mihail Veshim and Marko Ganchev, actor Filip Trifonov, President (1990-1997) Zhelyu Zhelev and MEP Nadezhda Neynski among them, Cross news agency has informed.

The notorious "umbrella murder" of the dissident writer Georgi Markov is still classified as one of the unsolved riddles of the Cold War.

On September 7, 1978, Georgi Markov was walking to a bus stop to go to work at the BBC. Once he reached the Waterloo Bridge over the Thames River, he felt a sudden pain, similar to an insect bite, at the back of his left leg. He looked back and saw a man, picking an umbrella from the ground, crossing the street in a hurry, and catching a cab.

Markov was actually murdered with a ricin-coated pellet, fired from an adapted pen; the umbrella was dropped nearby to distract him.

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