inferior connexions

odditiesoflife:

The Abandoned Monument

The once prized monument, located on Mount Buzludzha, is the biggest ideological building in Bulgaria. It was built as tribute to the creation of the Bulgarian socialist movement in 1981. The UFO-shaped structure served as the congregation hall for the new Bulgarian state. After the failure of the Bulgarian totalitarian state in 1989, the building was permanently closed.

Abandoned and derelict from neglect, the last 20 years have not been kind to the monument. Thoroughly vandalized, stripped of its mosaics and bronze ornaments and strewn with graffiti, the building still stands, awaiting to be returned to its former glory. In 2012 the Bulgarian cabinet transferred the property to the Bulgarian Socialist Party, which has shown little incentive to restore the monument.

awkwardsituationist:

98 year old dobri dobrev, a man who lost his hearing in the second world war, walks 10 kilometers from his village in his homemade clothes and leather shoes to the city of sofia, where he spends the day begging for money.

though a well known fixture around several of the city’s chruches, known for his prostrations of thanks to all donors, it was only recently discovered that he has donated every penny he has collected — over 40,000 euros — towards the restoration of decaying bulgarian monasteries and churches and the utility bills of orphanages, living instead off his monthly state pension of 80 euros.

(via left-at-interamna)