The mausoleum of former Chairman of the Council of Ministers and General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party Georgi Dimitrov was demolished 24 years ago today. One of the symbols of the totalitarian regime in Bulgaria was demolished after several failed attempts. The demolition operation began on August 21, 1999. The massive building did not collapse after the first two blasts and tilted only slightly after the third. The fourth (and successful) attempt was carried out using a series of consecutive, less powerful explosions.
According to the then Deputy Social Minister Teodor Dechev, who was in charge of the safety of the operation, it was difficult to demolish the building, because it was constructed as a bomb shelter.
The mausoleum was completed in just six days. Its construction started on July, 3, one day after Georgi Dimitrov’s death. The embalmed body of the communist leader was placed in the building. After the democratic changes in the country, on July 18, 1990, Georgi Dimitrov’s remains were removed from the mausoleum and cremated.
The Regional History Museum in Gabrovo displays a modest, rectangular piece of paper measuring 10 by 15 cm : the first Bulgarian banknote — a twenty-leva bill with the serial number 000001. It was printed on August 1, 1885, in St. Petersburg, and this..
Founding a Bulgarian Orthodox parish thousands of kilometers away from the homeland is no easy task, especially when the Bulgarian diaspora is scattered across vast distances. In Bulgaria we take for granted that every neighborhood in a large city has..
The Urvich Fortress continues to reveal its secrets from the time when Sofia was Roman Serdica. A triangular stone tower dating back to the end of the 2nd century was discovered by young archaeologists Dr. Filip Petrunov and..
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