Protestors gathered in the central Bulgarian city of Plovdiv on January 17 after news emerged of local politicians seeking to dismantle a hilltop monument to the Soviet Red Army known as "Alyosha."
On January 15 Plovdiv's mayor Kostadin Dimitrov told local reporters the city administration would "assess the economic impact" of removing the granite monument. But Dimitrov emphasized such a demolition was not a priority of the local government. "We will not be a divider of society," the mayor said. "We are motivated to build first before we destroy."
The Alyosha monument seen in 1978
The communist-era landmark, known formally as the Monument to the Soviet Army in Plovdiv, tops one of several prominent hills that rise above the center of the city. The stone soldier was erected in 1957 above a plate engraved with the message, "Glory to the invincible Soviet Army of liberation." Alyosha was modeled on a Russian Red Army soldier named Aleksey Skurlatov who served in Bulgaria during World War II and died in 2013.
In early January, Plovdiv councillors from the PP-DP coalition party proposed removing the monument by the end of 2024, describing it as "not part of the cultural tradition and collective memory of Plovdiv, especially if we compare it with the monuments of notable Bulgarian national heroes who participated in national liberation struggles in the 19th and 20th centuries." The populist There is Such a People party has since called for a public referendum on the matter.
Alyosha's monument photographed at sunrise in 2022
Monuments of "gratitude" to the Soviet military have long been controversial in Bulgaria. The Balkan country has a history of military alliance with tsarist Russia, but after Soviet troops marched into Bulgaria unopposed during World War II Bulgarians endured nearly half a century of a Soviet-backed regime that executed thousands of people and sent political opponents to forced labor camps.
In December, Sofia's most prominent Soviet monument began being cut down and remains partly dismantled today.
A 1993 engineering sketch showing how the Red Army monument could be removed from its hilltop position.
Efforts to remove Plovdiv's Alyosha monument have been debated repeatedly since the 1990s. At one point groups of volunteers began guarding the granite statue around the clock.
Russia's State Duma on January 16 condemned talk of dismantling the monument, calling the idea part of a "barbaric war unleashed in the West against the monuments of the Soviet era."