Typologically resting between an Olympic stadium, some sci-fi gun emplacement and a socialist shrine, Buzludzha Monument straddles Bulgaria's highest peak, the eponymous Бузлуджа (Buzludja) in commemoration of a gathering of socialists there in 1891. This gathering went on to define Bulgarian socialism by unifying them under the influential Dimitar Blagoev as the Bulgarian Socialist Democratic Party.
During its time in the Eastern Bloc under the rule of the Bulgarian Communist Party, Bulgaria remained relatively independent, experiencing Stalinism only at a distance and enacting free-market economic reforms in the early 60's, roughly the same time that Russia was quietly dropping it's own advance with linear programming in the centralised economy.
Anyway, Timothy Allen has logged his trek through snowstorms up the 12km road leading to the monument from the nearest village and documented it with some stunning photos. There's something tragically romantic about Soviet ruins that I just adore and it does seem to be one of those things that I just keep coming back to. They literally represent the collapse of the world's greatest socio-economic experiment I suppose.
