Superman Invades Sofia!

[Ben Kenobi]

I'm actually rather surprised that you've kept the Russian monuments. Russia did nothing for the prosperity of Bulgaria.

[The Mad Monk]

Budapest (or, rather, Buda and Pest) is rather famous for its park.

[regexcellent]

Ебаные пидорасы.

Пидорасы.

Reported for homophobic slurs.

Early this year, unknown artists painted another monument to Soviet troops in Sofia in the colors of the Ukrainian flag.

Makes sense. Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union too, and suffered far worse than Russia did. There's no way this could be construed as offensive. In fact, it should be painted in Ukrainian colors permanently.

[Serb]

Your brain is an offense to humankind.

[Serb]

I have never even for a second interpreted this as mocking of the fallen soldiers. (btw as far as I know there were no fallen Russian soldiers in Bulgaria during WW2. there was no fighting here)

How about Russian soldiers fallen in the Russo-Turkish war for Bulgarian independence? Are there any monuments dedicated to them still exist in Bulgaria?

[Dinner]

Around here people do the samething to statues putting clothes on them and dressing them up as all sorts of different things. Serb shouldn't take it so personally.

[Dinner]

BTW I remember watching a BBC clip on Bulgaria becoming one of the new "it" places in Europe with many locals and many expatriots from all over Europe setting up new shops, opening new wineries, tourists flooding in for the beach resorts, local property developers making money hand over fist building small little cottages which they well to western Europeans who want to retire some where warm and sunny. Supposedly property values are still a bargain and the country is modernizing quickly. 15 years ago this same sort of stuff happened in Croatia and Slovenia and now those places are far more developed and better off than they were under the old communist system.

[Sir Og]

How about Russian soldiers fallen in the Russo-Turkish war for Bulgarian independence? Are there any monuments dedicated to them still exist in Bulgaria?

Of course they are all still standing. The old monuments are associated with us gaining independance from the Ottoman Empire. That war is the reason why Russia is loved by so many people. The monument of tsar Alexander II is right across the street from the Parliament.

I don't know if that monument was ever vandalised in some way. As far as I know it wasn't.

The new ones (for WW2) don't make as much sense since there were no actual fallen soldiers in Bulgaria and we were not exactly liberated from anything but there are plenty of monuments. Including this big one in Plovdiv.


Here it is with a big red cape. This is a real cape not photoshoped.

[Bereta_Eder]

The last one doesn't seem to be offensive. It does look like an artistic intervention.
I try to imagine some of the protagonists of the liberation struggle from the ottoman empire statues dressed with capes.
I don't think it would be offensive to them if done properly. More like funny in a kind of way. Even "honoring" in a way

If done to shame though (like throwing paint on them) then it could be offensive to some, not that it ever happened.(barring self proclaimed anarchists of course where nothing is safe from their all encompassing black spray. They painted a huge (A) sign underneath king constantine's statue (the recent one) and the way he was glowing with pride up there on his horse, you'd imagine he was bakunin's avant guarde).

[Bereta_Eder]

Budapest (or, rather, Buda and Pest) is rather famous for its park.

That's interesting.
There seems to be a corelation between one country's general stance on such figures and its preponderance for the extreme far right.
Hungary's present gov is considered borderline extreme on the right side.

[regexcellent]

Why does Russia insist that every country east of Germany maintain statues of their rapists? I'm not aware of any other country that does this.

[Bereta_Eder]

I don't think they can "insist".
Lithuania for example completely eradicated those monuments.
If the general population accepts them, then they stay. If not, then they go.

If they stay though, then maybe protecting them could be asked by the country they have some relation with.
There are statues and monuments about the people of jewish religion in Thessaloniki.
If someone vandalized them and Israel came out and complained, I wouldn't say it is "intervening". It is a very just thing to do.

[The Mad Monk]

That's interesting.
There seems to be a corelation between one country's general stance on such figures and its preponderance for the extreme far right.
Hungary's present gov is considered borderline extreme on the right side.

I especially like the monument to Stalin's boots.



I applaud Hungary's ingenuity in creating the park. The artworks are preserved and protected from vandalism, the people's attitude towards the propaganda is made clear, and it's a huge tourism draw.

[Bereta_Eder]

That's funny

And understandable.

However, the problem starts if some people view these things in a manichaeistic manner where Soviet Union=Existed Communism (ok this is not far from the truth) and anti Soviet Union=nazism/extreme nationalism (and that's very far from the truth).

[regexcellent]

that's fantastic.

I don't think they can "insist".
Lithuania for example completely eradicated those monuments.
If the general population accepts them, then they stay. If not, then they go.

If they stay though, then maybe protecting them could be asked by the country they have some relation with.
There are statues and monuments about the people of jewish religion in Thessaloniki.
If someone vandalized them and Israel came out and complained, I wouldn't say it is "intervening". It is a very just thing to do.

It's a trollpost; Britain has a similar thing with the commonwealth war graves (although there is a difference between graves and statues)