An intrepid photographer named Timothy Allen recently ventured into the abandoned remains of Buzludzha in Bulgaria, an enormous building designed to be a glorious monument to the success of communism. Like Communism, this too did pass. You should read his full account of his discovery here (and all images are credited to him, and there are MANY many more).
In better days, Buzludzha resembled something created by aliens rather than man:
And now, this is all that remains, the perfect evil lair for a Bond film:
Even indoors, the whole experience seems more evocative of the intergalactic than the earthly communistic:
Time did its work, however, changing this:
Into this:
(I do love it, it's all my time travel fantasies come true, the sort that feature in all my favorite classic Doctor Who episodes. But I digress).
Buzludzha remains abandoned due to ideological issues. The Bulgarian Socialist Party have taken control of the building, but haven't found a use for it (there's little point in pretending that a sidelined party has the right (or the money) to make such an extravagant statement as restoring the building).
And so it stands, derelict, a concrete reminder of a very peculiar point in human history, when a sort of madness overtook central Europe for the better part of a century. What will future generations think of such a useless monument, built to an enormous scale despite a total lack of proximity to human beings?
Go forth to Timothy Allen's original post, and make sure and read through the comments thread.
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