The Bulgarian authorities began on December 12 the long-delayed dismantling of a monument of the Soviet army, seen as a symbolic step towards Sofia’s liberation from Russian influence.

The Soviet army monument, erected in 1954 during the communist era, commemorates the arrival of Soviet forces in the country at the end of World War II.

In September 1944, Soviet Union-backed communists took power in Bulgaria. Soviet troops entered the country and were involved in the murders and expulsions of thousands of people, including writers, journalists, middle-class Bulgarians and educated pro-Western people. Their property was seized and their relatives were either killed, sent to prison or displaced to villages and forced to live in poor and difficult conditions, often dying of hunger or lack of medical treatment.

The monument – one of the largest in Bulgaria’s capital – has thus been at the centre of a heated debate for years.

The all-day-long works that began in the early morning of December 12 gathered crowds, some of them objecting to the dismantling, but the majority celebrating and comparing it to the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989.

The works were ordered by the Sofia city authorities under the pretext there were cracks on the monument that risked collapsing and hurting people.

Defenders of the monument, all of them either members or supporters of the pro-Russian formations, blocked the road near the monument for a short period in protest against the monument’s removal. They were carrying Bulgarian and Russian flags.

The dismantling of the whole monument will take a month and the police will guard the site day and night to prevent clashes or risks to people’s health.

On December 12, the figures on the top of the monument were removed. They will be taken to the Museum of Socialist Art in Sofia.

“Any number and type of Christmas trees cannot please me as much as the cut hand with the [Russian automatic gun] Shpagin flying into nothingness. Better late than never,” Mariana, 49, said.

The hand carrying the gun, on the first figure dismantled late in the afternoon, was quickly spread on photos on social media with people celebrating the actual start of the removal of the Soviet army monument.

Valdes Radev, a famous Bulgarian cartoonist, published on his Facebook profile a collage showing a washing machine being removed from the monument, referring to numerous reports that Russian soldiers have been stealing home appliances in Ukraine and sending them home.

A decision on the removal of the monument, unofficially named Monument of the Occupational Red Army, was taken 30 years ago, in 1993. However, in the next three decades, no government or local authority took actual steps to demolish it despite several efforts by members of reformist pro-Western Democratic Bulgaria to put the issue on the agenda.

Its defenders say it is a recognition of Russian troops’ contribution to the end of the World War II and Bulgaria’s liberation from the Nazi-friendly regime, while their opponents say that soldiers from Ukraine, Poland and other countries in the region actually helped Bulgaria more.

An initial attempt by Democratic Bulgaria to request the removal of the monument from the centre of Sofia in 2020 failed. However, things changed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine radically altered the mood in the country.

Russia, as expected, responded angrily to the dismantling of the monument. Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman of Russia’s foreign ministry, said that Bulgaria took the wrong side of the history.

“Bulgaria again, as it has happened many times, is choosing the wrong side of the history. The country itself will have to pay the full consequences of this shameful decision,” she said.

“The barbaric actions of the Bulgarian side have no excuse and cannot be forgiven,” she also said.