thousand-yard-stare by Bureau of Exploration

This is the first of a few locations I got a chance to explore while going on a trip through Eastern Europe. Sitting atop a hill in Varna, Bulgaria is the Monument of the Bulgarian-Soviet Friendship:


megalith by Bureau of Exploration

It was built in the 1970's to commemorate unity between Bulgaria and Russia, and has been left to decay since the fall of the USSR. Stony figures, soldiers to represent the USSR and peasants to represent Bulgaria, stare out from the facade at the Black Sea.


this is what friendship looks like by Bureau of Exploration


marchers by Bureau of Exploration


monument no.1 by Bureau of Exploration

I was walking on the beach when I glanced up and saw the monument looming overhead. I ran up to check it out and was thrilled to find it has an interior, and better yet an accessible one!


monument no.2 by Bureau of Exploration


monument no.3 by Bureau of Exploration


sun, air, and water by Bureau of Exploration

Later on I showed this picture to a friend who can read Bulgarian and he said it looked like a poem, reading something like “The Soviet Union and Bulgaria are as important to each other as the sun, air, and water are to a living thing”.


atrium by Bureau of Exploration


star chapel by Bureau of Exploration


concrete mirror house by Bureau of Exploration

The stairs lead to a central atrium, with many hallways and stairways branching off into mazes of little rooms, like the one with the giant star carved into the wall. The whole place has an off-kilter, unsteady atmosphere. Something with the layout and design feels just a little bit *off* – the surfaces in the building never quite align perfectly, the walls and ceilings are all angled, the windows and stairs appear in unexpected places. The building teases at symmetry and then gives you asymmetry, creating a sort of uncanny valley effect of geometry.


monument no.5 by Bureau of Exploration



monument no.6 by Bureau of Exploration


monument no.7 by Bureau of Exploration


black sea by Bureau of Exploration

After looking out from the rooftop, I go explore the interior some more. Even though I'm in there for a long time, it still seems like a maze and it feels like I'm stumbling into new chambers. Eventually I realize that the building feels much, much bigger on the inside than on the outside. Either it hides its size very well on the outside or it’s the concrete, communist version of House of Leaves.


reverie of concrete by Bureau of Exploration

Crazy cool.

If this was the North East, there wouldn't be one inch that wasn't covered in graffiti.

Hope you'll share more of your trip!

Holy cow, what a great set!! Thank you for finding and sharing this.

I always love seeing the old Cold War era Soviet ruins, and we never see too many of them over here- especially a location as unique and cool as this one. Great work!

Incredible, what a great explore! These are some awesome shots! Спасибо 😃 (thank you!)

Wow that place is cool! After seeing the first picture the second one had me kinda freaked out. The place looks enormous from the bottom of those stairs. Indeed that does look like quite an odd building in terms of interior architecture. I hate that feeling.

Posted by randomesquephoto Crazy cool. If this was the North East, there wouldn't be one inch that wasn't covered in graffiti. Hope you'll share more of your trip!

Thanks! That stood out to me too, it's crazy since there's a ton of open spaces that look like they'd be great to graffiti, but a lot of it is practically untouched. I'm really happy nobody's graffiti'd the front of it especially, it's cool to see it sort of like how it looked when it was built. Will definitely share some more places from my trip soon!

Post by Alpine7840 Holy cow, what a great set!! Thank you for finding and sharing this.

Thank you!

Post by Aran I always love seeing the old Cold War era Soviet ruins, and we never see too many of them over here- especially a location as unique and cool as this one. Great work!

Thanks! The old Soviet ruins are definitely my favorite places to explore. I wish we had more really weird abandoned places like this back in the US!

Post by Cfourexplore Incredible, what a great explore! These are some awesome shots! Спасибо 😃 (thank you!)

Thank you !

Post by ryanpics Wow that place is cool! After seeing the first picture the second one had me kinda freaked out. The place looks enormous from the bottom of those stairs. Indeed that does look like quite an odd building in terms of interior architecture. I hate that feeling.

Thank you! It's honestly so massive, it towers over that part of town. It's got a really big foundation too with more rooms and apparently an entire underground bunker area which sadly I didn't get a chance to explore, it's a huge complex. Definitely a weird interior- it was super cool to explore but I think it would begin to weird me out if I was in there for a long time.