The most hated statue in Sofia, Bulgaria has been painted in the colors of the Ukrainian flag, in solidarity with the revolution and the deadly protests in the former Soviet Republic.
It is, essentially, a gigantic bronze relief to remind the Bulgarian people about an invading Soviet forces that crushed and “liberated” the country from its a reformist uprising 45 years ago. It was previously vandalized in June 2010 when the soldiers were painted as Superman, Ronald McDonald, Santa Claus and other capitalist/pop culture American icons, captioned below in graffiti: “In step with the times!”
It was vandalized again in August 2013, when it was sprayed entirely in hot pink and tagged with the words “Prague ’68” and “Bulgaria apologizes” in Czech and Bulgarian, as in, sorry about the Warsaw Pact, you know, that time Bulgarian troops aided the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
And of course, that time in August 2012 when it was briefly balaclava’ed in tribute to the jailed Russian feminist art-band activists of Pussy Riot.
(Lead image: AFP Photo/Nikolay Doychinov)
