Fragments of decaying beauty

Sofia the capital of Bulgaria is a city caught up in the craziness of the fast expanding and growing. Most of the neighborhoods are over-populated, over built-up - new living blocks spring up each month - simply put the city is getting out of breath. The quarters in the central part of Sofia are the most attractive and interesting both for the young generation and the constantly growing number of tourists. But these quarters are cramped up with people, suffer air polution, excessive number of cars choking up the streets. These parts of the city are rich with history, full emblematic buildings that are beautiful examples of architecture from the early 1900s. A lot of them are monuments of our cultural heritage, few are renovated but huge amount of these amazing architectural examples are left to the mercy of fate. But usually their owners are just waiting for them to collapse so they could built modern and attractive new places. Sadly, the coming of communism in Bulgaria led to dramatic and bloody changes in the country. Important long-term effect was, amid the elimination of “fascists”, the elimination of Bulgaria’s intelligentsia, with crippling effects for decades to come. This was aggravated by the fact that communist political interference in academic life saw the appointments of sub-standard “professors”, customarily on the basis of their “working class” pedigrees, political reliability and willingness, in many cases, to collaborate with State Security. This also led to destroying and cutting off the wave of foreign architects shaping the face of our capital. The old Jewish quarter in the center of Bulgaria’s capital Sofia used to be one of the most beautiful places in the city. The houses used to be an example of an exquisite architecture, with beautiful ornaments and decorations. Many of the locals left for Israel long time ago and that is how a number of houses were abandoned. The quarter now has a potential to revive its past and develop as Sofia’s artistic quarter. But as usually happens the developing of a neighborhood might lead to the destroying of its architectural heritage. Because restoring and preserving these examples of architecture is usually slow and extremely expensive.