Tourism in Bulgaria

although some of country's dark sites tend to be easily positioned in or near the capital town Sofia, others are somewhat more difficult to gain access to. But you can find specialized tours readily available that make it an easy task to see all (or many) of them in one comprehensive swoop.

- Sofia (with armed forces museum and Monument 1300 Years of Bulgaria)

- sponsored page: Communism Tours of Bulgaria

A Slavic country in Eastern Europe, more exactly the south-eastern Balkans, Bulgaria has had a lengthy, eventful record. For a five century chunk of it, however, it ended up being ruled by suppression and career by the Ottoman empire. The liberation from Turkey in 1875-78 thus plays the most prominent part in Bulgarian record appraisal. This saw increased impact of Russia (it had been the Russian Army that were instrumental in defeating the Turks).Also since the belated 19th century, a socialist activity formed in Bulgaria – though it had beenn't before the end of WWII that it actually became a socialist republic. Before that, Bulgaria had the talent of always siding because of the "wrong" allies at various other end of the governmental range, beaten within the Balkan wars of 1912-1913 and the following First World War, it became a militarized dictatorship under Tsar Boris III, and, again, sided using the extremely worst "baddies", particularly the Axis powers, in other words. Italy's and Germany's fascists/Nazis in WWII, though it at least largely resisted getting involved in the Holocaust or even the violence against the Soviet Union.With the death of the Tsar and the impending beat in WWII, the socialists thought energy plus the post-war origins of this Cold War period Bulgaria became the Eastern Bloc country many aligned using its masters, the Soviet Union – so much so actually it was sometimes also known as "the 16th republic" regarding the USSR.The rule regarding the very first foremost frontrunner of Bulgaria's communists, Georgi Dimitrov, a dyed-in-the-wool Stalinist, didn't final that long – his sudden demise in 1949 in Moscow spurred suspicions which he might even happen poisoned. Like in payment he was provided an enormous mausoleum in Sofia in which he stayed lying in condition, embalmed like Lenin, until 1990 (when he was eliminated additionally the mausoleum later on demolished).After Stalin's death in 1954, Todor Zhivkov became Bulgaria's communist frontrunner – and though his reign had been combined with the typical nepotism, an all-pervading condition security system and basic governmental repression that includes constantly characterized these types of regimes, he was compared a fairly "benign" dictator (he additionally don't have the prerequisite "fierce" strongman looks, unlike, state, Tito, but appeared more "harmless" over-all).

Amongst their credits had been the closure of camps for political prisoners (esp. the absolute most infamous one located on the Danube island of Belene), and his leading Bulgaria to remarkable financial security, although that by itself greatly relied on Soviet support. However, he tarnished their reputation later inside the profession, into the 1980s, during a positively racist promotion of "Bulgarization". This was directed primarily from the country's huge Turkish minority, who have been obligated to change their names, while Islamic tradition and thinking had been heavily suppressed generally speaking, prompting many Turks to go out of to nation completely.