site.btaLocal Referendum on Management of Buzludzha Monument Kazanlak Ends with 19% Voter Turnout

The voter turnout in a local referendum in Kazanlak, central Bulgaria on the management of the Buzludzha monument was 18.95%, Kazanlak Municipal Election Commission Chair Zdravko Balevski told BTA. A successful referendum requires 40% voter turnout.

The Buzludzha monument, a former Memorial House of the Bulgarian Communist Party, known to many as "the saucer ", is a private state property and is managed by the district administration in Stara Zagora. In 2021, it was declared a cultural monument of national importance by the Ministry of Culture.

The reason for initiating the referendum was that the Municipality of Kazanlak prepared a project for the conservation of the monument, part of the Integrated Territorial Investments, that has been approved for financing. A requirement for the implementation of the project is that the Kazanlak Municipality manages the monument, which can be done at the request of the mayor and without other procedures. Additional funding from the municipal budget will not be required, as European funding will be sufficient, explained Kazanlak Municipality Mayor Galina Stoyanova.

Access to the interior of the monument is currently prohibited after being declared dangerous in 2023. The project of the Municipality of Kazanlak envisages emergency repair works, repair of the roof, closing of the windows from the outer circle, restoration of the electrical and plumbing installations. The goal is to consolidate the monument and open it for visitors, and then to continue the work of turning it into a profitable tourist site.

"Even if the local referendum in Kazanlak is unsuccessful, we will continue to insist that the state find a solution for the future of the Buzludzha monument," said Stoyanova. She argued that after the local referendum in Kazanlak, regardless of the result, a national poll should be held about Buzludzha, because it is not just a monument of the past, it has a very high value, both cultural and architectural, recognized internationally. 

Even in the case of an unsuccessful referendum, if the majority of voters said yes, the Municipal Council in Kazanlak has the right to make its own decision to oblige the mayor to request the management of the monument from the regional governor, explained its chair Nikolay Zlatanov. Stoyanova also commented on this possibility, saying that this is entirely up to the 37 municipal councilors. 

A total of 62,000 people had the right to vote in Kazanlak on Sunday. Of these, slightly less than 11,700 people cast their vote.

During the information campaign for the referendum, the Mayor called on the residents of Kazanlak to exercise their right to vote and decide whether they want to tell their children how they became complicit in the monument's destruction, or how they preserved it for future generations.