site.btaUPDATED Citizens Protest in Plovdiv against Proposed Relocation of Alyosha Monument

Citizens staged a protest in front of the Municipal Council building here on Wednesday against a proposal to relocate the local Soviet Army Monument, popularly known as Alyosha. The proposal to dismantle the monument and move it to Sofia' Museum of Socialist Art by the end of 2024 came from municipal councilors Vladimir Slavenski and Yono Chepilski of Democrats for Strong Bulgaria, which is part of the Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria Group.

According to the councilors, the removal of the Alyosha Monument from the top of the 272 m high Bunardzhik Hill (the second highest of six hills overlooking the city) is a moral act aimed at honouring Bulgarian history, national dignity and the victims of the totalitarian communist regime. The motion, entered last week, met with ambivalent reactions in the Municipal Council. The There Is Such a People Group moved for a local referendum on the monument's future. Both motions are yet to be debated by the Municipal Council.

The relocation motion was not on the agenda of the Municipal Council sitting on Wednesday. The Council's Legal Affairs Committee has asked the local authority to provide a clear estimate of the costs of the dismantling and of conduct of the referendum.

The protesters were holding signs reading "Those who have built nothing are destroying everything" and "You can't protect history with a referendum". They said they were ready to form a human chain around the monument if it is decided to remove it. 

BSP for Bulgaria MPs Kristian Vigenin, Georgi Svilenski, Manol Genov, Ivan Petkov, and Ivan Chenchev supported the protest. Chenchev told reporters that the monument should remain where it is. "Every monument should be respected and find its worthy place in history," he argued. In his words, history should not be rewritten, and those who claim to be free-thinking in Bulgaria are waging a war on memory and monuments.

The Alyosha Monument is a 10.5-metre reinforced-concrete statue on top of a 6-metre-high pedestal, both lined with granite. It went under construction in 1954 and was unveiled on November 5, 1957 as a tie-in with the 40th anniversary of the October 1917 Revolution. It was designed by architects Boris Markov, Petar Tsvetkov and Nikolay Marangozov and sculptors Vasil Radoslavov, Georgi Kotsev, Ivan Topalov, Dimitar Kanchev and Aleksandar Zankov and was crafted by stone masons Sasho Spasov, Valcho Kadiiski and Grigor Mihov. The statue depicts a Soviet soldier holding a Shpagin submachine gun with the barrel pointing down. The prototype of the sculpture was  Aleksei (Alyosha for short in Russian) Ivanovich Skurlatov, a Russian soldier of the 3rd Ukrainian Front. An inscription on the pedestal below a five-pointed star reads "Glory to the Invincible Soviet Army Liberator".

The monument inspired a song titled Alyosha, written by Soviet composer Konstantin Vanshenkin and poet Eduard Kolmanovsky, which was used as Plovdiv's official anthem until 1989.