site.btaOctober 26, 1989: The Kristal Cafe Protest - Small Pebble Triggering Avalanche of Political Change in Bulgaria

Massive anti-government demonstrations in Sofia and other cities and visible signs of social unrest are the most frequently mentioned domestic factors contributing to Todor Zhivkov's ouster as Bulgaria's Communist ruler on November 10, 1989, a day after the fall of the Berlin Wall. One event that precipitated the bloodless and somewhat slow Bulgarian transition from totalitarianism to democracy was a gathering of some 50 environmental activists in a little square outside the Kristal Cafe in central Sofia on October 26, 1989, to protest against two major hydro-power projects. The protesters were dispersed and beaten up by police.

The protest took place in a rather favourable context, as in October Sofia was hosting an important international environment forum of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. This could make the anti-government effort visible - and minimize risks that the regime would react violently.

Informal EcoGlasnost activists organized a sign-in for a petition to Parliament against the two hydro power cascade projects that, they argued, might inflict major environmental damage. Between October 14 to 26, over 7,000 signatures were gathered on the petition that called for an environmental impact assessment and public debate on the projects.

The activists organized the initiative in the small space in front of the Kristal cafe that was a venue for exhibitions and a popular hangout for Sofia artists and cultural figures.

Protests against air pollution in Ruse from a Romanian industrial facility across the Danube some two years earlier showed that the public was already highly sensitive to environmental issues. Besides, environmental protests offered a rallying point for people troubled by energy shortages and the ethnic Turks' forced assimilation, or simply such who felt that Bulgaria needed political change.

Declassified documents show that the authorities got wind of the planned protest against the hydro power projects. As several dozen environmental activists started gathering at Kristal on October 26, the police were there to disperse them.

Accounts of what happened are conflicting.

Interior Minister Georgi Tanev said in 1989: "A group of people demonstrated insubordination towards a Sofia City Council decree. Six citizens were bussed to the South Park so as to be able to proceed with the event they had planned at the place allocated for that. It was reported to me that physical force had been used as the said persons resisted police orders to get on the bus. Alexander Karakachanov lay on the ground, and another EcoGlasnost activist, Deyan Kiuranov, attempted to hit his head on the bus side. This attempt was prevented by a policeman".

Kiuranov, now a prominent political scientist, recalled 30 years later: "They beat us up - not particularly badly, it could have been worse for sure. I remember when we were thrown into the bus, Sasho Karakachanov shouted: 'Don't hit the women!' For he had seen [environmental activist] Nikolina Nikolova being hit. […] I was sprawled on the floor of the bus; there were cops sitting inside, some of them uniformed, some plainclothes, and they hurled me on top of Krasi Kanev […] I suppose they knew there was an Ecoforum taking place in Sofia, and we were somehow associated with it, being an EcoGlasnost movement, so their initial idea had been not to beat us up too much…"

From today's perspective, the clash between protesters and police might appear trivial. The present generation could hardly realize what was so special about it - or why Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika ideas are considered "ground-breaking", and what made around 300,000 Bulgarian Turks emigrate en masse in the summer of 1989.

But in the late 1980s, when any opposition to the regime posed serious risks of repression and people were still unaware of the imminent collapse of communism, the Kristal protest was a major show of defiance. 

Thus, when on November 3, 1989 close to 7,000 protesters marched on the National Assembly to submit the petition against the hydro power projects, already bearing almost 12,000 signatures, the act proved to be symbolic. The crowd chanted "Democracy!", and this was not just a slogan: they demonstrated that people were aware of the essentially anti-democratic character of their society.

Political scientists remain divided about the nature of the Bulgarian dissident movement, its evolution and ideology, environmental objectives and their role in opposing the regime.

The protest movement leaders followed different paths in the years to come: some became MPs, others party leaders, opinion makers, ambassadors, etc.

But the event helped shift the perspective and scale of developments that followed. On December 7, 1989, thirteen opposition groups founded the Union of Democratic Forces as their umbrella organization. A Round Table, based on the Polish political model, was set up on January 3, 1990, as a negotiating platform of the transition for the opposition and the long-ruling Communist Party. Ensuing changes affected virtually all aspects of political life. At its 14th Extraordinary Congress (January 30 - February 2, 1990), the Bulgarian Communist Party adopted a Manifesto of Democratic Socialism, accepting the social democratic alternative to the Soviet model of socialism. Even the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union, which had for decades been toeing the Communist Party line, turned into an independent and active political entity.

The Kristal protest was the small pebble that triggered an avalanche of political change.