We make a second visit to Buzludzha. The weather is much brighter this time, which means there is more light inside the building too. Amongst the debris on the floor I find yet another fragment of a record. B remembers that a lot of official ceremonies took place here. Today there is enough time to film the dome and also to explore further. The flying saucer shape encloses the domed hall within an inner circle which contains an amphitheatre. Above the tiers there is a platform around which are mosaics. This mosaic wall is pierced by two exits which lead to an enclosed terrace between the dome and the outer shell of the building which apparently used to have regularly spaced windows. |
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Now glass, bits of masonry, fallen mosaic squares of many colours and wind-blown leaves crunch underfoot, though how they got so high is a mystery. Swallows allow themselves to be lifted on the wind flowing up the outside wall before darting in through one opening and out another to be buffeted by the wind again. The outer wall of the domed hall is also covered in mosaics.
After we have spent a couple of hours in the building we continue on, following the main road over the Shipka Pass. B asks the way at one of the small souvenir shops clustered around the next junction. Apparently the shopkeeper says simply, down the hill, and we set off in the direction the car is pointed. After a while we discover we are heading in the wrong direction, towards Gabrovo, not Shipka and, despite the fact that it is outside EVN territory, we decide to go there anyway.
From this direction it is a long, drawn-out kind of town with a lot of dilapidated factories. Works cottages were attached to the one I investigate. They are still occupied, washing hanging on the lines, but the production halls are empty of machines and all forms of productive activity. |
