Russia Angered By Bulgarians Replacing Soviet Monuments with American Superheroes

Moscow is calling upon the government of Bulgaria to prevent the vandalism of Soviet-era monuments, ITAR-Tass reports.

Soviet monument turned into American superheroes (Credit: Ignat Ignev/Wikicommons)

Bulgaria’s Russian diplomatic outpost sent a note to its host country demanding officials fix the vandalized monument in Sofia’s Lozenets district, and prosecute those responsible for the street art. The embassy implored Bulgarian officials to take “exhaustive measures” to police the area surrounding the monument.

Bulgarian Soviet-era monuments have been vandalized on multiple occasions over the past year.

In August of 2013, artists painted the same Soviet military monument in pink as an “artistic apology” for Bulgaria support of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, The Moscow Times reported.

A few months ago, street artists again painted the monument to the Soviet army, and replaced its colors with those of the flag of Ukraine.

Due to recent tensions with Moscow, Ukraine has recently seen many Soviet-era statues of Vladimir Lenin torn down.

Bulgaria– although it is a European Union member state– is known to have close intergovernmental ties with Russia, as many Soviet era operatives still remain in positions of power in Sofia. Bulgaria relies on Moscow for the majority of its energy resources, and one third of its economic output goes through the Kremlin, according to Spiegel.