The Assembly "Flag of Peace"
O, glory to you, comrades fellow politics junkies! A recent exchange about the Soviet legacy in East Europe reminded me of an old monument which still stands in the outskirts of Sofia, our capital city. 30 years ago, the "dirty evil communists" built it. It's a fugly Stalin-style ensemble consisting of blocks of reinforced concrete (much akin to the Georgia Guidestones), with many different bells hanging under each block, each bell being donated by and dedicated to each separate country in the world. It's called the National Assembly "Flag of Peace", and it was built under the initiative of the then Minister of Culture, Lyudmila Zhivkova (surprise-surprise, the one and only daughter of our long-time communist dictator Todor Zhivkov).
They say the dirty evil commies(TM) didn't let us live as we wanted in those years; they didn't let us breathe Freedom, watch western movies on TV, listen to "decadent" rock music and drive western cars (one had to wait for years on a queue in order to get a Soviet-produced Lada or Moskvich, and the DDR produced "Trabi" was the easiest to access vehicle - although it rather looked, and behaved, like a soap-box on wheels). Instead of all these gifts of Freedom, they constantly poured tons of Marxist, ultra-progressive ideology into our brains, they wanted to dress us all in the same way, make us think the same, eat the same food, have the same tastes, etc. All in all, they were supposed to turn us into bolts in the larger machine of the communist socialist regime.
All of that is true. Now let's get back to that monument, which is one of the last, very few standing remnants of that not-so-distant past (the most central symbol of that epoch being the super-armored and super-tough, nuke-resistant mausoleum of the founder of communism in this country, Georgi Dimitrov, was blown to smithereens from the 3rd try by the subsequent "Democratic" regime). So how did that unbreakable, super-ugly and super-concrete monument fare under Democracy? And actually what was it all about?
Well it turns out one of the most beautiful and noble initiatives ever conceived on the Balkans for the last half a century was created here, in the outskirts of Sofia. The dictator's slightly-crazy, New-Age-hippie, I'm-so-cultural-elite daughter Lyudmila Zhivkova had a very simple idea - to try make the world at least a tad more beautiful a place to live in. Simple, isn't it? So, in 1979 the communist regime took the decision to fund the construction of the monument called Assembly "Flag of Peace". Zhivkova, being arguably the smartest and most stylish human being this country has ever had, was personally involved in the architectural design of this... thing. So what we're seeing as a result is yet another bright example of the "communist avant-garde" and socialist-realism style in art, which we could briefly sum up in a few words: fear-from-capitalist-nuclear-bombardment. The concrete is so reinforced that even Kim Jong Il would turn red from envy. The monument could easily withstand a direct nuclear impact, having in mind it actually represents a stylized map of the world. So if the archaeologists in the far, far future decide to examine their Antiquity (i.e. us), in case there's anyone left post-WWIII anyway, they'd have to conclude that a million slaves were harnessed to work on the construction for a period of 50 years. Or something.
The principle was more than simple: pour more concrete, baby, pour! Stalin says it's OK, and Brezhnev likes it even more. Sadly, the monument is the last thing you'd use for an example when talking about aesthetics. But we still considered the idea behind it extremely beautiful and noble, and we did pretty well setting aside the fact it was outright fugly.
There were no mass parades of tanks and heavy artillery in front of this monument; those were reserved for the central square in front of the above-mentioned mausoleum of First Dear Leader (who's now apparently immortal, and of whom our far heirs would again conclude that he was a Pharaoh of some kind, since his mummy stayed inside until well into the 90's).
At a time when the Cold War was at its prime, a tiny Balkan country dared to send an invitation to ALL countries across the world to send delegations of children as a sort of ambassadors of peace. Yes, we weren't intending to eat them, can you figure that? So these cute kids from all around the world came to Sofia, they gathered in cute little colorful automobile trains, and, wearing their cute smiles and cute little colorful flags, they set off to the outskirts of Sofia, in the foothills of the imposing Vitosha mountain, to donate their country's bell to the cause. There are still dozens of bells over there, which is surprising, given the fact today's gypsy population shows a tremendous affinity to non-ferrous metals. There are bells hanging from the concrete columns today, each with a strange and unique shape and size, and each symbolizing their respective country. For instance, China's bell is really huge because China is very old, and Japan's bell looks like a gong (and is actually being hit with a hammer).
This whole project was united under the motto "Unity, Creativity, Beauty" (the commies were very good at inventing catchy slogans). Just three simple words which still remain on the wall, written in several languages. Their purpose being to convince the following generations to adopt them as their primary principles in life. Very innocent indeed.
Bear in mind that this was initiated by a country which, by the very definition of its political structure and regime, was designed to suppress the freedom of expression (of whatever kind), and whose concept of creativity was rather dubious, to put it mildly. In a sense that you *could* be creative, but only provided you didn't move outside of the strictly set frames of the socialist society.
Doesn't mater if this initiative was an act of diplomacy, or a desire to put dust into the eyes of somebody. What matters is that it looked so clean and bright, and noble at the time. It was a motto that desired a world without pedophiles, and without crime. Only love and unity. And creativity. Kids didn't care whether Jimmi Hendrix's music was "decadent", they were living in their world full of fun and toys and naive juvenile concepts, just like any kid.
Even today, the rather low-confident and outright depressed Balkan mind, almost devoid of self-esteem after decades of conflicts, crises, ups and downs, can't help but fill with pride that such a beautiful initiative was born in the head of a Balkan lady, even if a slightly crazy one (she used to keep in contact with extra-terrestrials, you know; but let's forgive a few eccentric whims of the royalty, it's the price to pay for their benevolent brilliance, he heh).
And, if we go a little further and step back from the beauty of this noble cause, we could say it was a nice way to show the middle finger to the "democratic" capitalistic West which despised us so much and who "hated all that was dear to us and all that we stood for" (sounds familiar, eh?) It was like a middle finger to all those who labeled us with the term "Balkanization", who had this cynical attitude to the cultures at this side of the Iron Curtain, while ignoring the beam in their own eye. Those were beautiful times, no less. Our solid communist monument made of unbreakable reinforced concrete, this kindof Eastern Stonehenge, was supposed to be the thorn in the West's ass, and the best evidence that the Balkans are also capable of showing compassion and humanity, and it was designed to rival even the Western concept of openness and democracy. And probably it would have become one, one day...
Now fast-forward a couple decades. What does the place look like now? What purpose does it serve? Granted, it wasn't destroyed like so many other monuments from the communist epoch (partly because it would cost a lot of money and effort, a fact that became evident during the ridiculous attempts to blow up Dear Leader's mausoleum).
Instead of continuing the annual "Flag of Peace" tradition, what we got was Rambo, Third Blood. We received a misunderstood version of Sid Vicious, and we didn't notice how we started living like Al Bundy from the Married With Children show. And how the peaceful and cheerful gathering of kids from all around the world remained a domain of some reality show on TV. Perhaps the dumbest thing is that from a director's point of view, this initiative was totally devoid of controversy, and without controversy and loud quarrel, without conflict, there's no drama, and without drama there's no viewers, no TV ratings and no viewer's voting by text messaging.
Just 10 years after its construction, the Assembly "Flag of Peace" met its destiny that Democracy had prepared for it. It lived on to see the moment when the "Blue Revolution" (as the "spontaneous" explosion of Democracy here was called) shone its first rays on its concrete columns, only to paint it in the red dyes of post-democracy as the Sun set to the west behind the imposing Vitosha mountain.
But the sun was living in some sort of "commucracy" back then. It had no idea where it was supposed to rise and set, because first it had to consult a different sort of tyrants, again living far, far away, but in the opposite direction.
Everything happened like in the masterpiece movie "Anna" by Nikita Mikhalkov. In that movie, first we see some archive pictures of kids who are gathered on a holiday camp in the countryside of the USSR. The reporters are asking each of them where they are from, and each of them responds with a smile on their face and then go to play their games, as it was supposed to be in the "Indestructible Union". Then the camera moves on to the moment when the kids are playing again and hitting each other with pillows, and there's jubilation everywhere. Exactly 10 years later, the same kids are shown fighting again, but this time wielding weapons against each other. There's huge symbolism in this scene, and anyone in the East would instantly understand it. History has shown time and time again that the bloodiest wars are those that are fought between brothers.
Something similar happened to the Assembly. It was destroyed from within, without the use of external mechanisms. But the oblivion and disrepair it fell into was not caused by a nuclear attack; it was caused by the spreading universal cretinism in our post-socialist society (the period most of us call the Transition, and some others call the Fallout, or the Dark Ages, which some claim are still not completely finished).
The middle finger we used to display so bravely to the more developed world was broken to pieces, and there was no adequate health-care system remaining to heal it. For a long time the monument was a den of homeless drug addicts, street hookers, stray dogs, and it was subject to disgusting vandalism and horrible neglect by the "democratic" youth. But don't think for a minute that this was some kind of social protest against the communist past, no. The destruction of this and many other monuments was symptomatic for something bigger, the moral decay of an entire society which had suddenly found itself in the middle of nowhere, and didn't know where to go from there, because there was no one to tell them from above what to do any more. It's never easy to grow up so suddenly. You have to discover many things for yourself, and do it fast and the hard way, and you better make as few mistakes as possible, or you're lost. There are so many wrong ways and just one is the right way, and you have to find it from the first try.
No, there was nothing of the social protest, or from the hippie protest, or from the punk and post-punk protest in that destruction, although some tried to ride that horse too. There was nothing romantic in this decay, and all these subcultures were just temporary and were blown away by the Winds of Change, and gave room for new ones, now ugly and hollow of any subtsance (the "Chalga" culture for example, which now dominates the whole region). Cretinism and idiocy is at the core of this, it's the central reason for the murder of the most noble and probably the only beautiful symbol that remained from the "evil" past of the "dirty" communists.
But it's not all just bad news. Nowadays the monument looks a bit improved. It's tidy, at least there are no stray dogs around (well, not many). During the weekends you could even see the occasional visitors, and as far as I'm aware, the street hookers from the nearby highway go there very rarely now, and chances are very slim that you'd see some Gypsy girl leaning against the columns with the bells with her pants down and serving some Turkish T.I.R. trucker or some other Dark Balkan Subject(TM). There's even a guard over there, wow!
So if you go to Sofia sometime, you might like to go to the outskirts of the capital city, and visit the Assembly "Flag of Peace". It'll bring you back in time. You'll be able to ring a bell or two, of countries that no longer exist. You'd smile at the fact that the designers purposefully left a few empty spaces for adding more bells; probably Kosovo and Montenegro would place their bells there some day - if they're ever invited.
The Assembly serves as a lesson in political history. Next to the gargantuan USSR bell with the hammer and sickle you'll now see the lustrous, posh bell of NATO. Unfortunately I couldn't spot a bell of the Warsaw Pact. But I could recognize those of DDR, West Germany, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and even one of the Vatican.
But the kids still don't care about politics. All they want is to play their games undisturbed. The Assembly of Peace will probably never see its initial idea revived to its previous, short-lasting glory, and even if it does, the idea would hardly be as pure and beautiful like in the beginning. As a substitute, I propose that we organize a Videogame World Cup instead. Because, if we keep in mind the "Unity, Creativity, Beauty" slogan, today's kids would probably more likely make friends through holding virtual guns in their hands. And so much the better.
They say the dirty evil commies(TM) didn't let us live as we wanted in those years; they didn't let us breathe Freedom, watch western movies on TV, listen to "decadent" rock music and drive western cars (one had to wait for years on a queue in order to get a Soviet-produced Lada or Moskvich, and the DDR produced "Trabi" was the easiest to access vehicle - although it rather looked, and behaved, like a soap-box on wheels). Instead of all these gifts of Freedom, they constantly poured tons of Marxist, ultra-progressive ideology into our brains, they wanted to dress us all in the same way, make us think the same, eat the same food, have the same tastes, etc. All in all, they were supposed to turn us into bolts in the larger machine of the communist socialist regime.
All of that is true. Now let's get back to that monument, which is one of the last, very few standing remnants of that not-so-distant past (the most central symbol of that epoch being the super-armored and super-tough, nuke-resistant mausoleum of the founder of communism in this country, Georgi Dimitrov, was blown to smithereens from the 3rd try by the subsequent "Democratic" regime). So how did that unbreakable, super-ugly and super-concrete monument fare under Democracy? And actually what was it all about?
Well it turns out one of the most beautiful and noble initiatives ever conceived on the Balkans for the last half a century was created here, in the outskirts of Sofia. The dictator's slightly-crazy, New-Age-hippie, I'm-so-cultural-elite daughter Lyudmila Zhivkova had a very simple idea - to try make the world at least a tad more beautiful a place to live in. Simple, isn't it? So, in 1979 the communist regime took the decision to fund the construction of the monument called Assembly "Flag of Peace". Zhivkova, being arguably the smartest and most stylish human being this country has ever had, was personally involved in the architectural design of this... thing. So what we're seeing as a result is yet another bright example of the "communist avant-garde" and socialist-realism style in art, which we could briefly sum up in a few words: fear-from-capitalist-nuclear-bombardment. The concrete is so reinforced that even Kim Jong Il would turn red from envy. The monument could easily withstand a direct nuclear impact, having in mind it actually represents a stylized map of the world. So if the archaeologists in the far, far future decide to examine their Antiquity (i.e. us), in case there's anyone left post-WWIII anyway, they'd have to conclude that a million slaves were harnessed to work on the construction for a period of 50 years. Or something.
The principle was more than simple: pour more concrete, baby, pour! Stalin says it's OK, and Brezhnev likes it even more. Sadly, the monument is the last thing you'd use for an example when talking about aesthetics. But we still considered the idea behind it extremely beautiful and noble, and we did pretty well setting aside the fact it was outright fugly.
There were no mass parades of tanks and heavy artillery in front of this monument; those were reserved for the central square in front of the above-mentioned mausoleum of First Dear Leader (who's now apparently immortal, and of whom our far heirs would again conclude that he was a Pharaoh of some kind, since his mummy stayed inside until well into the 90's).
At a time when the Cold War was at its prime, a tiny Balkan country dared to send an invitation to ALL countries across the world to send delegations of children as a sort of ambassadors of peace. Yes, we weren't intending to eat them, can you figure that? So these cute kids from all around the world came to Sofia, they gathered in cute little colorful automobile trains, and, wearing their cute smiles and cute little colorful flags, they set off to the outskirts of Sofia, in the foothills of the imposing Vitosha mountain, to donate their country's bell to the cause. There are still dozens of bells over there, which is surprising, given the fact today's gypsy population shows a tremendous affinity to non-ferrous metals. There are bells hanging from the concrete columns today, each with a strange and unique shape and size, and each symbolizing their respective country. For instance, China's bell is really huge because China is very old, and Japan's bell looks like a gong (and is actually being hit with a hammer).
This whole project was united under the motto "Unity, Creativity, Beauty" (the commies were very good at inventing catchy slogans). Just three simple words which still remain on the wall, written in several languages. Their purpose being to convince the following generations to adopt them as their primary principles in life. Very innocent indeed.
Bear in mind that this was initiated by a country which, by the very definition of its political structure and regime, was designed to suppress the freedom of expression (of whatever kind), and whose concept of creativity was rather dubious, to put it mildly. In a sense that you *could* be creative, but only provided you didn't move outside of the strictly set frames of the socialist society.
Doesn't mater if this initiative was an act of diplomacy, or a desire to put dust into the eyes of somebody. What matters is that it looked so clean and bright, and noble at the time. It was a motto that desired a world without pedophiles, and without crime. Only love and unity. And creativity. Kids didn't care whether Jimmi Hendrix's music was "decadent", they were living in their world full of fun and toys and naive juvenile concepts, just like any kid.
Even today, the rather low-confident and outright depressed Balkan mind, almost devoid of self-esteem after decades of conflicts, crises, ups and downs, can't help but fill with pride that such a beautiful initiative was born in the head of a Balkan lady, even if a slightly crazy one (she used to keep in contact with extra-terrestrials, you know; but let's forgive a few eccentric whims of the royalty, it's the price to pay for their benevolent brilliance, he heh).
And, if we go a little further and step back from the beauty of this noble cause, we could say it was a nice way to show the middle finger to the "democratic" capitalistic West which despised us so much and who "hated all that was dear to us and all that we stood for" (sounds familiar, eh?) It was like a middle finger to all those who labeled us with the term "Balkanization", who had this cynical attitude to the cultures at this side of the Iron Curtain, while ignoring the beam in their own eye. Those were beautiful times, no less. Our solid communist monument made of unbreakable reinforced concrete, this kindof Eastern Stonehenge, was supposed to be the thorn in the West's ass, and the best evidence that the Balkans are also capable of showing compassion and humanity, and it was designed to rival even the Western concept of openness and democracy. And probably it would have become one, one day...
Now fast-forward a couple decades. What does the place look like now? What purpose does it serve? Granted, it wasn't destroyed like so many other monuments from the communist epoch (partly because it would cost a lot of money and effort, a fact that became evident during the ridiculous attempts to blow up Dear Leader's mausoleum).
Instead of continuing the annual "Flag of Peace" tradition, what we got was Rambo, Third Blood. We received a misunderstood version of Sid Vicious, and we didn't notice how we started living like Al Bundy from the Married With Children show. And how the peaceful and cheerful gathering of kids from all around the world remained a domain of some reality show on TV. Perhaps the dumbest thing is that from a director's point of view, this initiative was totally devoid of controversy, and without controversy and loud quarrel, without conflict, there's no drama, and without drama there's no viewers, no TV ratings and no viewer's voting by text messaging.
Just 10 years after its construction, the Assembly "Flag of Peace" met its destiny that Democracy had prepared for it. It lived on to see the moment when the "Blue Revolution" (as the "spontaneous" explosion of Democracy here was called) shone its first rays on its concrete columns, only to paint it in the red dyes of post-democracy as the Sun set to the west behind the imposing Vitosha mountain.
But the sun was living in some sort of "commucracy" back then. It had no idea where it was supposed to rise and set, because first it had to consult a different sort of tyrants, again living far, far away, but in the opposite direction.
Everything happened like in the masterpiece movie "Anna" by Nikita Mikhalkov. In that movie, first we see some archive pictures of kids who are gathered on a holiday camp in the countryside of the USSR. The reporters are asking each of them where they are from, and each of them responds with a smile on their face and then go to play their games, as it was supposed to be in the "Indestructible Union". Then the camera moves on to the moment when the kids are playing again and hitting each other with pillows, and there's jubilation everywhere. Exactly 10 years later, the same kids are shown fighting again, but this time wielding weapons against each other. There's huge symbolism in this scene, and anyone in the East would instantly understand it. History has shown time and time again that the bloodiest wars are those that are fought between brothers.
Something similar happened to the Assembly. It was destroyed from within, without the use of external mechanisms. But the oblivion and disrepair it fell into was not caused by a nuclear attack; it was caused by the spreading universal cretinism in our post-socialist society (the period most of us call the Transition, and some others call the Fallout, or the Dark Ages, which some claim are still not completely finished).
The middle finger we used to display so bravely to the more developed world was broken to pieces, and there was no adequate health-care system remaining to heal it. For a long time the monument was a den of homeless drug addicts, street hookers, stray dogs, and it was subject to disgusting vandalism and horrible neglect by the "democratic" youth. But don't think for a minute that this was some kind of social protest against the communist past, no. The destruction of this and many other monuments was symptomatic for something bigger, the moral decay of an entire society which had suddenly found itself in the middle of nowhere, and didn't know where to go from there, because there was no one to tell them from above what to do any more. It's never easy to grow up so suddenly. You have to discover many things for yourself, and do it fast and the hard way, and you better make as few mistakes as possible, or you're lost. There are so many wrong ways and just one is the right way, and you have to find it from the first try.
No, there was nothing of the social protest, or from the hippie protest, or from the punk and post-punk protest in that destruction, although some tried to ride that horse too. There was nothing romantic in this decay, and all these subcultures were just temporary and were blown away by the Winds of Change, and gave room for new ones, now ugly and hollow of any subtsance (the "Chalga" culture for example, which now dominates the whole region). Cretinism and idiocy is at the core of this, it's the central reason for the murder of the most noble and probably the only beautiful symbol that remained from the "evil" past of the "dirty" communists.
But it's not all just bad news. Nowadays the monument looks a bit improved. It's tidy, at least there are no stray dogs around (well, not many). During the weekends you could even see the occasional visitors, and as far as I'm aware, the street hookers from the nearby highway go there very rarely now, and chances are very slim that you'd see some Gypsy girl leaning against the columns with the bells with her pants down and serving some Turkish T.I.R. trucker or some other Dark Balkan Subject(TM). There's even a guard over there, wow!
So if you go to Sofia sometime, you might like to go to the outskirts of the capital city, and visit the Assembly "Flag of Peace". It'll bring you back in time. You'll be able to ring a bell or two, of countries that no longer exist. You'd smile at the fact that the designers purposefully left a few empty spaces for adding more bells; probably Kosovo and Montenegro would place their bells there some day - if they're ever invited.
The Assembly serves as a lesson in political history. Next to the gargantuan USSR bell with the hammer and sickle you'll now see the lustrous, posh bell of NATO. Unfortunately I couldn't spot a bell of the Warsaw Pact. But I could recognize those of DDR, West Germany, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and even one of the Vatican.
But the kids still don't care about politics. All they want is to play their games undisturbed. The Assembly of Peace will probably never see its initial idea revived to its previous, short-lasting glory, and even if it does, the idea would hardly be as pure and beautiful like in the beginning. As a substitute, I propose that we organize a Videogame World Cup instead. Because, if we keep in mind the "Unity, Creativity, Beauty" slogan, today's kids would probably more likely make friends through holding virtual guns in their hands. And so much the better.