quote:

Russia Wants Bulgarians to Stop Painting Soviet Monuments To Look Like American Superheroes

Russia is demanding that Bulgaria try harder to prevent vandalism of Soviet monuments, after yet another monument to Soviet troops in Sofia was spray-painted, ITAR-Tass reported.

The Russian Embassy in Bulgaria has issued a note demanding that its former Soviet-era ally clean up the monument in Sofia’s Lozenets district, identify and punish those responsible, and take “exhaustive measures” to prevent similar attacks in the future, the news agency reported Monday. . .

The vandalism was the latest in a series of similar recent incidents in Bulgaria — each drawing angry criticism from Moscow…

From Powerlineblog.com

I abhor the overuse of the word " awesome " but that is just awesome!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: RichardC,

A. I can understand that. Those commemorate war heroes who defeated Germany, thus saving many American lives.

B. It is hilarious.

C. Who is in blue/yellow on left background?

Ronald McDonald is a superhero?

quote:

Originally posted by Hound Dog:
C. Who is in blue/yellow on left background?

That be the Wolverine.

Oh, as an old Cold Warrior, I find this immensely gratifying. Ronald Reagan would laugh out loud.

OK, so some are villains, like the Joker in front, I think, but you must sit back and admire the ingenuity of Bulgarian street artists.

That there is funny. I would be annoyed if I was Russian but seeing as I am not, seeing ol’ Ronald MacDonald memorialized as a Russian super hero is chuckle inducing.

Y'know, the Russians are absolutely right, and have every reason to be absolutely livid about this!

There's only one thing to do to ensure that the monument to those Red heroes is treated with appropriate respect. Take the monuments down, and store them in a secure location until that lazy Bulgarian government comes up with an appropriate strategy to ensure that they will not be defaced. And heaven knows, it won't be enough to simply put them in a museum, or behind some sort of iron railing! No, whatever strategy Bulgaria comes up with must ensure that the monument is out in the open and accessible to all, so that the heroism of the Red Army is truly woven into the everyday living experience of Bulgarians!

Of course, if the monuments accidentally get broken down and used for construction aggregate while they're in a secure location, well! What do you expect from a bunch of dumb, lazy, ungrateful Bulgarians?

Possession is nine-tenths of the law.

Eh, "monuments" to the army of one mass-murdering totalitarians, who fought another army of mass-murdering totalitarians, in a country, to determine who gets to oppress that nation, are just propaganda.

Just because they fought the NAZIs, doesn't make Communists any less evil.

I have mixed feelings about this actually and asked a Facebook friend who escaped from Soviet-controlled Ukraine in the 1980’s what she thought of it. Her name is Mila:

My question to her:

quote:

I’d like to get your opinion on this one Mila. Saw this on a friend’s feed and remarked how I felt it was disrespectful to those soldiers who fought and died against the Nazis and got criticized and told I was wrong. How do you feel about this? Just imagine if someone made a joke out of the Vietnam Wall or Valley Forge? I tried to argue that and was told I was wrong, that these were oppressors and deserve to have their monument defaced. Didn’t your father or grandfather serve in the Great Patriotic War?

Mila’s response:

quote:

You know my thoughts and feelings about Russia. It is an aggressor and always will. These monuments (not only in Bulgaria) are reflection of that time when Russia had most of Eastern Europe in it's hands. And I understand people who don't want these monuments in their countries. On other hand my two uncles died defending Europe from fascism. But for some reason i think they would not be ok with these monuments once they knew about bloody soviet regime. I remember my mom and me -we came to Latvia (she didn't know where her brother was buried- was searching for decades and in 1991 his grave was found in a small town in Latvia. It was a mass grave and my uncle's name was written on a stone). We came to Riga around Victory Day (May 9th), my mom was wearing her medals and the older gentleman approached us and said it is unsafe to wear medals because anti soviet/russian sentiments are very strong. My mom was upset obviously but it is hard to blame people who were oppressed by soviets. Even they helped to liberate them.

Very interesting. Besides the superhero’s the monument has been painted bright pink, the “Superman” statue has be pastel yellow and blue. Finally the statutes have been topped with balaclavaS in honor of the 2013 band pussy riots.

https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs...m-elsewhere-46021457

They should be torn down altogether.

....or what?

I could swear that this exact story was posted here a few years ago or so.

This was from 2014.

I don't condone defacing monuments to foot soldiers. However I do find the super heroes quite funny.

Now monuments built for war criminals and ruthless leaders, sure tear them down.

The uniform the soldier wears is most often simply dictated by where they were born.
Therefore we must consider how they conduct themselves, when passing judgement.

Watching history being torn down in the US, has me now looking at this differently with respect for all soldiers who have fought with honor.

quote:

Originally posted by kimber1911:
This was from 2014.

I don't condone defacing monuments to foot soldiers. However I do find the super heroes quite funny.

Now monuments built for war criminals and ruthless leaders, sure tear them down.

The uniform the soldier wears is most often simply dictated by where they were born.
Therefore we must consider how they conduct themselves, when passing judgement.

Watching history being torn down in the US, has me now looking at this differently with respect for all soldiers who have fought with honor.

No, it’s from October 29, 2018 according to the article.

The defacing has been going on for a few years now.

I have lived in Russia, I have visited many war memorials there which are overwhelming in their depiction of the deaths of thousands of local soldiers, for example from the Siberian city I lived in, Novosibirsk. But I have also traveled extensively in countries that were under the heel of Soviet occupation for a half century, and who still hate the Russians--the Russians don't understand this at all, think of themselves as liberators.

I have spent a great deal of time around the monuments to Soviet conquest, and they are uniformly oppressive, impressive as they may be. In Bulgaria after the fall of the Soviet Union there was a fierce national debate over what to do with the Mausoleum of Georgi Dimitrov, the first Communist leader of Bulgaria, basically a Bulgarian Quisling. In the end it was blown up. Link

Even if the statue of a hated Commie murderer has been removed, there is no guarantee his memory will be gone.
Link Russia will probably have a national referendum on whether to return the statue of "Iron Feliks" Dzerzhinsky to where it stood in front of KGB headquarters on Lyubyanka Square.

And Lenin's mummified corpse still resides peacefully in his tomb on Red Square.

It's good no blood was shed in the fall of the Soviet Union (except for Yeltsin's barrage of the Duma building), but unlike the conquest of Germany and Japan, we could not humiliate the Russians. I knew a fiercely anti-Communist Russian professor, friend of my son's, who argued that Russia should have been forcibly broken up (not just the USSR, but Russia itself). In hindsight perhaps he was right.

I have many Russian friends who are very dear to me, but I have no love for the Russia that has voluntarily chosen to live under authoritarian dictatorship, and is acting once again as a revanchist would-be superpower.

Seeing the stern, determined faces of Santa and Ronald make me chuckle each time I look at them