Vasil Levski Monument

The Vasil Levski Monument commemorates the national hero of Bulgaria and the scourge of the Ottoman Empire – Vasil Levski.

Vasil Levski is Bulgaria’s National hero because he was the key figure to ignite the sparks of the Bulgarian Liberation front, which inevitably lead to the Liberation of the country.

The location of his monument is not a coincidence – it is the site where he was hung on the 18th of February 1873. This place was then in the outskirts of Sofia. Today people gather around the monument to pay their respect.

The monument was planned and worked on ever since the Liberation of Bulgaria in 1878 but it was inaugurated on 22 October 1895. That was the first monument to be built in the then newly-liberated Principality of Bulgaria. The monument is shaped as an obelisk, 13 m high, made of grey Balkan granite with a bronze bas-relief of the head of Levski. The monument is not big and full of splendor because Vasil Levski believed and thought for the equality of all people and the state decided to pay their respects to his belief system by not building the second Taj Mahal.

The mourning of the national hero is on the 19th of February and that is the best time to visit the monument – when hundreds of people wait in queue in the cold just to place flowers on his monument.