Museum of Socialist Art

For forty-five years, Bulgaria’s public spaces were filled with the art of the socialist state, and much of it came down after 1989. The National Gallery gathered the best of it at the Museum of Art from the Socialist Period, in the business district a short metro ride from the centre. The heart of the museum is a sculpture park of about seven and a half thousand square metres with more than seventy monumental works: partisans, workers and peasants in heroic poses, and the leaders of the regime. Above them rises the great five-pointed star that once crowned the Party House on the Largo. Inside, an exhibition hall shows paintings and temporary exhibitions, and a video room plays archival and documentary films of the era.

When to go: the museum is open Tuesday to Sunday and closed on Mondays and on public holidays, with the ticket office closing half an hour before the doors. Tickets are inexpensive, with reduced and free categories, and on Thursdays a low flat price applies across all National Gallery branches. Guided tours can be arranged for a fee.

Getting there: it is in the Iztok and Mladost area southeast of the centre; take the metro or a taxi. Allow an hour to an hour and a half, more if you watch the films.

Why go: it is the most direct way to see how the socialist state wanted to present itself, and walking among the giant figures is both absurd and sobering. It complements the Largo, whose buildings were the seat of Party power, and sits well with a guided communism walking tour in the centre.