New exhibit to help Bulgaria finally cast a smile on its communist past

SOFIA (AFP) — Seventeen years after the fall of communism, a new exhibit in Sofia hopes to make Bulgarians talk about everyday life under the regime and even cast a smile on the vestiges of the country's troubled past.

An exhibit of communist-era objects entitled "An Inventory Storehouse of Socialism" opened in Sofia on Friday, on the anniversary of the fall of the regime on November 10, 1989, making Bulgaria the last country from the former communist bloc to open an exposition of this kind.

"Apart from the political, pathetic talk about communism, we have tried to show that there are also the everyday stories, the shared memories of the people as well as many traces, remnants of the communist time still present today as part of our lives," the project's creator Georgy Gospodinov told AFP.

"Besides, socialism was not only a lifestyle as many younger people view it now, but was also surreptitiously filled with ideology," Gospodinov said while arranging a piece in the exhibit, a doily embroidered with Lenin's profile. Up until 1989, communism ... // 71% Remaining