The other night I had the questionable pleasure of visiting Zala Hristo Botev in Sofia's Students' Town borough.
The pothole filled road that takes you to the hall, is lined on both sides with brand-new buildings, housing what tries to pass off as "upmarket" shops and clubs. The posh glitter and glamour of the over-priced shops that have nothing exceptional to offer, is interrupted for what can best be described as wasteland. And in the middle of this wasteland, stands what once was a modern sports complex.
The hall, like many other sports halls in the country, has not seen any basic form of maintenance for decades. It appears that between the Sofia municipality and the State Youth and Sports Agency, no one knows who actually owns the building and who therefore has to pay for maintenance and repair work. Somehow however, I doubt there is even a moment of unclarity who to pay rent to, should you want to use the hall.
The poor state of the hall of course only encourage the current use of the building and its immediate surroundings as a public refuse dump. The area in front of and leading up to the main entrance is lined with cigarette buds and empty 2-liter plastic beer bottles.
Like all public space in this city, this is a true no-man's-land when it comes to cleaning and maintenance. No-one is responsible for the refuse that flourishes better than any weed in these public spaces, least of all the municipality or the companies that pocket millions annually under the pretext of cleaning the city.
Once a year, Sofia's mayor Boiko Borissov orders the annual spring cleaning action. In true boy scout mentality, neighbours are encouraged in large-scale media campaigns, to go out and clean the public spaces between housing blocks, all for public benefit. A lot of fuss is made over which companies have offered to transport the collected rubbish out of the neighbourhoods, free of charge of course.
As I write this, a full month after the latest round of this kind of boy scout cleaning, most of what has been collected by those brave neighbours is still piled up next to the rubbish bins and there is no knowing when anyone will get around to taking this away. Meanwhile, these heaps of mostly organic waste, attract other rubbish like bees to honey. Everything from bits and pieces of living-room interiors, to more 2-liter plastic beer bottles, to broken lids of the rubbish-bins that are supposed to collect this city's waste is piling up. Little by little, we're given a glimpse of what it must be like to live in Naples.
Meanwhile, scout leader Borissov has launched a new idea. No longer will the maintenance of street sidewalks in the city be the responsibility (and expense) of the city. Instead, private companies will foot the bill in exchange for advertisement rights. And so we understand why Borissov initiated that bill late last year to ban all advertisement in the centre of the city and how to value the arguments back then that the advertisement was so ugly.
Borissov has also suggested that the monument in front of the National Palace of Culture would be best torn down and cleaned up. Despite its immense ugliness, I've personally always admired this particular monument for its ability to show the spinelessness of politicians. For decades, no one has had the courage to take a decision to either fully restore or tear down this monstrosity.
Borissov's decision too, is characterised by spinelessness. According to him, it is simply "cheaper" to tear it down. It is the political courage of a grocery shop-keeper. And in this case, it is clear that the municipality does not own the monument and cannot decide about its future.
I'm not even going to ask if anyone has ever attempted to explain to our scout leader the effect that public space and especially art in public space have on quality of life and living standards. If anyone has, they failed utterly.
