12 Ghostly Industrial Relics: Factories & Mines Frozen in Their Prime

8. Buzludzha Monument, Bulgaria

Perched atop a mountain and shaped like a brutalist UFO, the Buzludzha Monument is a decaying ode to the Bulgarian communist era. Built in 1981, it once housed propaganda exhibitions and massive mosaic murals extolling socialist glory. After communism’s fall, the monument was abandoned—leaving red stars to fade and revolutionary slogans to peel from walls. Entering it feels like trespassing into a lost ideology. Snow drifts through holes in the ceiling; the air is metallic and sharp. There’s no electricity, just echoes of speeches and crumbling mosaics of Lenin and Marx. It’s not just a ruin—it’s a memory unraveling.