After the fall of the Bulgaria’s communist regime in 1989, nature has begun to take back what would have been a major monument to the rule of dictator Todor Zhivkov. Just minutes from popular beaches on the Black Sea coast, near the city of Primorsko, is an isolated patch of forest where one can wander around the abandoned, never-finished grand residence Zhivkov had planned, known as Perla 2 (perla means “pearl”). (Not to be confused with Perla 1, another abandoned Zhivkov residence nearby.) The massive building today consists of a skeletal frame of…
