On a promontory above the Sea Garden stands one of the more striking Socialist-era monuments in Bulgaria: a concrete tower roughly 30 metres tall, flanked by two groups of enormous figurative sculpture depicting Soviet soldiers and Bulgarian workers in the heroic-realist idiom of the 1950s. Completed in 1978, it was one of the largest monuments of its kind in Bulgaria. The figures are more than three metres tall; the whole composition was designed to be visible from the sea.
Since 1989 the monument has fallen into progressive disrepair. The state has not maintained it; various proposals to demolish it have stalled; restoration funds have not materialised. The result is a peculiar ruin-in-plain-sight: the concrete is cracked, the stone cladding is stained, and access to the upper observation platform has long been closed off. It remains a striking object, and its decaying state is arguably more interesting than it would be well-maintained — a physical embodiment of a political project that ran out of momentum. Walking up from the sea garden to see it close-up takes about ten minutes and is worth it for the views over the Black Sea as much as for the monument itself.