1 January 1989
No one suspected in the new year's early hours that the collapse of Communism was just a few months away.
Sofianites woke up to 1989 under the watchful eye of a statue of Lenin next to what at the time was being built as the headquarters of the Bulgarian Foreign Trade Bank. The "High Socialism" building is still there, now serving as the head office of UniCredit Bulbank. The Lenin statue was removed, its place is now occupied by one depicting St Sophia, the patron saint of the city.
10 January 1997
Angry protesters stormed the parliament building in Sofia. The week-long opposition-led mass rallies against the catastrophic economic situation had started with students' blocking roads and taxi drivers' sounding their horns. However, on this day riot police intervened and wounded hundreds of protesters. The economy's collapse was the result of the incompetent policies of the then Socialist government, with skyrocketing foreign exchange exchange rates, banks going bust and a grain shortage looming. The date is now seen as the beginning of the end of the economic and political crisis incurred by the Socialists: four weeks later Nikolay Dobrev, the Bulgarian Socialist Party, or BSP, prime minister-designate, who had been assigned to form a new Socialist government, handed back his mandate, clearing the way to early elections. Dobrev's daughter is now the secretary of President Parvanov.
17 January 2000
Jerusalem gets a new square, Bulgaria - as a result of the state visit by Bulgarian President Petar Stoyanov, who stressed the Bulgarians' saving of some 43,000 Jews during the Second World War during his talks with President Ezer Weizman and Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Bulgaria, however, is still responsible for the deportation of 11,000 Jews from the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia and Aegean Thrace, which it controlled owing to its alliance to Nazi Germany.
19 January 1989
On the second day of his visit to Sofia French President François Mitterrand had a "historical" breakfast with 12 then dissenters including the future Bulgarian president, philosopher Zhelyu Zhelev, members of the Club for Glasnost and Perestroyka and various intellectuals. While in Bulgaria the meeting is widely regarded as a sign of recognition of the fledgling dissident movement, the French media at the time were rather disappointed: Mitterrand had sought to talk to members of the opposition, but ended up meeting a dozen of intellectuals praising Gorbachev. His visit to Bulgaria was the first ever high-level Western visit since the Great War.
20 January 1990
Frank Zappa arrived on a four-day visit to Prague. His host was Václav Havel, the Czech Republic's president, who was the principal architect of the Velvet Revolution and a long-time Zappa fan in spite of the Communist ban on Zappa's "decadent" music. Havel even suggested Zappa became the Czechoslovakian trade ambassador to the United States. State Secretary James Baker, a staunch foe of both Zappa and Communism, was quick to reject: Havel could do business either with Zappa or with the United States.
10 February 1997
The Bulgarian Socialist Party, or BSP, and the Union of Democratic Forces, or SDS, signed a declaration to dissolve parliament, form a caretaker government and hold early elections. Further agreements included the introduction of a currency board, the privatisation of state and municipal banks and companies, and the closing down of loss-making ones. The general election, held in April, brought the SDS to power.
18 February 1873
On this day Bulgarian national hero Vasil Levski was hanged by the Ottoman authorities on the outskirts of Sofia. To this day Levski, dubbed the Apostle of Freedom, remains Bulgaria's sole true icon.