To memories in the walls

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A  group of three is in an abandoned sanatorium in Plovdiv. Suddenly, there is a noise as if something has fallen to the ground. The group leader, suppressing the feeling that they are not alone, signals to stop.
For a moment, everything is silent. 
Then there is a horrifying growl of pain. 
The group starts running. Rushing out of the overgrown by forest part of the sanatorium, they almost roll head over heels down the hilly slope behind it. 
After a couple of minutes of a hectic run, they slow down. 
“It must have been a wounded dog,” the group leader suggests, turning to the other two, a Belgian couple.
They shake their heads, “It was definitely a human voice.”
 
“We did not go that far into a horror movie to go there and see what it was,” smiles Evgeni Mladenov, tour guide and founder of Abandoned Bulgaria, looking at my startled expression.
 
He created a Facebook page and began posting his photographs of urban explorations in 2011. Shortly after, it started gaining momentum.
The Urbex style has haunted him ever since he was an AUBG student. 
Once, during a photo walk in a photojournalism class, Evgeni discovered an abandoned house.
“I entered it and photographed it. It was an amazing feeling. It was full of old stuff, and the curtains were flying from the wind. It was beautiful,” he depicts.
It was one of his first attempts at photography, although this pursuit did not last long. After graduation, Evgeni had big plans, and he went to work abroad.
 
However, when he returned to Bulgaria from Belgium ten years later,

urban exploration captivated him again.
At first, he did it just for fun, publishing his photos and short stories

of the documented buildings while working two jobs.

One request in the summer of 2017 opened up new perspectives for

Abandoned Bulgaria. 
“It was an Italian couple in Plovdiv. We had a walking tour of some

places I knew, and I told them about these places,” Evgeni recalls his

first experience as a guide. He enjoyed that day and received positive

feedback encouraging him to become a dark tourism guide.
That is how Abandoned Bulgaria tours were born. 
“I did not come up with it. People suggested it, I tried it, and it worked,” Evgeni says. 
Now Evgeni works as a tour guide, and if you look at the reviews on TripAdvisor, they are still positive. One of the latest reviews, dated September 2022, was left by a tourist from Sydney, saying, “Evgeni is a knowledgeable and enthusiastic guide and is passionate about the preservation of Plovdiv’s unique architectural history.”
 
Being passionate about dark tourism, Evgeni notes that every tour brings new experiences and stories, even to places he has already explored. Part of this comes from abandoned buildings as they are different in their atmosphere.
“I think that is what keeps me doing that; that every place is different,” he shares. 
When describing buildings with dark vibes, Evgeni often refers to brutalist architecture from the communist era.
“I think it is because of things that happened inside. It stays in the walls,” Evgeni says. He doesn't even go inside if the atmosphere seems too creepy even outside the building.
 
There are also curious buildings.
Evgeni recalls how, at the invitation of a new owner, he visited a factory guarded for ten years.
It was a giant complex, along which Evgeni walked with the manager, opening one door after another.
“Some of the cabinets had even a cigarette box on the table, the bottle of coke that the people were drinking. As if something happened and they just all disappeared. This was one of the most amazing places I have photographed,” Evgeni portrays. 
 
Sometimes invitations were less formal.
Once, when Evgeni and his friend were in Dimitrovgrad* and were trying to find the entrance to an abandoned hospital, they were called by a group of kids. 
“So, in the end, I and my friend would find ourselves exploring the hospital with maybe five or six kids running around and telling us the story about the ghost that they saw,” Evgeni laughs.
 
A danger worse than ghosts is rotten buildings.
“As an urban photographer, you get this adrenaline rush,” Evgeni explains the dangerous game when he constantly controls the desire to go and photograph everywhere, thinking about safety first.
To my question on how finding and observing abandoned buildings affects him, Evgeni does not answer immediately.
“Seeing the signs of the people who were there, the dreams they had, the normal life they had inside, and probably that they thought it was going to last forever, but it ended, makes you think that nothing lasts forever. Everything has a beginning and an end,” he says after a pause.
 
Evgeni describes his favorite place, which no longer exists: the railway factory in Sofia.
“It was one of the few places where I had been before it was abandoned. When I was a kid, my dad was working in this railway factory. One of my first childhood memories is how he took me there, and I could see how these big trains entered the train station, their repairing,” he shares.
He smiles, saying that he even forgot about this place until, thirty years later, he went there to photograph and document it.
Sharing his sadness that the factory was demolished, Evgeni sighs, “This is how it goes. Nothing lasts forever.”
 
In addition to the stories in the walls, Evgeni brings something new to the dusty old rooms, sometimes putting on art shows in abandoned buildings.
“I like doing it because I like the idea that these buildings can have a second life,” he utters.
 
He had one such exhibition last year in Sofia, working with two other artists in one of the abandoned buildings given to them by BDZ*.
“We went there one or two days before the show, and, all of a sudden, we hear a cry from inside. We went to the second floor, and we saw a family of a woman, a man, and two or three little kids living in one room full of garbage,” Evgeni describes. 
The artists allowed the family to stay but warned that people would come to see the exhibition.
On the day of the art show, the family tried to stay away but then returned. Later, the audience discovered them while exploring the exhibition. 
“I remember the eyes of the little kids that came with their parents, seeing those other semi-homeless kids. In a way, it made the whole thing even more real,” Evgeni says.

 

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Another photo exhibition that found its place in an abandoned

building was about Chornobyl.
In February 2022, Evgeni visited Kyiv and managed to go on a tour

in Chornobyl.
Two weeks after his return to Bulgaria, the war in Ukraine started.
“I was devasted by the fact that there is a war. I had so many

photos, and I did an art show in one abandoned building,”

Evgeni shares.
People accused him of political propaganda, as Evgeni called

the show “Chernobyl before the war,” but he still got access to an abandoned Soviet sports rehabilitation center and set up an exhibition there. The images were placed all over the building, and people, as they were going through the photographs, also explored the center.
“I like this immersive art. I like when you are immersed in the experience. It is just so much stronger,” Evgeni shares with a smile.
 
However, with the outbreak of the war, there were fewer tourists.
“I do not know, probably people do not want to do dark tourism anymore, because everything is so dark lately,” he sighs. 
So, Evgeni started looking for new opportunities.
“I want to create an Urbex retro museum or a retro museum in an abandoned place,” he smiles.
After speaking with the mayor of a remote village in the Rhodope mountains, Evgeni managed to access several rooms on one of the abandoned floors of the dormitory.
He plans to have three arranged rooms: the classroom, the director's cabinet, and the dorm room with beds.
Describing his work on the authenticity of the museum details, Evgeni shares, “I really want to have this feeling that some of the people have at my art shows when you go and explore the abandoned building, and you find art inside.”
 
However, organizing such art exhibitions without financial assistance is quite challenging.
“I have tried to apply for funding. I was ditched, nobody understood my idea, or they thought it is dumb. I thought, “Okay, screw you. I am going to do it myself,” Evgeni exclaims. 
He did. 
Even experiencing financial struggles and looking for a way to overcome them, Evgeni maintains a positive attitude.
At the end of the interview, hearing about my graduation anxiety, Evgeni reassures, “If you catch the feeling in your heart, and if you are brave enough to follow it, it will lead you somewhere you like.”