r/AskBalkans • u/Franck_Dernoncourt • 1d ago

Outdoors/Travel Which buildings are illegal to photograph in Bulgaria?

I read on https://www.mfa.gov.sg/Countries-Regions/B/Bulgaria/Travel-Page:

It is illegal to photograph some buildings. If in doubt, check with the local authorities.

I don't want to ask the local authorities each time I take a photo that includes some building. Which buildings are illegal to photograph in Bulgaria?

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u/dwartbg9 Bulgaria 1d ago

It's just military bases and the Military HQ in Sofia, which won't be a problem for you. Don't worry.

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u/No-Championship-4632 Bulgaria 1d ago

Probably military bases. I know of one place where it is forbidden to take photos of that don't make a lot of sense. It's something that even many Bulgarians don't know. Just like several kilometers from Bansko, the fancy ski resort, there was an uranium mine and a factory for processing uranium ore. The mine was closed a long time ago and so was the factory - but it's still guarded nevertheless. They don't allow you to take photos of it (you can still do that, but not from close distance). Not sure if it is still the case nowadays, but it probably still is. I don't know why they don't allow taking photos of it - it isn't working and it isn't a secret after all.

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u/_Karagoez_ 1d ago edited 1d ago

I just went on a tour of Plovdiv and apparently the post office buildings, among other ones, are illegal to photograph the interior of as they were previously used by police or other state entities but their heightened security status was never updated

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u/No-Championship-4632 Bulgaria 1d ago

What?

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u/_Karagoez_ 1d ago

Don’t know what there is to clarify, the tour guide said the security guard will yell at you if you attempt to take photos of the inside and that’s the reason why

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u/No-Championship-4632 Bulgaria 1d ago edited 1d ago

He must have been joking with you. It was never a "secret service building", it was still a post office back in the socialist era. The secret service was normally housed either in police or military premises depending on the branch They also had headquarters in Sofia in a separate high security building. You don't have them coinhabiting public buildings like post offices for sure. My guess is your tour guide tried to spice it up, it's definitely not forbidden to take photos inside Plovdiv's post office. Or might be the guard himself didn't like to get filmed so they invented that story, win-win for both of them.

I know some tourists have this weird interest in the repressive apparatus of the communist regime, but that part is very much inaccessible, either because stuff happened in police buildings that are still used by police (they might yell at you if you just start taking photos inside for no reason indeed), or because they are repurposed and nothing ever reminds of their dark past, or (as in labor camps such as Belene) it is not exactly a tourist region and few tourists ever venture there.

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u/Apatride 8h ago

No issue with buildings outside of military ones. On the other hand, while in most countries there is no expectation of privacy when in public, here the constitution protects people's privacy and some people can react badly when you take photos of them or where they are in the frame. If someone complains, it is better to delete the photo and then take another one where they do not appear.