In a video on the Bulgarian news site gospodari.com, reporter Petar Antonov focuses on the lack of progress in the restoration of the ruined synagogue in Vidin. The video shows graphic footage of the building. In Antonov’s previous report from 2012, he interviewed people about plans restore the building as a culture and arts center. Plans have been in the works for decades but have never been carried out.
Earlier this year, Radio Vidin ran a story detailing the stalled restoration process, as well as the proposed plans.
In July last year the National Institute for Immovable Cultural Heritage at the Ministry of Culture came up with an official statement on the project for conservation, restoration, reconstruction, and adaptation of the Synagogue into a Jules Pascin Culture Center. The designer team comes from the architecture company Architectural Team, led by Architect Lyubomir Stanislavov. The project stipulates formation of a museum hall with a year-round exhibition and Jules Pascin library, a Holocaust museum exposition, a meeting hall, and a small house of prayer. If the seemingly small obstacles are removed, construction work is expected to commence this year and conclude in 2014 when the 120th anniversary of the Synagogue will be celebrated.
(See the project proposal to turn the synagogue into a museum named for Pascin, a Vidin-born Jewish artist.)
The Radio Vidin report quoted the architect Lyubomir Stanislavov, who drew up the synagogue restoration project’s technical design:
“Despite assertions that the Synagogue’s status is still uncertain, this is not the case. In 2009 the Vidin chapter of the Shalom organization made a free and indefinite conveyance of the building through title deed to the Ministry of Culture under two conditions: to restore it and to allocate a 50 sq. m. space for the needs of the Jewish community.
“The design is fully completed, reworked according to all additional requirements of the Ministry of Culture. Everything has been completed, submitted, and approved. In actual fact it is now a project in its working stage, ready for immediate execution. The only barrier is that a letter from the Minister of Culture to the Vidin district governor is awaited to vest in the governor, according to the legal requirements, powers to represent the state and carry out supervision during project implementation. Said letter will enable the funding application process. Regrettably, things are moving really slow and apathetically.
In March, according to local media, the Israeli ambassador to Bulgaria pledged Israel’s aid in the restoration.
Built in 1894 in a neo-Gothic style, the Vidin synagogue was put on the World Monuments Fund Watch list in 2004.
Already at that time the WMF reported that:
During the 1970s the Ministry of Culture and the National Institute of Monuments developed a plan to restore the building. Work began in 1983 and continued until 1989, when the collapse of the communist regime lead to the abandonment of the project, just as workers had removed the roof. Exposed to the elements for more than a decade the synagogue is now a ruin. Complete photo documentation of the synagogue and its interiors took place prior to the restoration attempt and could be used as the basis for a new restoration program. The Bulgarian national Jewish organization, now the owner of the site, wishes to see the building restored as a concert hall for use by the community, and also as a monument to its forebears.