Street Art in Sofia: My Favourite Murals and Where to Find Them

Sofia's best street art lives on the ends of tower blocks in Poduyane, in the old streets around Serdika and along the quiet roads of Lozenets. Here's where I take friends to see it: four routes you can walk on your own, the murals on each, the nearest metro stop, and the Soviet Army monument that became the city's most famous canvas.

Where to find street art in Sofia

The murals I go back to are spread over four parts of the city, and each area makes a good hour or two on foot. The largest walls date from June 2013, when Urban Creatures, a Sofia street art project that ran from 2011 to 2016, brought artists in to paint the blank end walls of the tower blocks in Poduyane.

Mural hunting is my favourite of the off-beat things to do in Sofia, because it costs nothing and takes me out to residential districts like Poduyane and Lozenets.

Route 1: Serdika and the old market quarter

This is the route to do first, because it starts at the main metro interchange and finishes just west of the Women's Market. Allow about an hour with stops.

Tulip Serdica by Arsek and Erase

Come up from Serdika metro and walk north along Maria Luiza Boulevard to the corner with Pirotska Street. Tulip Serdica (Лале Сердика) covers a wall here, and it's the easiest big mural in Sofia to find. The duo Arsek and Erase painted it over five days, from 15 to 19 October 2020, with backing from the Dutch embassy, as a symbol of friendship between Bulgaria and the Netherlands.

Arsek and Erase paint big walls abroad too, with murals in Berlin from 2018 and in Leipzig for the 2024 European Championship. Another of their Sofia walls, Freedom in Colour (Свобода в цвят), went up on 16 December 2021 on Han Kubrat Street in Nadezhda, out to the north-west of the centre.

St George and the Dragon by Bozko

A short walk east, on Serdika Street at the corner with Triaditsa Street, Bozko painted St George fighting the dragon. Bozko is the name Bozhidar Simeonov paints under, and his work turns up as far away as Brussels, where he painted a mural called Swing in 2018.

Bulgaria keeps St George's feast day, 6 May, as a public holiday. The mural is about 250 metres from Serdika II metro station, on line M2.

The Embrace and the streets behind the synagogue

Walk north to the corner of Ekzarh Yosif Street and Bacho Kiro Street for The Embrace (Прегръдката), a 2018 mural. Ekzarh Yosif is the street of the Sofia Synagogue, and at least five more murals cover walls within a block or two of The Embrace.

From here, Tsar Simeon Street runs west. Follow it for about 15 minutes, across Stefan Stambolov Boulevard, to the corner with Opalchenska Street for JahOne's To Give Life (Да дариш живот). JahOne also painted two murals called Nishava in the south-west of the city.

Route 2: Poduyane's tower-block murals

Poduyane is a residential district north-east of the centre, and its murals are the biggest I know in Sofia. Ride line M3 to Hadzhi Dimitar. The Urban Creatures walls from June 2013 stand in the Hadzhi Dimitar estate, about five minutes' walk from the station, and you can walk between them in a minute or two.

Grandpa Dobri by Nasimo

Nasimo's Grandpa Dobri (Дядо Добри) is my favourite mural in Sofia, and it's the photo at the top of this page. It runs up the end of a tower block where Ostrovo Street meets Klisura Street. Dobri Dobrev looks out with his long white beard, holding a lit candle, with a dove below him and another flying across the next block, and a halo of Cyrillic words around his head lists virtues such as kindness, honesty and humility.

Dobri was the old man who stood begging by Alexander Nevsky Cathedral and gave what he collected to churches. He died in 2018, aged 103, and Sofia still calls him Grandpa Dobri.

Etam Cru, Bozko and the Girl with Chalk

Three more walls stand within 200 metres of Grandpa Dobri. The Polish duo Etam Cru painted Surprise (Изненада) where Spas Ginev Street meets Ostrovo Street, and Bozko has a 2013 wall by Rumyana Voyvoda Street and his bull on Filip Totyu Street.

The Girl with Chalk (Момичето с тебешира), subtitled Dream, came later, in 2016, on Doncho Vatah Street near Makgahan Street. Walk the four in a loop and you're back at Grandpa Dobri in under half an hour.

The Georgi Asparuhov mural

From the Urban Creatures walls, walk about 15 minutes south-east into Sukhata Reka. A tall strip of mural runs up a tower block above a Billa supermarket on Aleksandar Ekzarh Street.

It shows Georgi Asparuhov, the Levski Sofia striker everyone calls Gundi, in a blue shirt with the Levski Л, between two lions under a crown. The 80 and the Roman numerals IV-V-MCMXLIII, his birth date of 4 May 1943, mark what would have been his 80th birthday. He died in a car crash in 1971, aged 28, and Levski's stadium, about a kilometre north-east of the mural, carries his name.

Route 3: Patriarh Evtimiy and Han Asparuh to NDK

This loop starts and ends at NDK metro. Walk north-east for about five minutes to the corner of Han Asparuh Street and Angel Kanchev Street.

Here Bosoletti painted a portrait of the poet Nikola Vaptsarov for Urban Creatures. Vaptsarov was shot by firing squad in 1942, and his old home beside the mural is now a small house-museum. Five minutes west along Han Asparuh Street, at the corner with Knyaz Boris I Street, is Parked Life by Gijs Vanhee.

Head back south-east to Hristo Belchev Street, where Nos 48 to 50 carry a mural called We sign for peace, then turn east along Patriarh Evtimiy Boulevard. Someone has sprayed my favourite Sofia slogan on the walls around Nos 29 to 34: Да бъдеш добър е страшно уморително, "being good is terribly tiring".

Finish by walking south to the edge of South Park, where a portrait of the high jumper Stefka Kostadinova stands by the junction of Bulgaria Boulevard and Cherni Vrah Boulevard, near Lovers' Bridge. The National Palace of Culture, the giant concrete congress centre everyone calls NDK, is just north, and the metro is under the square in front of it.

Route 4: Lozenets and emircA's satirical walls

Lozenets is the district south-east of NDK, and emircA has painted jokes about Bulgarian life on several of its walls.

Start at Vasil Levski Stadium metro. On Hristo Smirnenski Boulevard, by the corner with Stara Stena Street and the University of Architecture at No. 1, is Money Laundry (Пералня за пари). Walk south-west for about 15 minutes to Sveti Naum Street by Hristo Yasenov Square for 30 Summers Without a Banana Shortage (30 лета без бананов дефицит), a dig at the empty shelves of the communist years. European Union metro, on line M2, is round the corner.

From Sveti Naum, walk south-east for about 10 minutes to James Bourchier Boulevard. At the corner with Sveta Gora Street, by Sofia University's Lozenets campus, is Around Sofia (Около София), and a little further along the boulevard emircA painted Embassy Make Us Great Again. Walk back west along James Bourchier Boulevard for about 15 minutes to the metro station of the same name on M2.

The Monument to the Soviet Army and its superhero makeover

The best-known piece of street art in Sofia lasted three days. In June 2011, someone painted the bronze soldiers at the foot of the Monument to the Soviet Army overnight as American comic heroes and pop icons. Superman leads the charge, with Captain America, the Joker, Santa Claus and Ronald McDonald around him, and the words В крак с времето, "in step with the times", were sprayed on the plinth below.

By 21 June it had been scrubbed off, and the monument went on being repainted for years. On 21 August 2013 the same soldiers turned pink, with the Czech words Bulharsko se omlouvá, "Bulgaria apologises", for Bulgaria's part in the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. In February 2014 they were painted in the blue and yellow of Ukraine with "Glory to Ukraine", and "Hands off Ukraine" followed in early March.

Built in 1954 in the park on Tsar Osvoboditel Boulevard, the monument marked ten years since the Soviet Army arrived in 1944, the year the communist chapter of Bulgarian history began, a chapter that ran until 1989. The soldier, the woman with her baby and the man on top of the 37-metre monument were taken down in December 2023. A plan to move them into the Museum of Socialist Art was dropped, and the column stands empty.

Either side of the paved square, the bronze soldier groups still stand, and in 2026 the hoardings round the base were covered in graffiti. Sofia University and Orlov Most metro stations are both a few minutes' walk away, and Orlov Most sits at the corner of Borisova Gradina.

My half day of Sofia street art

When friends ask for one morning of murals, this is the plan I give them. It links the centre, the monument and Poduyane with three metro rides, and leaves the afternoon free.

The total is €2 in fares. If you've got energy left after lunch, NDK II puts you at the start of route 3.

Street names in Cyrillic for each route

Sofia's street signs are in Cyrillic, so these are the names on my four routes as you'll see them on the walls. Ten minutes with the Cyrillic alphabet makes them easy to match.