Tsar Osvoboditel Monument Sofia

Tsar Osvoboditel Monument ("Monument to the Tsar Liberator" in English) was built to honor Russian Emperor Alexander II, who drove the Ottomans out of Bulgaria in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878. Done in the Neo-classical style, Italian sculptor Arnoldo Zocchi used the distinctive black granite from nearby Mt. Vitosha to build the monument, which was completed in 1903. The monument itself features the Russian emperor on his horse, a bas-relief of Bulgarian and Russian soldiers below that, and a pedestal of gray granite at the bottom. Other monuments to see in the city of Sofia include the the Monument to the Unknown Soldier, the Monument to the Soviet Army, and Vasil Levsky Monument, to name just a few.