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“Crazy, pierced, strange-haired children": Jump into the colourful 00s heyday of Bulgarian raving
The Bulgarian Rave Archive captures an effervescent era of freewheeling ravers
Nestled somewhere into the mountains and cobbled streets of Sofia, raucous pioneering parties led the charge for a whirlwind era for electronic music on the brink of the new millennium. The city saw the sweet spot in which Bulgaria lovingly adopted club music and in return, squeezed out a hefty supply of freewheeling ravers afresh to see in the end of a blustering decade.
“We were crazy, pierced, strange-haired children who, like most, wanted to show our freedom and declare social status. In our case, it was status out of the mainstream, rebellion, and preaching a culture of diversity,” says Vladzen Iliev, curator of Bulgaria Rave Archive. The archived materials documented by Vladzen tell a tale of Bulgaria at a transition period, defied by a new generation of party-hungry ravers.
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Vladzen, who worked as a visual artist through the late 90s creating flyers, decor, and visuals for events, now looks after an enormous collection of archived pictures, videos, and merchandise from that 90s heyday. “For me, this is a very personal project aiming to build a bridge between generations and show that history must not be forgotten,” he tells Mixmag.
“Our tendency to forget has always interested me as a topic, nostalgia and the state of our scene culminated in my desire to start this project. I’d be happy if I could inspire people the way that those years did me.”
Bulgaria Rave Archive wasn’t just a passion project for Vladzen but also a way to tell the story of an often forgotten playground for pioneering talent and revellers alike. In 2021, the team behind the archive set up an online exhibition featuring over 20 hours of footage from the period, over 200 archived photos and 100 original posters, flyers, radio show snippets, and interviews with DJs, promoters and fans.
Vladzen also tells Mixmag how every photo is digitally enhanced using AI technology which later became interactive installations feeding through September’s exhibition. The team are now working toward a photobook and hope to reach ravers overseas with a glimpse of these almighty party scenes.
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“These are my memories full of colourful, happy and enthusiastic people, people expressing their freedom openly and enjoying the new culture in which they find themselves,” says Vladzen. Check out the unruly happenings of Bulgaria’s rave scene through the 1990s below.
