Environmentalists and their affiliated NGOs are opposing the replacement of the 70-year-old Dragalevtsi chairlift. They insist the facility should only be restored—once again as a two-seater lift with its original capacity of 600 people per hour. This would inevitably mean long queues and hours of waiting.
Background
On December 25, 1955, communist leader and then-Prime Minister Valko Chervenkov inaugurated the first section of the Dragalevtsi lift. The route connects the village of Dragalevtsi with the “Bay Krustyo” shelter. The lift had a capacity of 600 people per hour and was built by Bulgarian companies using safety standards and technologies from the early 1950s.
This is precisely the facility that green NGOs claim can be restored. According to them, new poles can be installed using the foundation of the original structure. Environmentalists frequently cite examples of similar lifts being maintained in the Alps. However, this is not accurate—such outdated facilities have long been phased out in European ski resorts.
The real issue on Vitosha Mountain is the ban on replacing old lifts with new ones. In the case of the Dragalevtsi lift, this concerns the main means of transport from Sofia—a city of 2 million people—to Vitosha Nature Park.
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