Issue 85

I am one of the last ones. Everything has been wiped out. Only ignorance and oblivion remain. And green, so much green. Now that I've seen I know: the eyes of the Devil are green. I am one of the last lettered ones. And I don't have much time. I am a pagan because I worship the Lord. But a new era has come from the west. Whence the night comes. And where Evil feels at home. The conquerers came by sea. With black boats and smoking herbs. More fearsome than Muslims. Now in the churches, they dry herbs, grow mushrooms and breed bees.

The busy Władysław Warneńczyk Boulevard is the road you need to take through Varna to reach the Sofia-bound motorway. It is also the road to one of Bulgaria's strangest and most moving museums.

Among the firs of the park – an oasis of calm amidst the urban buzz – two Thracian burial mounds stand. One of them, adorned with a monument, encloses a burial chamber where lies the stone effigy of a medieval knight.

A medieval knight? In Bulgaria?

Someday soon,
he says, I'll go to sleep and not wake up.
You tell him no. You're talking to yourself.

Richard Hugo

"To the Small Basilica, please," we say to the taxi driver we hail in the centre of a warm, autumnal Plovdiv. Then we realise. The driver is very unlikely to know the whereabouts of Bulgaria's latest archaeological museum, only one day after the official opening.

When former Pink Floyd front man, Roger Waters, visited Bulgaria in August, one of his must-see sights was the grave of Major Frank Thompson, in the village of Litakovo outside of Botevgrad. If you are exiting from the Sofia Metro at the James Bourchier station, there is a large sign directing you to Major Thompson Street. In the town of Svoge, the train station is named after this mysterious Englishman and there is a also village called "Tompsan" in the Svoge Municipality.

Born in Ireland, Diana Rowan has lived, performed and studied on the US East Coast, in Europe and the Middle East before choosing Berkeley, California, where she received her Master of Music degree. Each country left a strong impression on Diana's music, which interweaves Celtic, Eastern European, Near Eastern and classical arts with mythology.