WHERE IN BULGARIA ARE YOU?

by Stamen Manolov; photography by Anthony Georgieff

This is one of the most remarkable infrastructure projects dating back to the Ottoman period

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A bridge spanning over a turbulent whitewater river, which was constructed in such an incredible location that it was quick to gain notoriety for being otherworldly, a structure no human hand was able to accomplish without assistance from supernatural forces. Predictably, legends and myths about the bridge proliferated through the centuries, and some remain to this day. So does the bridge. No one remembers when the road the bridge was supposed to connect disappeared from the maps, but the bridge itself has managed to withstand the power of the elements without any need for reconstruction or renovation – until a few years ago, when the structure was modernised and "beautified," and a ticket booth was installed nearby.

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