WHERE IN BULGARIA ARE YOU?

by Stamen Manolov; photography by Anthony Georgieff

Situated deep in the Bulgarian heartland, this place feels as though it belongs to southern Germany or the Austro-Hungarian Empire

where in bulgaria are you.jpg

A look into its history will reveal why. Though it has medieval origins, after the 1878 liberation from the Ottomans the village was populated by ethnic Bulgarian immigrants from the Banat, now in Romania, Hungary and Serbia. The Bulgarians, offspring of the refugees from the failed Chiprovtsi Uprising two centuries previously. They were joined by a number of German families, who set up their own telltale quarter replete with a school and a Roman Catholic church. All of them were forced to resettle in the German Reich in the 1930s, leaving their houses and belongings behind. What remains now is a shadow of the village's multiethnic and multireligious history, a piece of a Central European curiosity right in the middle of the Balkans.

  • COMMENTING RULES

    Commenting on www.vagabond.bg

    Vagabond Media Ltd requires you to submit a valid email to comment on www.vagabond.bg to secure that you are not a bot or a spammer. Learn more on how the company manages your personal information on our Privacy Policy. By filling the comment form you declare that you will not use www.vagabond.bg for the purpose of violating the laws of the Republic of Bulgaria. When commenting on www.vagabond.bg please observe some simple rules. You must avoid sexually explicit language and racist, vulgar, religiously intolerant or obscene comments aiming to insult Vagabond Media Ltd, other companies, countries, nationalities, confessions or authors of postings and/or other comments. Do not post spam. Write in English. Unsolicited commercial messages, obscene postings and personal attacks will be removed without notice. The comments will be moderated and may take some time to appear on www.vagabond.bg.

Add new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
About text formats

Restricted HTML

  • Allowed HTML tags: <a href hreflang> <em> <strong> <cite> <blockquote cite> <code> <ul type> <ol start type> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <h2 id> <h3 id> <h4 id> <h5 id> <h6 id>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
Disclaimers

WALL-TO-WALL. POETRY EUROPE

Email your answers to editorial@vagabond.bg and you can win a copy of WALL-TO-WALL. POETRY EUROPE

Wall-to-Wall_Cover_1.jpg

Discover More

where in bulgari are you.jpg
WHERE IN BULGARIA ARE YOU?
To reach it you have climbed and climbed and climbed for hours on end, starting from a mountain chalet called Bezbog, or Godless.
where in bulgaria are you.jpg
WHERE IN BULGARIA ARE YOU?
The city was cosmopolitan and rather rundown, part Danubian and part post-Ottoman – a place where one could drink a huge Viennese coffee in a brightly lit coffee shop that served both Mitteleuropean cakes and pretzels, and Middle Eastern kataifi and baklava
where in bulgaria are you.jpg
WHERE IN BULGARIA ARE YOU?
Situated in the heart of what is probably Bulgaria's best farming land, it has a rich history of which... almost no material heritage remains.
where in bulgaria_0.jpg
WHERE IN BULGARIA ARE YOU?
In Antiquity and onwards the area developed as a thriving centre for mining lead, iron, silver, gold and copper. As it happened, one of the first Bulgarian rebellions against the Ottomans originated here, in the 17th century.
where in bulgaria are you.jpg
WHERE IN BULGARIA ARE YOU?
Cultivating the rose bushes is difficult enough, but the real challenge comes with picking up the buds: it can be done only within a few weeks in May and early June, and only very early in the morning.
where in bulgaria are you.jpg
WHERE IN BULGARIA ARE YOU?
Besides the fortress, it sports plenty of Ottoman-era heritage, including a well-preserved city wall, a post office, a cross-shaped barracks and perhaps the most eccentric mosque this side of the Bosporous.
where in bulgaria are you.jpg
WHERE IN BULGARIA ARE YOU?
A successful negotiation of the cobbled streets, which can become treacherously slippery in wet weather, will open up a new world for you, both out- and indoors.
where in bulgaria are you.jpg
WHERE IN BULGARIA ARE YOU?
Men and women in bathing suits partake, come rain or shine, of some hot mineral springs that flow freely through the yellowish mud. A very un-orthodox church with bold, non-Christian-like murals stands nearby.
where in bulgaria are you 218.jpg
WHERE IN BULGARIA ARE YOU?
Come Yuletide, and the streets swarm with adult men dressed in what appears to be a combination between early 20th century gendarme uniforms and traditionally embroidered white shirts.
where in bulgaria are you.jpg
WHERE IN BULGARIA ARE YOU?
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 force