The Rhodope

In a dismal present with little hope of a bright future, Bulgarians are increasingly searching for solace in their nation's glorious past.

Both mediaeval military might and the 19th century National Revival Period have been the darlings of the nation in the past few years. Reenactments of historical battles take place by the over-restored ruins of ancient forts, traditional peasant costumes are now de rigueur at weddings and proms, and the Horo is danced at every imaginable and unimaginable location and time.

Overgrown remains of forts and temples, mysterious rock shrines: Bulgaria's historical heritage often makes you feel like an explorer. Long forgotten and known only to die-hard history enthusiasts, they bear witness to the vibrant communities that created them millennia ago.

Asara, near the village of Angel Voyvoda in the southeast of the country, is one of these.

A legend is told all over the Balkans about a bridge and a stonemason. Once upon a time, a group of builders was commissioned to construct a bridge over a river, but whatever the men had built during the day was mysteriously destroyed during the night. Each morning the builders had to start from scratch.

Finally, the men saw the writing on the bridge, and realised that it wanted a human sacrifice. They reluctantly made a deal among themselves: on the following day, they would inter in the bridge the first person who came near.

Black winter birches cover the steep slope, their naked skeletons creating a colonnade which hides the foot of the hill, so the creek running there is only heard, not seen. White mist rises from the ravine, red leaves cover the ground. All around are more trees, more hills, more mist: this secluded landscape in the Rhodope, beyond the now disused barbed-wire fence which, under Communism, sealed off the border with Greece, stretches to the horizon.

Being overpowered by the heady aroma of tobacco while travelling through the Rhodope is as easy as buying contraband cigarettes in downtown Sofia. Pull over near a field. Step out of your car and face the endless rows of tall stalks undulating in the soft breeze. Can you feel it? They give off an intense odour that crowds out the usual aromas of thyme, yellowing grass and parched soil.

"Tomrush is a picturesque village, with grey-roofed houses clustering on the side of a steep ravine; but its beauty has been marred by the wholesale destruction of the surrounding forest," James Bourchier, a reporter for The Times, wrote in the early 20th Century. The village is just a few kilometres from Plovdiv, in the northern Rhodope, but to get there Bourchier had to cross the border into the Ottoman Empire, escorted by Bulgarian soldiers.