In the summer of 2026, as severe droughts across Europe depleted the Danube, the continent's second largest river, hidden finds began to emerge along its muddy shores. Nazi warships. Second World War British naval bombs. Sunken cargo ships. Woolly mammoth bones. And the foundations of an entire, long-lost ancient Roman bridge.
The ancient Thracian tombs across Bulgaria are some of this nation's most stunning historical heritage sites. Some have frescoes, others – sculptures or strange architecture. All of them come with their own set of mysteries and questions that still await definitive answers.
Yet, none of them is as mysterious as a tomb that lies deep in the Strandzha mountains, just a few yards away from the border with Turkey.
Being in Burgas between 11 and 15 May 2027 will not be for the faint-hearted, or for people with active dislike of current Europop. Following the historic win of DARA in 2026, the seaside city will host next year's competition – and will be packed with tens of thousands of revellers who have come to bask in the best and worst of today's music producers and performers. The crowds will be thick, and the prices of accommodations in and around the city – a major summer tourism hub – are already exorbitant.
What's in a word? A poet, especially a grand 19th century man of letters, should know best; but he would be turning in his grave if he knew he had been hailed as a political activist for what, during his whole life, he considered his arch-enemy.
Today, knowing what time it is becomes a problem only when your phone battery dies and there is no one around to ask. For previous generations it was different.
For millennia, people measured their days and nights by the movement of the sun and stars, or waited for a rooster to crow.
The epic wars fought in the summer of 2026 all across social media over the historical accuracy of Christopher Nolan's adaptation of The Odyssey should have taught us something. Myths and poetry are often inspired by historical events and places. They are sometimes backed by archaeological finds. But they are neither history, nor archaeology. They live in a separate realm; mistaking a millennia-old poem and a 21st century film for a history textbook is… beside the point.
Strange rocks and human imagination have been deeply linked since the first Homo sapiens squinted at some weirdly-shaped peaks and wondered why they looked the way they did. In the millennia that have passed since then, natural rock phenomena have been turned into shrines to pagan deities, Christian saints and Muslim sages. Legends, often bloody and brutal, have been invented about their origins.
The Stone Mushrooms, near the Rhodope village of Beli Plast, are a case in point.
Seasoned ancient mariners caught in a storm along the west Black Sea coast would become weary when they saw a light, indicating the nearby presence of terra firma. This did not always mean that there was a safe haven nearby. Sometimes, people living on the shore would set fires along treacherous cliffs to lure hapless ships to their demise. Then they would rob the wreck.
In the spring of 335 BC, Alexander III, the new king of Macedon, was climbing a hill in Thrace. It was not an ordinary hill, but a rocky stronghold of fortifications, houses and towers, protecting something famed across the ancient world: the Thracian sanctuary of Dionysus. There, the god's will was revealed when wine was poured onto the flames of a sacred altar – one that had never been known to fail in its predictions.
Мen dressed in early 20th century military uniforms, patriotic songs and speeches, lots of banners and grilled meat stalls: the people who flock to a pristine meadow, overshadowed by a sombre stone monument in the Strandzha, in the third weekend of August, are here for a purpose.
Their annual gathering, at Petrova Niva, or Peter's Field, at a picturesque bend of the Veleka River, marks a heroic and traumatic event in Bulgarian history, the St Elijah-Transfiguration Uprising.