WHERE IN BULGARIA ARE YOU?

by Stamen Manolov; photography by Anthony Georgieff

One of the highlights of any trip in the Central Balkan National Park north of the Stara Planina mountain range is this small town famed for its telltale 19th century architecture and the local wood-carving school

where in Bulgaria are you.jpg

Take in the elaborate wooden ceilings of some of the house museums open to the public and you will know why. What is unavoidable, however, is the old clock tower right in the town's square. Years ago the local clock-man had devised a mini Foucault's pendulum inside which you could see just for the asking. Next to it is one of the first modern schools in Bulgaria and further down the road the old bath house is now an art gallery featuring artefacts from the Americas, Asia and Africa.

  • 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.

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 Bulgaria are you?.jpg
WHERE IN BULGARIA ARE YOU?
Replete with remnants of residential buildings, a royal palace, a necropolis and some fortification walls the remains of this ancient city pose more questions than give out answers.
where in Bulgaria are you.jpg
WHERE IN BULGARIA ARE YOU?
Major resorts like Sunny Beach and Golden Sands are located at strips of sand and dunes, and there are numerous small fine sand beaches that more often than not you may end up being the only visitor to. But the Bulgarian Black Sea has a lot more to offer.
Where in Bulgaria are you.jpg
WHERE IN BULGARIA ARE YOU?
Locals refer to it by its popular nickname, The Cucumber, rather than by its official urban plan address, which is a boring Block 77.
where in bulgaria are you.jpg
WHERE IN BULGARIA ARE YOU?
Eighty-eight percent of its waters are dead owing to the high concentration of hydrogen sulphate. Through the centuries it has changed its name several times. Its shores colonised by Greeks, who promptly invented a plethora of myths and legends about it.
Where in Bulgaria are you.jpg
WHERE IN BULGARIA ARE YOU?
By far surpassing Christmas, which in the local tradition is mostly a family dinner feast in the middle of a cold, dark winter, Easter is in spring.
where in bulgaria.jpg
WHERE IN BULGARIA ARE YOU?
Made in 1949, it shows Moscow as the greatest and most important European city (sorry, London), omits to mention the existence of Dublin, but points out to a "world-famous" location called Magnitogorsk in what at the time was the Soviet Union.
where in bulgaria are you.jpg
WHERE IN BULGARIA ARE YOU?
Whereas in the West it signifies the introduction of Baby Jesus to the magi, in the East it celebrates Christ's baptism by St John in the Jordan river and the simultaneous appearance of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
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?
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.
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.