English Bulgaria

The Radiant and Peaceful Shipka Memorial Church

Mon, 12 Feb 2018 15:17:13 +0000

The Shipka Memorial Church is the most beautiful church in Bulgaria that you’ve probably never heard of (or at least never visited). It’s easy to miss compared to the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral that is conspicuously located in the heart of downtown Sofia. Nestled discreetly in a small grove of trees at the foothills of the Central Balkan mountains, I had driven by it three or four times before I even realized it was there. One time, on the way from the Shipka Pass to the nearby town of Kazanlak, I saw one of the church’s shiny golden domes peeking out of the trees in my rear-view mirror.

View of the church’s façade and onion domes from the northern part of the garden

If You Give a Bulgarian Man Some Grapes...

Wed, 02 Nov 2016 17:58:18 +0000

If you give a Bulgarian man some grapes, he’ll want to make wine. After he drinks the wine, he’ll want to use the pressed and fermented remains of the grapes to make a traditional brandy called rakia. This is easily the most famous cliché about Bulgaria, but in my experience it’s not that far from the truth.

Pitting plums to add to the grape pomace

Katarzyna Estate and the Legend of Thracian Wine

Sun, 22 May 2016 17:29:25 +0000

Much of modern-day Bulgaria and Northern Greece was inhabited by loosely organized Thracian tribes during the first millennium or so before Christ. Legend has it that they have made wine along the banks of the Maritsa river for the last 5,000 years. The ancient Greek poet Homer partially corroborates this in his epics written around 800 BCE. From The Iliad:

Vratsa Is a Picturesque Thracian City

Mon, 16 May 2016 07:56:02 +0000

The picturesque little city of Vratsa (Враца) sits at the foothills of the Balkan Mountains in Northwest Bulgaria. On a recent road trip I was amazed when I saw the city sitting under the craggy cliffs of the “old mountain” (Стара Планина / Stara Planina in Bulgarian). What with the water and all it’s kind of like a poor man’s Cape Town!

The city of Vratsa below the Balkan mountain

Tanks Rolling Down the Streets of Sofia

Thu, 05 May 2016 14:10:12 +0000

Last night my trolley ride home from downtown Sofia was interrupted by a police roadblock and some rather unusual traffic on Aleksandar Dondukov Boulevard.

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Sofia's Marvelous Alexander Nevsky Cathedral

Wed, 20 Apr 2016 14:21:40 +0000

When I first started visiting Bulgaria I was in awe of the beautiful buildings in Sofia. Here you can see the typical vintage of Europe mixed with a bit of the color and flair of the Orient, a combination rarely seen in Western Europe. For the first few months after I moved to Sofia I maintained the position that it was cliché to say that the Alexander Nevsky cathedral was your favorite building in the city — after all, it is undoubtedly the most famous landmark. But, ladies and gentlemen, this cathedral is absolutely marvelous to behold.

Sofia’s Alexander Nevsky cathedral on a sunny afternoon

Vakali Rocks a Packed NDK Auditorium

Thu, 24 Mar 2016 12:28:53 +0000

How do you write a review of a performance dance group that wears Viking costumes, uses bones to play their drums, and has pyrotechnics so badass that I could feel them twenty rows back in the audience? I was clapping so hard during Vakali’s performance at the National Palace of Culture (NDK) in Sofia last week that my hands still hurt?

Vakali group (from their Facebook page)

Village of Gela, Birthplace of Orpheus

Mon, 07 Mar 2016 08:56:17 +0000

As you drive into the village of Gela in southern Bulgaria a sign informs you that this is the birthplace of Orpheus, the legendary Thracian musician and poet. I’m not sure if it’s true, but who wouldn’t be able to “charm all living things and even stones” with their music if they were born in a village with such a view? These are the Rhodope Mountains in the golden afternoon sunlight of early spring.

View of the Rhodope Mountains from Gela, Bulgaria

Beautiful Ligatures in Serbian Cyrillic

Wed, 24 Feb 2016 11:37:16 +0000

Ligatures for “ль” and “нь” are unique to the Cyrillic alphabets of several Slavic languages in Southeastern Europe. We don’t have them in Bulgarian, so I can remember being confused the first time I saw them in Serbia. My confusion turned into fascination once I realized that their construction fused two characters that I knew how to use into one that we simply don’t have. You can see љ (Lje) on this road sign for Жељуша in Serbia (with the Serbo-Croatian Latin representation below it):

Road sign for Жељуша town in Serbia showing the Cyrillic ligature for “ль”

Beautiful Ligatures in Macedonian Cyrillic

Mon, 08 Feb 2016 09:14:15 +0000

Macedonian is a Slavic language closely related to Bulgarian. My untrained ear can’t tell the difference between the two, but my eyes spot differences immediately. In addition to minor variations in spelling and grammar, Macedonian’s Cyrillic alphabet uses a handful of characters not present in Bulgarian’s, for example the beautiful ligatures for “ль” and “нь”: љ and њ, respectively.

Ligatures for upper and lowercase “Lje” and “Nje” characters (rendered in PT Sans)

The "Sofia Communist Tour" Is Great

Wed, 27 Jan 2016 13:43:20 +0000

What better vessel could there be than an iconic, former-East-German Trabant for navigating a narrative of Bulgaria’s communist era? A few clever young Bulgarians have bought a little blue “Trabi” and are giving free tours of Sofia with the aim of doing just that.

The East German Trabant is an iconic reminder of Communism in Eastern Europe

Rambling Man With a Torch in Sofia

Mon, 04 Jan 2016 12:44:05 +0000

“STOP!” he shouts, right as I’m about to take my money from the ATM in downtown Sofia. Alarmed, I turn around to find some bearded man standing right behind me, holding what — at first glance — looks like a gun. “Holy shit,” I think, “am I about to get jacked?”

Butane torch (by Hustvedt, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

About

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 17:06:42 +0000

Alan in Syros, Greece Alan lived and worked in Kenya for eight years, first as a volunteer teaching computer science at a rural college, and later as a Linux systems administrator at a livestock research institute in Nairobi. During his time in Kenya he traveled extensively around East Africa and blogged about his experiences. He is passionate about open-source software, information security, and the freedom of information — naturally, he blogs about that too.