dev.englishbulgaria.net/public/index.xml

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    <title>English Bulgaria</title>
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    <description>Recent content on English Bulgaria</description>
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    <item>
      <title>The Radiant and Peaceful Shipka Memorial Church</title>
      <link>/2018/02/the-radiant-and-peaceful-shipka-memorial-church/</link>
      <pubDate>Mon, 12 Feb 2018 15:17:13 +0000</pubDate>
      
      <guid>/2018/02/the-radiant-and-peaceful-shipka-memorial-church/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipka_Memorial_Church&#34;&gt;Shipka Memorial Church&lt;/a&gt; is the most beautiful church in Bulgaria that you&amp;rsquo;ve probably never heard of (or at least never visited). It&amp;rsquo;s easy to miss compared to the &lt;a href=&#34;https://englishbulgaria.net/2016/04/sofias-marvelous-alexander-nevsky-cathedral/&#34;&gt;Alexander Nevsky Cathedral&lt;/a&gt; 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&amp;rsquo;s shiny golden domes peeking out of the trees in my rear-view mirror.&lt;/p&gt;








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            alt=&#34;View of the church&amp;amp;rsquo;s façade and onion domes from the northern part of the garden&#34;/&gt; &lt;figcaption&gt;
            &lt;p&gt;View of the church&amp;rsquo;s façade and onion domes from the northern part of the garden&lt;/p&gt;
        &lt;/figcaption&gt;
&lt;/figure&gt;</description>
    </item>
    
    <item>
      <title>If You Give a Bulgarian Man Some Grapes...</title>
      <link>/2016/11/if-you-give-a-bulgarian-man-some-grapes/</link>
      <pubDate>Wed, 02 Nov 2016 17:58:18 +0000</pubDate>
      
      <guid>/2016/11/if-you-give-a-bulgarian-man-some-grapes/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;If you give a Bulgarian man some grapes, he&amp;rsquo;ll want to make wine. After he drinks the wine, he&amp;rsquo;ll want to use the pressed and fermented remains of the grapes to make a traditional brandy called &lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakia&#34;&gt;rakia&lt;/a&gt;. This is easily the most famous &lt;em&gt;cliché&lt;/em&gt; about Bulgaria, but in my experience it&amp;rsquo;s not that far from the truth.&lt;/p&gt;








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            alt=&#34;Pitting plums to add to the grape pomace&#34;/&gt; &lt;figcaption&gt;
            &lt;p&gt;Pitting plums to add to the grape pomace&lt;/p&gt;
        &lt;/figcaption&gt;
&lt;/figure&gt;</description>
    </item>
    
    <item>
      <title>Katarzyna Estate and the Legend of Thracian Wine</title>
      <link>/2016/05/katarzyna-estate-and-the-legend-of-thracian-wine/</link>
      <pubDate>Sun, 22 May 2016 17:29:25 +0000</pubDate>
      
      <guid>/2016/05/katarzyna-estate-and-the-legend-of-thracian-wine/</guid>
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            &#39;

            
            
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        /&gt; 
&lt;/figure&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Much of modern-day Bulgaria and Northern Greece was inhabited by loosely organized &lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrace&#34;&gt;Thracian&lt;/a&gt; tribes during the first millennium or so before Christ. Legend has it that they have made wine along the banks of the &lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maritsa&#34;&gt;Maritsa river&lt;/a&gt; for the last 5,000 years. The ancient Greek poet Homer partially corroborates this in his epics written around 800 BCE. From &lt;cite&gt;The Iliad&lt;/cite&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;</description>
    </item>
    
    <item>
      <title>Vratsa Is a Picturesque Thracian City</title>
      <link>/2016/05/vratsa-is-a-picturesque-thracian-city/</link>
      <pubDate>Mon, 16 May 2016 07:56:02 +0000</pubDate>
      
      <guid>/2016/05/vratsa-is-a-picturesque-thracian-city/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;The picturesque little city of Vratsa (Враца) sits at the foothills of the &lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan_Mountains&#34;&gt;Balkan Mountains&lt;/a&gt; in Northwest Bulgaria. On a recent road trip I was amazed when I saw the city sitting under the craggy cliffs of the &amp;ldquo;old mountain&amp;rdquo; (&lt;em&gt;Стара Планина&lt;/em&gt; / Stara Planina in Bulgarian). What with the water and all it&amp;rsquo;s kind of like a poor man&amp;rsquo;s &lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Town&#34;&gt;Cape Town&lt;/a&gt;!&lt;/p&gt;








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            alt=&#34;The city of Vratsa below the Balkan mountain&#34;/&gt; &lt;figcaption&gt;
            &lt;p&gt;The city of Vratsa below the Balkan mountain&lt;/p&gt;
        &lt;/figcaption&gt;
&lt;/figure&gt;</description>
    </item>
    
    <item>
      <title>Tanks Rolling Down the Streets of Sofia</title>
      <link>/2016/05/tanks-rolling-streets-sofia/</link>
      <pubDate>Thu, 05 May 2016 14:10:12 +0000</pubDate>
      
      <guid>/2016/05/tanks-rolling-streets-sofia/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;Last night my trolley ride home from downtown Sofia was interrupted by a police roadblock and some rather unusual traffic on Aleksandar Dondukov Boulevard.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;video controls preload=&#34;auto&#34; width=&#34;100%&#34; class=&#34;html-video&#34;&gt;
    &lt;source src=&#34;/2016/05/tanks-rolling-streets-sofia/tanks-in-sofia.webm&#34; type=&#34;video/webm&#34; }}&gt;
    &lt;source src=&#34;/2016/05/tanks-rolling-streets-sofia/tanks-in-sofia.mp4&#34; type=&#34;video/mp4&#34; }}&gt;
  &lt;p&gt;Your browser doesn&#39;t support embedded videos, but don&#39;t worry, you can &lt;a href=&#34;/2016/05/tanks-rolling-streets-sofia/tanks-in-sofia.mp4&#34;&gt;download it&lt;/a&gt; and watch it with your favorite video player!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/video&gt;</description>
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    <item>
      <title>Sofia&#39;s Marvelous Alexander Nevsky Cathedral</title>
      <link>/2016/04/sofias-marvelous-alexander-nevsky-cathedral/</link>
      <pubDate>Wed, 20 Apr 2016 14:21:40 +0000</pubDate>
      
      <guid>/2016/04/sofias-marvelous-alexander-nevsky-cathedral/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;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 &lt;em&gt;cliché&lt;/em&gt; to say that the &lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Nevsky_Cathedral,_Sofia&#34;&gt;Alexander Nevsky cathedral&lt;/a&gt; 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.&lt;/p&gt;








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            alt=&#34;Sofia&amp;amp;rsquo;s Alexander Nevsky cathedral on a sunny afternoon&#34;/&gt; &lt;figcaption&gt;
            &lt;p&gt;Sofia&amp;rsquo;s Alexander Nevsky cathedral on a sunny afternoon&lt;/p&gt;
        &lt;/figcaption&gt;
&lt;/figure&gt;</description>
    </item>
    
    <item>
      <title>Vakali Rocks a Packed NDK Auditorium</title>
      <link>/2016/03/vakali-rocks-packed-ndk-auditorium/</link>
      <pubDate>Thu, 24 Mar 2016 12:28:53 +0000</pubDate>
      
      <guid>/2016/03/vakali-rocks-packed-ndk-auditorium/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;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 &lt;a href=&#34;https://www.facebook.com/VAKALI.group/&#34; title=&#34;Vikali group on Facebook&#34;&gt;Vakali&amp;rsquo;s&lt;/a&gt; performance at the &lt;a href=&#34;http://www.ndk.bg/&#34;&gt;National Palace of Culture (NDK)&lt;/a&gt; in Sofia last week that my hands &lt;em&gt;still hurt&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;








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            alt=&#34;Vakali group (from their Facebook page)&#34;/&gt; &lt;figcaption&gt;
            &lt;p&gt;Vakali group (from their Facebook page)&lt;/p&gt;
        &lt;/figcaption&gt;
&lt;/figure&gt;</description>
    </item>
    
    <item>
      <title>Village of Gela, Birthplace of Orpheus</title>
      <link>/2016/03/village-gela-birthplace-orpheus/</link>
      <pubDate>Mon, 07 Mar 2016 08:56:17 +0000</pubDate>
      
      <guid>/2016/03/village-gela-birthplace-orpheus/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;As you drive into the village of Gela in southern Bulgaria a sign informs you that this is the birthplace of &lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus&#34;&gt;Orpheus&lt;/a&gt;, the legendary Thracian musician and poet. I&amp;rsquo;m not sure if it&amp;rsquo;s true, but who &lt;em&gt;wouldn&amp;rsquo;t&lt;/em&gt; be able to &amp;ldquo;charm all living things and even stones&amp;rdquo; with their music if they were born in a village with such a view? These are the &lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodope_Mountains&#34;&gt;Rhodope Mountains&lt;/a&gt; in the golden afternoon sunlight of early spring.&lt;/p&gt;








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            alt=&#34;View of the Rhodope Mountains from Gela, Bulgaria&#34;/&gt; &lt;figcaption&gt;
            &lt;p&gt;View of the Rhodope Mountains from Gela, Bulgaria&lt;/p&gt;
        &lt;/figcaption&gt;
&lt;/figure&gt;</description>
    </item>
    
    <item>
      <title>Beautiful Ligatures in Serbian Cyrillic</title>
      <link>/2016/02/beautiful-ligatures-in-serbian-cyrillic/</link>
      <pubDate>Wed, 24 Feb 2016 11:37:16 +0000</pubDate>
      
      <guid>/2016/02/beautiful-ligatures-in-serbian-cyrillic/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;Ligatures for &amp;ldquo;ль&amp;rdquo; and &amp;ldquo;нь&amp;rdquo; are unique to the Cyrillic alphabets of several Slavic languages in Southeastern Europe. We don&amp;rsquo;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&amp;rsquo;t have. You can see љ (&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lje&#34;&gt;Lje&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;) on this road sign for Жељуша in Serbia (with the &lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaj%27s_Latin_alphabet&#34;&gt;Serbo-Croatian Latin&lt;/a&gt; representation below it):&lt;/p&gt;








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            alt=&#34;Road sign for Жељуша town in Serbia showing the Cyrillic ligature for &amp;amp;ldquo;ль&amp;amp;rdquo;&#34;/&gt; &lt;figcaption&gt;
            &lt;p&gt;Road sign for Жељуша town in Serbia showing the Cyrillic ligature for &amp;ldquo;ль&amp;rdquo;&lt;/p&gt;
        &lt;/figcaption&gt;
&lt;/figure&gt;</description>
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    <item>
      <title>Beautiful Ligatures in Macedonian Cyrillic</title>
      <link>/2016/02/beautiful-ligatures-in-macedonian-cyrillic/</link>
      <pubDate>Mon, 08 Feb 2016 09:14:15 +0000</pubDate>
      
      <guid>/2016/02/beautiful-ligatures-in-macedonian-cyrillic/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;Macedonian is a Slavic language closely related to Bulgarian. My untrained ear can&amp;rsquo;t tell the difference between the two, but my eyes spot differences immediately. In addition to minor variations in spelling and grammar, &lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonian_alphabet&#34;&gt;Macedonian&amp;rsquo;s Cyrillic alphabet&lt;/a&gt; uses a handful of characters not present in Bulgarian&amp;rsquo;s, for example the beautiful ligatures for &amp;ldquo;ль&amp;rdquo; and &amp;ldquo;нь&amp;rdquo;: љ and њ, respectively.&lt;/p&gt;








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            alt=&#34;Ligatures for upper and lowercase &amp;amp;ldquo;Lje&amp;amp;rdquo; and &amp;amp;ldquo;Nje&amp;amp;rdquo; characters (rendered in PT Sans)&#34;/&gt; &lt;figcaption&gt;
            &lt;p&gt;Ligatures for upper and lowercase &amp;ldquo;Lje&amp;rdquo; and &amp;ldquo;Nje&amp;rdquo; characters (rendered in PT Sans)&lt;/p&gt;
        &lt;/figcaption&gt;
&lt;/figure&gt;</description>
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    <item>
      <title>The &#34;Sofia Communist Tour&#34; Is Great</title>
      <link>/2016/01/sofia-communist-tour-great/</link>
      <pubDate>Wed, 27 Jan 2016 13:43:20 +0000</pubDate>
      
      <guid>/2016/01/sofia-communist-tour-great/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;What better vessel could there be than an iconic, former-East-German &lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabant&#34;&gt;Trabant&lt;/a&gt; for navigating a narrative of Bulgaria&amp;rsquo;s communist era? A few clever young Bulgarians have bought a little blue &amp;ldquo;Trabi&amp;rdquo; and are giving free tours of Sofia with the aim of doing just that.&lt;/p&gt;








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            src=&#34;/2016/01/sofia-communist-tour-great/DSC_0013_hu0b8db3f8b42fc9816735d5e6d1759f12_1623225_800x0_resize_q75_box.jpg&#34;
            

        
            alt=&#34;The East German Trabant is an iconic reminder of Communism in Eastern Europe&#34;/&gt; &lt;figcaption&gt;
            &lt;p&gt;The East German Trabant is an iconic reminder of Communism in Eastern Europe&lt;/p&gt;
        &lt;/figcaption&gt;
&lt;/figure&gt;</description>
    </item>
    
    <item>
      <title>Rambling Man With a Torch in Sofia</title>
      <link>/2016/01/rambling-man-with-torch-sofia/</link>
      <pubDate>Mon, 04 Jan 2016 12:44:05 +0000</pubDate>
      
      <guid>/2016/01/rambling-man-with-torch-sofia/</guid>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;&amp;ldquo;&lt;em&gt;STOP!&lt;/em&gt;&amp;rdquo; he shouts, right as I&amp;rsquo;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. &amp;ldquo;&lt;em&gt;Holy shit,&lt;/em&gt;&amp;rdquo; I think, &amp;ldquo;&lt;em&gt;am I about to get jacked?&lt;/em&gt;&amp;rdquo;&lt;/p&gt;








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            &#39;

            
            
            src=&#34;/2016/01/rambling-man-with-torch-sofia/Butane_torch_hu8d1818e9b64ce30e95e31bde0ff5dd03_672344_800x0_resize_q75_box.jpg&#34;
            

        
            alt=&#34;Butane torch (by Hustvedt, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)&#34;/&gt; &lt;figcaption&gt;
            &lt;p&gt;Butane torch (by Hustvedt, &lt;a href=&#34;https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0&#34;&gt;CC BY-SA 3.0&lt;/a&gt;, via &lt;a href=&#34;https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AButane_torch.jpg&#34;&gt;Wikimedia Commons&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;
        &lt;/figcaption&gt;
&lt;/figure&gt;</description>
    </item>
    
    <item>
      <title>About</title>
      <link>/about/</link>
      <pubDate>Tue, 08 Dec 2015 17:06:42 +0000</pubDate>
      
      <guid>/about/</guid>
      <description>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.</description>
    </item>
    
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