Storyline: Bulgaria with Alex
Everyone is soaked to the bones. A lady gets in the bus and asks “Do you know where this bus goes? I just got on to shelter from the rain.”
I translate to Marian and we laugh as the water continues to drip from our rain gear, because this is exactly why we got onboard, too. Although the bus will take us to a tram stop and from there we’ll be back to the centre. It is early May 2018 and here’s how we got so wet…
After visiting Boyana church, we head for the Boyana waterfalls. The short trail we took climbs steeply alongside the Boyana river. It takes about an hour and a half to two, depending on the pace, to reach the falls. We are steadily marching along the narrow path and happily chatting when a storm takes us by surprise. Suddenly the path transforms into a muddy river and in no time, despite donning our rainwear, we were all drenched. Despite our preparedness with ponchos and umbrellas we don’t stand a chance. Milan is ahead of us so we continue up the hill, sometimes slipping backwards in the mud. Eventually we find Milan squatted under a shrub and covering his head with his t-shirt. “What do you think we should do?” Jim asks. Milan is trying to turn the “Queen Mary”. He doesn’t want to be seen as a quitter. So, he replies, “what does Jim think we should do?”. Jim won’t take this either. After all, he has no idea where we are going, the nature of the terrain or the nature of the storms here either. He passes the ball back to Milan, repeating the question. By this time Milan has evaluated that this will probably last for a few hours, the track is already a muddy mess, and it will be steeper further up. “I think we should turn back”, he says. And so we do. Trying not to slip and fall in the mud, we eventually get to a bus stop back in Boyana village, in the foothills of Vitosha mountain. Torrential rain is still overwhelming the drains and flooding the streets. We take the first bus that stops. We really don’t care where it goes, but it will bring us to a somewhat more sheltered place at least.
Marian and Jim, Alex’s sister and brother-in-law, arrived yesterday and we are happy to show them around. They only have 4 days for Bulgaria, and timing for me is not the best since I am fighting my phantom pension documentation. We’ve been wanting to show them the country, take them to V. Tarnovo, Plovdiv, Koprivshtitsa, hike to the Seven Rila lakes, visit Rila monastery, go to a remote and deserted Black Sea beach, and many more. But we’d need at least 10 days for it. Instead I can’t even completely focus on what’s the best use of their time.
Alex has more laid-back approach – we’ll do what we can (I was right – we did what we could! – A). And according to Murphy’s law, Milan’s car broke down a few days before we arrived, so he couldn’t drive us around. We met them yesterday at their Airbnb and walked them very quickly through their area, by the Vasil Levski monument (revolutionary ideological leader against the Ottomans and national hero), by Alexander Nevski Cathedral,
Sofia University, where I spent 5 years of my life, then following the yellow pavement to the center, pointing to historical sites that they could revisit later.
We had a dinner reservation at a restaurant that serves typical Bulgarian cuisine. We first walked to the central bus station near the restaurant to make sure they could buy tickets for the bus to Tessaloniki, their next stop. We arrived from there just the day before yesterday and knew that the bus is the best method of transportation on that route for the moment.
We had a great time at the restaurant, which is decorated in traditional folklore style and has live folklore music.
As the bus stops and opens its doors, more and more people are getting on just to stay dry. Eventually the bus stops where we can transfer to a tram that will take us to the centre. We all have to go home and change. Milan takes the metro to his apartment in the suburb of Lyulin and we each walk to our rented apartments.
In the evening we meet with Milan at his favorite pub, where they serve live (unpasteurised) beer. While having dinner, Milan works his phone.
He is trying to arrange a car and driver to take us to Rila Monastery and possibly somewhere else. I’d like to include either the Seven Rila Lakes or Koprivshtitsa as a second stop, but Milan says that it won’t be possible to bundle either of these two with Rila Monastery in a day trip. However we may be able to visit Melnik after Rila Monastery. We’ll pay the driver for the day. Agreed. So a small tour is arranged for the day after tomorrow. Of course, the driver will have his own mind about the itinerary, but this is for another post.
We finish the day with cheers. Marian and Jim will walk around Sofia on their own tomorrow, while Alex and I will be joined by Milan back in the archives institute to help with my pension documentation.
On our last evening together, we’ll have dinner on the main promenade – Vitosha boulevard, walk through the gardens in front of the National Theater, listening to music, Marian and Jim dancing to a rendering of Joe Dassin’s “Champs-Élisées”.
As soon as they left, we had to run to my home town for some documents. In Bulgaria, one’s administrative documents are all kept at one’s place of birth. So an early morning we took the bus to V. Tarnovo, took a taxi to G. Oriahovitsa, requested the documents just before noon, walked around the centre that of course had changed since I’d left the city in 1971, then back to pick up the documents, which were ready in about 40 min (bureaucracy is less complicated in small places), taxi to Tarnovo and we even had time for a drink before taking the bus back to Sofia.
Back in Sofia we noticed some kind of protest near our friend Vanya’s former office. But this is Europe. There is always something to protest about. Usually by a handful of people that no one pays attention to.
I remember the first time Alex witnessed protests in Sofia. It was 2013. Protests had made it to the news here, which is a rare event. So he was quite concerned when we approached them. There were just a handful of people trying to make noise and the police having fun “guarding” them. We asked a policeman if we could take a photo. He laughed with “Of course you can. You can join them if you want”.
From January to June 2018 Sofia hosted the presidency of the Council of the EU. It was in the National Palace of Culture or NDK (Natsionalen dvorets na kulturata), a relic from communist times opened in 1981 to celebrate the 1300th anniversary of Bulgaria. It is known to be the biggest conference centre in this part of the world and often hosts exhibitions, concerts, festivals, and other cultural events. Sofia’s streets were decorated with flags and banners to recognize its hosting of the EU Council, and restaurants & hotels welcomed the business of so many expense-account visitors.
We returned to Sofia in September for my pension documents, and most importantly to meet with Krasi for one last time. I’ll always remember his tight squeeze and stare at my eyes when he said his last farewell. We haven’t been back since: 2019 was slotted for Australia, New Zealand and S.E Asia, then Covid messed up the world in 2020, so it will be some time before we do return to give our hugs to Krasi’s widow, Vanya.
Epilogue: Not because I once lived there, but since I posted Part 1 I was pleased to read a young blogger from England who had visited Bucharest and Sofia in 2019: “I’d visit Sofia again in a heartbeat. Bucharest on the other hand no so much… the 4 days I spent there were more than enough”. That is how we felt when in Bucharest.
On day 2 in Bucharest Alex was saying – “Forget it – Let’s just go to Sofia.”
I also recently re-read Bill Bryson’s book “Neither here nor there”, published in 1991. He first visited Sofia in 1973 when the things were at their best. His second was in the turmoil times of 1990.
I may have even seen him, since he walked in the area I used to live. I might have been in one of those lines I’ve talked about to many of you at 4am to buy bread. “…but nothing had prepared me for the sight of several hundred people queuing around the block just to buy a loaf of bread or a few ounces of scraggy meat.” I think he is exaggerating with the meat, there was none! It is interesting to see the experience of a foreigner sheltered in the exclusive Sheraton hotel (now Balkan). He liked Sofia. “…it was the most European of all cities I had been to. There were no modern shopping centres, no big gas stations, no McDonald’s… No city I had even been to had more thoroughly resisted the blandishments of American culture “. Well this was fixed very fast.
McDonald’s appeared the following year, ousting a beautiful book store… “It was completely, comprehensively European. This was, I realized with a sense of profound unease, the Europe I had dreamed of as a child.” Hmmm, little did he know what was coming. And although the city centre is still authentic,
the McDonald’s sign dominates the lovely square of St. Nedeliea’s church, the shopping malls are in the suburbs, the western style advertisements have taken over beautiful buildings,
expensive luxury cars are clogging the streets and the uber expensive stores selling Rolex watches and Gucci handbags are lining the city’s “Rodeo Drive”, the pedestrian blvd. Vitosha. Bulgaria is now in the EU.
The Euro is expected to be introduced soon, as soon as Bulgaria reins in corruption (hmmm, how is corruption in Italy or other European countries reined in?). And as I write this there is a second week of protests demanding the resignation of the entire government.
I’d say that Sofia is now a truly modernized city. For better and for worse.
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