About The Christopher Deliso Blog

This blog celebrates the singularities and unexpected revelations of the Balkans. That is on the good days. Other times there is just news from the 'industry' and my opinions on it.

Bulgarian Surprises

May 11, 2008 • Comments Bulgaria

In the latter half of 2007 I had the opportunity to cover large swathes of Bulgaria while researching the new Lonely Planet guide to Bulgaria. Here is the link, it is available as of May 2008. Buy it and use it and send them nice mail commending the two fine authors involved (heh heh).

While I have visited and vacationed in Bulgaria several times since 2002, this was the first time that I had the luxury of roughing it for extended periods of time. Among the numerous little revelations I will take a minute to list them. Then I will note some things from the industrial point of view.

Vidin - sad Vidin, the ploshtad so dark at night - over the river with that great balmy river smell, the way you can tell a real river (it commands respect), with the fish and the beer down on the boat.

Oddities of Bulgaria: the cornerside coffee machines (as if people were rushing a la New York and too busy to sit down!) of Ruse, where my research was made easier by the fact that there is finally decent budget accommodation to write about in the city centre, with the good old English Guest House on Baba Tonka Street. They told me the true story about old Baba Tonka and it was one to make you blush.

The river resumed at Vetren, bleak and ungainly with overgrown greenery, by the serene and reeded lake of Srebarna. It was indeed silvery and soft, the wild fruits were out, I waited in vain to see a river otter.

We skip a little ahead now but I don't want to leave out the great old trains of Bulgaria, some so old (yet spacious) they make me jealous about my Yugoslav-era Macedonian trains that the government is talking about upgrading.

Veliko Tarnovo - a crowd favorite - and everyone knows the architecture so I don't need to add anything on that. Two more unusual moments, however, aside from the Turkish coffee made over heated sands... the first was the university, where the professors treated me graciously and I got a guided tour on Trapezitsa Hill. It was fantastic seeing everyone out and digging away and presenting to the sun little shards of Byzantine pottery and even the odd colorful ceramic plate. And the foreman of sorts, making notes and inspecting documents in some sort of organizational challenge with strange inscrutable mechanisms and tools.

The second VT experience was when I went the second time around. After visiting a hotel to write about I saw a street heading up into blackness and naturally wanted to explore it. Up and down and around the corner an old woman in black with unnervingly large, beatific eyes stopped me and asked me everything about myself. Speaking Macedonian as I was, there were some misunderstandings but still not much more than you'd expect in dealing with a 90 year old woman in the middle of Bulgaria. She did not want to let me go and I began to wonder if she really existed at all.

After I finally freed myself and went down the hill, I looked up and she was not there. Though there was nowhere to go! The whole episode still seems something excessive but then again so is Bulgaria and so are its people.

An explosion of colour awaited me in Plovdiv where I had the very great luck to be invited into the home/studio of Dimitar and Rosalia Kirov, the famous painter and his wife the ballerina. I wrote about them in the book, by the way (though I didn't write about the disappearing woman). I will always be grateful for being granted access to what I described as "the greatest museum you'll never see" in the guide. Such wonderful paintings and mosaics, so vivid and rich, and such kind people. I called Dimitar "the spirit of old Plovdiv personified" and I believe it is true.

Old Plovdiv struck me as a particularly wonderful old town precisely because there are still artists and musicians and so on living and working there. It is not like one of those dead and antiseptic old town as in so many cities, the kind of place that exists just for the tourists. It is truly a great place and I should thank the gang at the Hiker's Hostel up on Saborna for their comraderie and putting up with me and my pizzas and religious accoutrements.

Kazanlak was also a pleasant surprise and I found myself irresistibly attracted to it, its blend of cultures, open market and improbably nightlife. Shipka, with the gold dome of the Russian-style church gleaming on the green hill was a welcome relief after a minibus full of peasants with their chicken and walking sticks and burlap bags and dust. All part of the fun!

I see that I am not going to have time to get into the industrial side of things so I will wrap up my first impressions of other places. Devin down in the Rhodopes was a great getaway, and I enjoyed hearing the stories about hotels and employees and their connection to votes for political parties, which had something to do with why some didn't speak English though they offered massages with diamonds and caviar.

Indeed, the gigantic faux crystal ball erupting from the fountain in the new five-start hotel was a bit over the top, and so was the behavior of the old drunk in the town's one bar who tried to beat a hapless Austrian tourist because he had something against Austrians in general, going back, I think, to the Second World War. I didn't really understand why and I don't think anyone did. The police came but they seemed bored. It seemed Devin had quite a lot of police for such a sleepy town, considering mothers feel fine to go into the shops leaving the baby carriage unguarded outside of the door.

Now I can see that we are well and truly running on and this story will have to be continued another time. So my apologies to the citizens of Chepelare, Kotel, Sliven, Stara Zagora, etc., and those over in Pirin too- I will get to you! All good things in all good time, as the song says. For now, good night and blagodaria Bulgaria!