Only 30 kilometres from the Turkish-Bulgarian border, Ahtopol is considered to be one of the last spots that have preserved the old charms of Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast. Beyond a belt of tattered bungalows and a road that has been under construction for over a decade, hides a tiny peninsula. Overlooking the dark blue waters are some 200 quiet stone houses, their entrances shaded by wild figs and vines. Apart from the tasty migrating bonito, which passes by each autumn, the local attractions consist of an old Greek school, an eighteenth-century church and a mysterious white-washed rock. The latter caused Dimana Trankova to undertake a private investigation. To find out who the secretive painter is, she interrogated a local celebrity, Bay Milcho, and the owners of a disco housed by a wooden ship on the beach.

Ahtopol may be known as the new Sozopol, but it has an advantage. In autumn, the surrounding water becomes home to thousands of the tastiest Black Sea fish

Sitting between pinups of several scantily clad models, his wife Maria and his own paintings depicting fishing life, Bay Milcho leans forward. His blue eyes stare at me in bewilderment as he repeatedly mouths my question: “Did I paint the rock in the north bay of Ahtopol white!?” He has spent his entire 60 years in this southernmost town on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, mostly as a fisherman, and as a self-taught artist and local Casanova for the remaining time. Yet it's the first occasion on which he's been asked such a stupid – in his view – question.

For recent arrivals to Ahtopol who already know Bay Milcho, it's a very pertinent question. Several years ago, Bay Milcho headed to the old school at the very end of the headland, descended the narrow path making his way to the rocky cove through the thick bushes and, watched by two curious, giggling Polish girls, created his greatest work. Instead of the usual human heads inscribed on pebbles rounded by the surf (their prices range between 25 and 40 euro), he began painting directly on the rock face itself.



Bay Milcho's hunger for art is only one of the reasons why in recent years Ahtopol has become popular as “the new Sozopol,” after what was once the most charming fishermen’s village on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast.

Just as in Sozopol in bygone days – before it became a concrete carbuncle on the sea shore – you are more likely to see children riding bicycles along the streets of the old city than the latest SUV with a thug behind the wheel. The small houses belonging to fishermen and their families (they have rooms to let in the summer) are still there while their owners quietly toil in lush gardens, waiting to chat to passers-by. Most holidaymakers are low-income Bulgarians or people from the new EU countries, but you can occasionally meet some bohemian Sofianites. They have a long-standing tradition of spending their summer holidays in Ahtopol, as evidenced by the worn-out cabins owned by various theatres, universities and art academies. You can even take a stroll on the promenade and look at the quaint wooden houses, the lighthouse opposite and fishing boats in the bay below without slipping on sunflower seeds or bumping into a sunglasses' stand.



Ahtopol is a place blessed by God. Judging from the story related by its 1,500 citizens, they are truly convinced of this. The legend has been recounted on several tourist websites and tells of the “Greek goddess of love, Agatha”, who was so enamoured of the headland and its environs that she began holidaying there. Then she christened the place Agathopolis, the City of Love.



Agatha was not the only citizen of Greek origin here. Until the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 most of Ahtopol's population was Greek. Then they were replaced by Bulgarians from Eastern Thrace, which remained a Turkish territory. However, many women in the town are still called Maria, a name popular with Greeks living along the Black Sea coast.

The Thracians, Greeks, Bulgarians and Turks were not particularly captivated by the place. Consequently, the settlement Agathopolis – Ahtenbolu – Ahtopol never became a large one and its relics can hardly be defined as impressive. Its most remarkable ruin is still the dilapidated stretch of ancient city wall. Long ago, it used to protect the promontory from mainland raids. Over the centuries, people settled on and around it and, if you look carefully, you will find houses that it serves as their fourth wall.



The rest is a handful of old wooden houses, nestling among fig trees, the stone building of the Greek school, situated in the windiest spot in the town, and the Vaznesenie Gospodne, or Ascension, Church. It was built in 1796 and is worth a five-minute visit. For the elderly sexton, however, it is at least as important as a major national monument. The moment she sees you taking out your camera, she will demand that you leave.

Fate was not kind to Ahtopol's other old church. Shortly after coming to power in 1944, the Communists demolished it because it “was in the way”. Now, there is a small park on its site where everything – benches, playground toys, litter bins and chairs nailed to the trees – is painted in the colours of the Bulgarian standard – white, green and red, without any trace of self-irony. Some time ago, to preserve the memory of the church, somebody erected its bell tower again – from steel posts. They are not painted in the colours of the national flag.

In the autumn, this lack of singularity about Ahtopol disappears. This is when the palamud, or belted bonito, appears.

Due to its recent past (from a geological standpoint) as a freshwater lake, the Black Sea is not particularly salty. Marine fish, however, like highly saline water. Hence Bulgarian fishermen cannot catch the rich variety savoured by their Greek and Turkish counterparts in the Aegean and Mediterranean seas. The only noteworthy exception is the bonito. Carnivorous, swift and with excellent, aromatic flesh, it's the tastiest offering thrown up in abundance by the Black Sea.

Unfortunately, the bonito is a migratory fish that only frequents the Bulgarian waters in autumn. Its appearance always causes some excitement. Last year, the headline of a major daily read “The Bonito Attacks the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast” and you can constantly hear grievances that “there are less than in the past”.

This may apply to the rest of the coast. In Ahtopol, unofficially known as the Bonito Capital, the situation is just the opposite. Whether due to sea currents or because Agatha liked bonito, if the attacks had really happened, they must have been right here.

So, it is little wonder that managers of fish restaurants on the northern Black Sea coast flock to Ahtopol every autumn to buy as much raw fish as they can to stuff their freezers.



There is nothing better than fresh bonito. Ideally, the fish should be cut lengthwise into two parts and grilled, but not excessively because its flesh should retain its succulence and slight taste of brine. While it is still hot, soak it with all the juice you can squeeze from half a lemon and surround it with large onion slices.

In the Bonito Capital and especially by the fishing boats moored in the town's south bay, nobody will take you seriously if you start lamenting the shortage of bonito in the Bulgarian Black Sea. People have other concerns here. “They've begun drying sprat!” Maria, Bay Milcho's wife, still finds it impossible to accept the preposterous idea of drying such small fish. She uses only Black Sea mackerel for this purpose, according to timeworn recipes. However, the amount of fish has dropped dramatically since many dolphins perished in the 1950s and 1960s. Being part of the invisible, albeit important cycle of nature, they used to drive the mackerel close to the shore and hence into fishing nets.



The adverse changes in Ahtopol involve the mainland too. While the cabin area is overgrown with weeds, new hotels have sprung up on the southern end of the fishermen's bay, right opposite the old city and the lighthouse. Neither has the northern bay been spared. On its beach, just opposite the white painted rock, stands a wooden ship functioning as a disco and the sand is covered with straw parasols.

Did the disco owners paint the rock white? “Oh, give me a break! Nobody has painted it!” Bay Milcho is so exasperated that he finally reveals the secret of the white rock if we agree to leave him alone. “The gulls paint it! All the gulls of Ahtopol go there to sleep, make love, look after their nestlings and, well, poop. This is why the rock is white.”

This article is courtesy of the Bulgarian magazine Vagabond.