Oct 15, 2010 -
Arrived in the port of Orjahovo, Km 678, Bulgaria! Another country with a new currency. We have needed to exchange money just about every day; reminds me of my days backpacking around Europe when each country had a different currency. Dollars are accepted in some places; the euro is more widely accepted. Does that tell you anything??
Left the ship at 8:30 in our little van for the English-speaking group. We are very fortunate in that aspect, that we have a smaller vehicle with less waiting time to get the group assembled and less time at restroom stops – or Shakespeare stops, as Nicola says – To Pee or Not to Pee?! Today we messed up and we stopped at the exact same time as the French group so we have 50+ people trying to quickly use two restrooms – one for each sex. On we drove to Sofia (pronounced SO fe a with the accent on the first syllable). Jordana was our guide and Joncho was our driver. They had driven 3 hours from Sofia to collect us, 3 hours back to Sofia to tour with us, 3 hours back to the ship and then again 3 hours back to their homes in Sofia.
The Balkan mountains divide the country; they are 700 km long and the area is called the Danubian Plain, where agricultural products – grains and sunflowers thrive 1.5 million residents live in Sofia. Plovdiv has 400,000 residents. 10% of the population are Turks; 4% are Romas/gypsies and 83% are Orthodox Bulgarians. They were liberated in 1848 by the Russians (from the Turks). They use ONLY the Cyrillic alphabet in school. Latin letters (which we use) are only taught with foreign languages. In 2007, they became a member of the European Union. The city of Varna is from the 4th century BC and jewelry was found from 5000BC. In 3000BC, the Thracian people came to the area from Asia. Two historical figures you know were Thracian: Sparticus, the first person to organize an uprising against slavery and Orpheus, a Greek king. Their currency is the LEV, dating from the 1880s. It has been tied to the German Mark and then the euro for valuation since 1996 when they experienced 300% inflation. There are ice cave in the Balkan mountains. At 18 you can get your drivers license. You pay a road tax for driving outside of your town. If you do a one-day trip, you need to buy a vignette to show on your dashboard. It is approx. $50 a year.
The country was socialist between 1949-1989. Cars were imported from Russia during this time and people waited 5-6 years to get a car – no choice of type of car, color or size or cost. Now there are not enough parking spaces in the city of Sofia, as more and more families have multiple cars. (Serbia produced the Yugo car for over 30 years and it was a popular vehicle in this area.)
The Chinese are building a car factory in northern Bulgaria set to open in 2011-12.
On September 8, 1908, Bulgaria declared their independence as a constitutional monarchy. The Ottomans (Turks) had dominated for over 500 years. March 3 is their Liberation Day – the end of the Russian-Turkish war. They had a monarch and parliament. Their first King was a foreigner – a German/Russian, a grandson of England’s Queen Victoria. King Battenburg – he left after 8 years. He was kidnapped and taken to the Danube River and told he would either be killed or he could leave immediately. Which would you choose??
From 1886 – 1918, a Saxon king ruled – until WWI and then his son ruled. Russia forced their families to move to Egypt and then to Spain. The ex-King ended up being their prime minister many years later! He came back in 2001 and gained popularity and a strong coalition to form his own party and was put in control. He got back the lands and royal residences his family had lost during the years of Russian rule. Called the “National movement of Simeon II”. A party needs to have more than 4% of the popular vote to be represented in Parliament and Simeon II’s party did not have this after 8 years.
In 2004, they had 16% unemployment; it is down to 10% now. We had a very informative discussion while we crossed several tunnels and went through the farmlands and small villages.
The normal work week is 40 hours – from either 8:30-10AM start time to 6PM. They earn approx. $500 a month and the minimum wage is $160 a month. There are old yellow/gold trams on the city streets (I remember them from Hungary and Russia in the 1980s); lots of casinos; more than 100 universities; 96% of the people own their apartment or house; there is one house in their Parliament and the President is the Head of the Army. He has the option to veto a bill two times or it becomes law.
We went in to the Aleksandur Nevski cathedral, the capital’s prime ecclesiastical monument – a magnificent neo-Byzantine confection intended to symbolize Bulgarian-Russian friendship. A church service is 30-45 minutes long and a special service may be 3-4 hours long. The iconostatis divides the nave from the altar; it hides the altar from the people. This church had two thrones – one for the King and one for the Patriarch. Both priests and choir sing. Priests must be married; archbishops must not be married (how does that work?). It was erected from 1904-12 in memory of the 200,000 Russians who died in the 1877-78 Russo-Turkish War.
Saw the Cathedral of St. Nedelya, a reconstruction of the 14th century original which was destroyed by a bomb in an attempted assassination of King Boris III in 1925. Walked by the St. Nicholas Russian Church, named for the patron saint of marriage, fish and sailors, this 1913 church was built to appease a Russian diplomat unwilling to worship in a Bulgarian church.
Saw the Monument of the Unknown Soldier. Italy, Germany and Bulgaria were aligned together in WWII. Sofia and other areas in Bulgaria were bombed by the UK and USA – four times; 2000 people died.
There is a story questioning the death of their King – he died three days after meeting with Hitler. Hitler was upset with him as Bulgaria would not send their Jews to Germany or Poland.
13 countries still use the Cyrillic alphabet. One letter makes one sound – there is no combining of sounds. They had six nuclear power plants in the country and when they were accepted in the EU, they were told they had to close them. Only two are still open and should be closed by 2012.
Belene is a concentration camp, which was closed in 1989.
Parents pay for their children to attend kindergarten but school is free from 1st grade through University. 50% of the people have a university degree. They are trying recycling but the bins look new and empty.
We shopped briefly at the Center of Bulgarian Folk Arts and Crafts at 4 Paris Str, Sofia 1000.
www.craftshop-bg.com
Lunch was delicious! Again. Bulgarian Restaurant – Pri Yafata on Solunska Str. We had a salad of tomatoes and cheese and salad, cooked potatoes and grilled chicken with tasty spices and a peach cake soaked in a sauce.
We toured the Rotonda Sveti Georgi, whose ancient remains are billed as the oldest public building. The Rotunda is from the 4th century and was a Roman Temple. It was destroyed by the Huns, rebuilt by Justinian and turned into a mosque by the Turks before being restored back to a church. There are frescoes layered on frescoes.
There are cultural buildings, government buildings and churches upon churches in the center of town. We saw the changing of the guards at the President’s office, the National Palace of Culture, the National Museum of Archeology, the synagogue and National History Museum. A nice compact downtown area if you had time to walk around and enjoy it.
