Bulgaria the Beautiful

I believe I’ve never seen so green a city as Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, which I visited this June—numerous parks, boulevards, and streets shaded by big, ancient linden trees in bloom, benches in the dappled sunlight, roses everywhere, and the big, forested Mount Vitosha behind the city. In spite of a respectable number of cars and modern buildings, Sofia has preserved a great deal of old-fashioned, leisurely charm; I was reminded of Oslo in the days before North Sea oil.

While Bulgaria is one of the most solidly Communized states in the Soviet bloc (although as a tourist you mightn’t guess it), the city’s most visible edifice is the monumental Aleksandr Nevsky Cathedral, built, glittering domes and all, by grateful Bulgarians to show their appreciation for Russian help in gaining their independence from the Turks in 1878. Throughout Bulgaria, I saw many monuments to that war, which ended five hundred years of oppression, the most memorable being the mighty monument high over the Shipka pass where the battle took place, and a large fairy-tale Russian church in the village below, filled with worshipful Russian tour groups. (When I was there, the country was full of Russian tour groups, of an irreproachable neatness and bourgeois respectability. I figured that Bulgaria is sufficiently different from Russia to be a treat, and sufficiently safe not to give the Russian tourists unsuitable notions.)

NH

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Nika Hazelton

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I believe I’ve never seen so green a city as Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, which I visited this June—numerous parks, boulevards, and streets shaded by big, ancient linden trees in bloom, benches in the dappled sunlight, roses everywhere, and the big, forested Mount Vitosha behind the city. In spite of a respectable number of cars and modern buildings, Sofia has preserved a great deal of old-fashioned, leisurely charm; I was reminded of Oslo in the days before North Sea oil.

While Bulgaria is one of the most solidly Communized states in the Soviet bloc (although as a tourist you mightn’t guess it), the city’s most visible edifice is the monumental Aleksandr Nevsky Cathedral, built, glittering domes and all, by grateful Bulgarians to show their appreciation for Russian help in gaining their independence from the Turks in 1878. Throughout Bulgaria, I saw many monuments to that war, which ended five hundred years of oppression, the most memorable being the mighty monument high over the Shipka pass where the battle took place, and a large fairy-tale Russian church in the village below, filled with worshipful Russian tour groups. (When I was there, the country was full of Russian tour groups, of an irreproachable neatness and bourgeois respectability. I figured that Bulgaria is sufficiently different from Russia to be a treat, and sufficiently safe not to give the Russian tourists unsuitable notions.)