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We have some friends in Bulgaria (Ina and Marty) so we went there a couple of times and we spent a wonderful time. Though Bulgaria is a beautiful country to visit,

Bulgaria 2000

Trucoto
2004-02-28 16:14:11

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things that make the difference. You will not see here the rich catholic churches full of marble and gold: wood and frescoes are all the ornamentation, and it looks more reasonable this way. Luxury is not a thing that should belong to church. We got fed up of that in Rome, precisely in the Vatican. As a nonbeliever, I see all of this from the outside, naturally. The Slavic tradition and religious culture had a great deal of its beginnings with the Bulgarian brothers Cyril and Methodius, who invented the Cyrillic alphabet (and the Glagolitic as well), still used by many Slavic languages (up to fifty) like Ukrainian, Russian and of course Bulgarian. The best preserved churches and monasteries are in places difficult to get to. We even found a Russian church in a very unlikely place, the Shipka Temple (храм Шипка). In fact it's not unlikely from the historical point of view: many Russians died during the liberation of Bulgaria, but you don't expect a church there. Other monasteries we have been to are high (or carved into) in the mountains, like that of St. Kirik (Свети Кирик), Drianovo (Дряновски манастир) or Aladja in front of the Black Sea. The former was turned into a hotel, by the way. Another example of ancient buildings in the mountains is the Asen's "fortress" ("Асенова Крепост"): after a long way up, we reached the fortress or what is left of it: a small church in the middle of an impressive landscape at the Rhodopean mountains.

The Golden Age

When we first saw it, we had no idea how we could get that high. The story of this place is related to the times when Bulgaria was a very important nation inside the European mosaic. Before the Russians, before the Turks, Bulgaria was a great country, and that greatness can be barely seen or guessed today in the ruins of the old castles. In our way to the Black sea we found many places where you could see the remains ...