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‘Red’ fort by a ‘Black’ river
In Bulgarian, cherven with the stress on the second “e” means red. When pronounced with the stress on the first “e,” however, the name of the color becomes the name of one of the best places in Bulgaria to be when spring is in full bloom and […]
God’s bridge
Lilyashka Bara, the brook that flows near the village of Lilyache, a few kilometres from Vratsa, is a quiet and peaceful stream. It would be no different from dozens of other rivulets that flow past dozens of other villages if it wasn’t for a quirk of […]
Thracian treasures – part 2
The oldest gold treasure found in Bulgaria is also the oldest gold treasure found in the world to date. At the end of the 5th millennium BC, near present-day Varna there lived a group of people who had discovered copper but still hadn’t abandoned old techniques […]
Thracian treasures – part 1
The stories all begin differently. A villager goes out to plough the fields that his father and grandfather had ploughed before him for years, never getting anything besides grain in return. With a backhoe, a construction worker digs a trench for a canal. An archaeologist sinks […]
Lyutenitsa
A jar of lyutenitsa is one of the essential food items in almost every Bulgarian and North Macedonian household. This famous relish, which lies somewhere between a spread and a chutney, is made with red peppers, chili peppers, tomatoes, onion, salt, sugar, and oil. The peppers […]
Aleksandrovo tomb – part 2
The historic and artistic value of the tomb and its murals are beyond question. It is believed to have been built for a Thracian aristocrat or even a king; in any case a wealthy member of the ruling class of this ancient nation which is thought […]
Aleksandrovo tomb – part 1
The archaeologists who were finishing off the excavation of two small Thracian burial mounds on the spot where the future Trakiya Motorway would bypass the village of Aleksandrovo, near Haskovo, felt that day was different from the very beginning. 17 December 2000 was the last day […]
One temple – three religions
Religion has been with humans since the dawn of Homo Sapiens, an evolutionary trait that appeared with the emergence of developed brains and language, tool use, morality and group living. Gods and deities changed, of course, through the millennia, constantly appearing and disappearing, transforming, adapting and […]
Sofia in the past
Modern Sofia is a city stuck in transition, a mixture of more or less preserved pre-1944 architecture with all its highs and lows, of menacing or just plain ugly administrative and residential buildings from the Communist era, and of striking or, more often misguided developments from […]
