Sofia, Bulgaria

Dear readers,

I was really dying for a chance to write about my trip to Bulgaria, which occured from July 23rd 2015 to July 26th 2015. I visited a good Bulgarian friend of mine from school in his hometown Sofia, and I made Bulgaria the 29th country, I've ever visited. My friend showed me his hometown Sofia and took me for a trip to Plovdiv (which I will discuss in an upcoming blogpost). Today, I'd like to write about Sofia.

Sofia

When I arrived at Belgrade International Airport, saying goodbye to my grandma, and went to the Business Class lounge, I went through all of the things I've heard about Bulgaria, from my friends and family in Serbia. You see, whilst in Prague, barely anyone has an opinion about Bulgaria, in dumbed down Serbia, everyone seems to hate it, because of a war that happened in 1912, and because the two countries fought on different sides in World War II. However, the countries are both closely connected with each other culturally, both nations are slavic and speak two very similar slavic languages (even though history loving Serbs will call Bulgarians turkic, since there is an ethnic mix of Bulgaria), both nations are mostly christian-orthodox, both nations had fallen under the rule of communism, both nations were occupied by the ottoman-empire, both nations (along with Greece and Albania) want a part of Macedonia and both nations are more or less closely connected.

The Parliament

My favourite building: National Thetra Ivan Vazov

Historic Roman Baths

So how come they hate each other? Well, the answer does not lie in the present, but more in the past. Whilst Bulgarians got over their past with the Serbs and actually like them (people were always very kind to me, when they found out I was a Serb), Serbs have a different approach, due to their pride on their history, they still did not forgive Bulgaria. Thus, when I was in Sofia, I was a bit sceptic, because of all the rumours I've heard. Instead, I was surprised, by what I had found in this wonderful city.

Bulgarian Assembly

Art Gallery of Sofia

National Palace of Culture

Sofia is relatively small compared to other capital cities in Europe, however it's really nice in the core centre. The old part influenced by a mix of roman, slavic and islamic-oriental culture is really interesting. Also, it's nice to have a church, a mosque and a synagogue, just a few metres apart from each other. The centre is amazing, especially the huge chruches, which literally overwhelmed me by their majestic beauty. As an orthodox-christian, I haven't seen such beauty in a long time. I also found out, that the saint Sveta Petka, on whose values my grandmother raised me, was in fact Bulgarian. So in some sense, I did feel a connection to the country, and on top of that add that I was with a friend, who's a local, and I can tell, that I got to know the city.

Sofia Mosque

Aleksandr Nevski Cathedral

Russian Church

Chapel of Sveta Petka

The rest of Sofia is kind of nothing special, because it's mostly huge socialist high rise buildings, which were built during the communist rule over the city. My friend lives on the 17th floor on one of those, which gave me the opportunity to stare at the city at any given time, all the time. I did make use of that, because Sofia has a really beautiful skyline, as it is surrounded by mountains and gives you the feeling of being in a large city, but at the same time, it feels like you're in the middle of the mountains.

The view from my friends apartment: City Centre

The view from my friends apartment: Socialist residential areas

Sofia now is booming because of the EU. Everywhere you can see EU flags and "funded by the EU" signs. The EU helped expand the Sofia Metro, build a new airport, a new railway station and is working on basically everything infrastructure. Basically, since Bulgaria entered the EU, the EU has been paying for everything, which makes Sofia so much more modern, than I expected it. I can't wait to see how this city will develop in the next few years.

EU funded metro line 2

Can't wait to go again,
Stefan.

The Southern Park. Probably the most romantic place for long walks.