# Impressions of Bulgaria



## merlin (Jul 19, 2018)

*Impressions of Bulgaria *
​​The first word that came to me on landing in Sofia airport was "peace" not what I expected at all, Sofia the capital unlike any other capital city I have been to was deserted and silent, the only action we found was at a restaurant we went to on Saturday night. Every day we have spent here seems like a quiet Sunday, except where we are now Sozopol, which is a Russian enclave and not like the rest of Bulgaria. The Bulgarians are generally quiet and sadly still smoke a lot, unlike most of the rest of Europe.......... they are not so openly friendly as people in other countries we have visited, but very helpful when the need arises.
It's a very poor country with a lot of horses still used in farming areas, and of course corruption is endemic, and on a grand scale, though not immediately obvious to a tourist, all we see is a peaceful romantic image of city and rural life 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





Talking about corruption, we are staying in an apartment we booked through Airbnb, which we know can be risky, but we have used them before with no problem. 

On arrival here the apartment we were given was nothing like the one we had booked, though in many ways it was better. The apparent host was a Russian babushka, stressed out of her mind, full of apologies, giving me a couple of bottles of beer and asking me to give a good review or none at all............... to cut a long story short, we were then introduced to the security guard here who we would give the keys to when we left. It became obvious the whole resort is run by the local mafia, using this babushka and others as a front via Airbnb. It's all very sad and I do feel sympathetic to this woman's plight, she has obviously serious health problems, and relies on the payout she gets from the dealings she does on their behalf.

Talking to the locals the whole country is run along these lines, and having prematurely joined the EU without bringing corruption under control as the EU proscribes, they have little incentive to do anything about it.

*LINK*
_Yet more than a decade after Bulgaria joined the EU, questions remain over its record in tackling corruption, while the presence of far-right minority parties in government has caused alarm. According to Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index, Bulgaria is the most corrupt country in the EU._

I took this photo in the first town we visited ......





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## merlin (Jul 19, 2018)

On the way to Sozopol we visited an area of rock churches built into the cliffs in the 14th century, there were originally some 40 churches plus 300 cells for monks, but today only 5 churches remain, protected by UNESCO. We climbed up to one, the church of St.Mary famous for it's 13th century frescoes showing scenes from the crucifixion, and betrayal by Judas.

Here are some photos I took, the light inside was very poor, and no flash was allowed, but the camera picked up the details better than the human eye, which is remarkable really.

*The entrance to the church*


















​​*Judas suicide






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​​The view from the top






​​The many steps down....





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## RadishRose (Jul 21, 2018)

Fabulous! Thanks, Merlin.


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## SeaBreeze (Jul 21, 2018)

Merlin, as usual, interesting pictures and great photography....thanks!


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## merlin (Jul 21, 2018)

We are in a very ancient part of Plovdiv, the second largest town in Bulgaria, and it's hot at well into the 90s  





it was a 3 hour drive here and the last 50 miles were through continuous fields of sunflowers, I have never seen so  many before, a few pics we took below plus our trusty steed that has carried us on our trip....




















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## merlin (Jul 21, 2018)

Here are a few meals we have had over the past few days, the first one's are breakfast at Veliko Tarnovo place we stayed at.










A couple of amazing vegetarian meals we had..​


























































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## debbie in seattle (Jul 21, 2018)

Very interesting, thanks for sharing and sharing your beautiful pictures.


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## merlin (Aug 15, 2018)

Here are a few photos I took of a partly abandoned village we tracked down in Bulgaria, at the end of rough road some 10 miles up into the mountains.






















​​There were a few people living there and seemed to be surviving on collecting and marketing berries of some sort, there were a lot of horses around and a few cars.





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## RadishRose (Aug 15, 2018)

Merlin, this looks pretty ancient! I love all your pics- you help me travel the world!


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## Camper6 (Aug 16, 2018)

Thanks for the post.  I will go into it and look at all the photos later.


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## Vega_Lyra (Nov 3, 2018)

Lovely photos !
 Thank you for sharing.


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## jujube (Nov 3, 2018)

Great pictures, Merlin!


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## Linda (Nov 5, 2018)

Such beautiful photos Merlin.  I enjoyed looking at all those plates of food too.


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