Sofia

The history of Sofia, Buglaria's capital and largest city and our home for the past 4 months, spans thousands of years.  It's original name was Serdika.  For a short period during the 4th century BC the city was possessed by Alexander the Great. It was conquered by the Romans around 29 BC.  The foundation walls of ancient Serdika are in this area. 

The summer home of Constantine the Great was here.  He is the Roman who got the church people together who came up with the Nicene Creed in 325 A.D.  Here is a stature of Constantine -- pretty good looking, isn't he?  Makes me wonder if the artist 's fee was based on how handsome he made his subject look.

Right outside our front window - -

 . . . they are building another metro stop.  Lo and behold when they dug under the street, they discovered an old medieval church.  So the metro will be going around it.  We peeked over the wall the other day and saw a bunch of very busy Bulgarians and their archeologist friends digging up the church. 

Here's what they've found so far: a stone claw-hammer from prehistoric times, the main street of the Roman town of Serdika from the Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages (4th-6th century) including the sewage and water supply system; pottery, coins, and jewels from the 8th-12th century, a church dated back to the 13th century; another church dated back to the 14th century, and a total of 150 graves, mostly from the Middle Ages.

One of the reasons that Sofia was built in this area is because of a natural spring. The Turkish Baths below were built to take advantage of that water, said to have curative properties.  It is currently under renovation and is a very beautiful building.

All over the block are spigots of year-round free water.  People obviously believe the water is good for you, as you can see below.  It's amazing to think that for some thousands of years people have been coming here to drink and bathe in that water.  And we haven't even tasted it yet!!! 

I remember looking at pictures of Quetzaltenango after I had already lived there for a year or so.  I was SO impressed with the pictures -- but, I knew the truth of that town.  I knew that if there were close-ups, you'd see piles of garbage. 

Fortunately Sofia is not a dirty town.  But there are problems in the city. In the interest of fairness, I am including a few of its realities below.

The sidewalks are the Number One pain.  Stuart, who spent a lot of time this past winter sliding around on the sidewalks, is very careful about walking now that he has learned that rectangles like the one in the middle of this sidewalk below (and which occur about every 10 feet) may tip when you step on it.  And if it is icy, that's very dangerous.

Here are a few other not-so-beautiful things here.  Almost all sidewalks are irregular like this.  Consequently, unless you're into risking a broken ankle, when walking -- look down!

 Here is a potentially beautiful building right around the corner from our apartment.

And again, this is the view out our front apartment window:

And our back window.  That's our friendly Catholic Church, replete with bells that ring often.  Stuart swears they ring every hour.  I think they only ring for Church services.  But they do ring.  Right now we're listening to see if they ring at 10 p.m.  Then we'll know.

Here's another very famous Sofia landmark, Alexander Nevski Orthodox Cathedral, constructed about 1890, with Italian marble in a variety of colors, alabaster, Brazilian onxy, etc. inside.  I have tried taking pictures of the beautiful interior so far without success.  It's dark and while I haven't asked, I would imagine a camera is forbidden, since I once tried to take a picture inside a super market, The Billa, and the guard told me I couldn't do that!!!  (Shades of the past).

The dark interior comes from the some of thousands and thousands of candles that people light in memory of their dead ancestors.  The marble, onxy, and alabaster are beautiful and the frescoes (wall paintings) are quite realistic.  I may try again before we leave.

Closing shot:  A honey market.  Who'd ever guess there are that many kinds of honey and that people are very choosy about their honey.

OMIB (Our Man in Bulgaria)  is working very hard to get the judges all on the same page before we leave.  Things are moving and not always in the right direction; but movement itself is progress.

We will see "Swan Lake" ballet tomorrow and in a week will be off to Vienna for a couple of days on our own followed by 3 days in Slovakia where OMIB will do his "spit in the ocean" effort to try to help educate Slovakians on how to deal with judicial corruption.