Category Bulgaria

I’ve written before about learning languages, and how much I enjoy the undertaking. Here I’ll discuss learning the Bulgarian language and culture. I speak German, and tried for many years to improve my Mandarin. I find languages totally fascinating. How a whole group of people see the world is limited (and advanced!) by their language, their ability to think and talk about what they see, feel and experience. It’s all driven by language, and the differences between languages are so thick and vast sometimes that it feels impossible that any two people from different root languages could share similar ideas, and yet—we do!

For work I was tasked with learning the Bulgarian language, and sent to an instructor who would teach me one-on-one. This was pretty sweet for me, as a lover of words and languages. We sat across from one another for about four months talking about Bulgaria, Bulgarian customs and traditions and ideas, and of course learning the language. This is exactly my type of exploration. A mix of understanding a new place and a new way of thinking about the world. My teacher was an older woman who never acclimated to life in the US, and spoke of her homeland as heaven on Earth.

Bulgarian Language Roots

Bulgarian is a slavic language and Bulgarians swear they invented Cyrillic. Cyril and Methodius being Bulgarian, of course. The Macedonians and Russians also claim them, but they are wrong. I know because my teacher told me, and later every Bulgarian I met would mention it at some point. So yeah, they invented Cyrillic, which was created by simplifying Greek and adapting it to the more guttural sounds of the spoken language. Of course this was all to translate the Bible, as the Bulgarians are the best Christians since Christ. 

In the video below you’ll see a very pregnant me reciting part of a Bulgarian poem alongside others.

The Bulgarian language is stunningly rich in culture and history that it can’t be separated out. You can’t untangle words to find simple nouns, but instead stories and fables support single words. It is a joy to learn.

Any language you approach from the outside seems methodically structured, but of course they aren’t. They are hobbled together by necessity. With English, it’s apparent in how we steal and use words from other languages (Garage, aisle, kindergarten, for a few examples) but other languages aren’t as Frankensteinian. Bulgarian has words from Russia, words from Greek and words from the Turkish language, all neighbors geographically, but for the most part Bulgarian is pretty pure. And this isn’t surprising once you meet a Bulgarian. They don’t want outside influence. 

Stubborn People, Stubborn Language

When the Ottomans took control of Bulgaria they held it for over 500 years. That’s longer than America has been around, folks. And in all that time, the language and culture of Bulgaria hardly budged. Their religion, often underground and attacked, survived. Their style of clothing: intact. After 500 years the Ottomans were forced out (bloody, horrible affair, too) and the culture was little changed. That is some grade-A stubbornness. And they retain that stubbornness to this day, steadfast in the preservation of their culture and language. So when you learn a new word you don’t get a one-to-one translation but an epic story complete with a Bulgarian hero or grandmother or saint.

You can learn more about Bulgaria here.

Bulgarian music takes advantage of the easier grammar (at least compared to Russian!) to fuse traditional music with modern rap. This is a delight to any listener, and should be appreciated as a complex cross-cultural experiment in both language and music.

If you haven’t heard Bulgarian before, check out this video clip of a native speaker and note how fluidly and smoothly the language cascades, as compared to the harsher Greek, more nasal Turkish and more guttural Russian languages that surround Bulgaria. 

We took the night train from Sofia, Bulgaria, to the Serbian capital, Belgrade. We arrived before the city had fully awakened at 6am and had to wait for the luggage storage room to open at the train station before we could stash our bags, change our Bulgarian currency into Serbian cash, and have a quaint, train station breakfast. It was raining when we arrived and, in Mike’s words, “this is exactly what I thought Eastern Europe would look like, rain and all!”

We set off towards Old Town with a general plan of just walking around until we spotted something of interest. The rain came down heavier and heavier until the town was shrouded in a grey haze. In old town we set our sights on the Kalemegdan Citadel, which has withstood some 115 battles over the past 2300 years. As a direct result, the city itself has been razed to the ground over 40 times. Today the interior of the citadel no longer houses terrified people, but a lovely park complete with modern art and extensive seating. It looks out over the junction of the Danube and Sava rivers, which explains why it was such a contested area in antiquity. We stumbled upon the citadel’s military museum and decided to venture inside.
The military museum was a bit confusing since nothing was in English, but it did beautifully outline the entire history of former Yugoslavia in metal recreations of armor, wooden ships and uniforms. After walking through the maze of artifacts for over an hour, we came across the “modern era” section which included bits of an American stealth fighter shot down in 1999, complete with the captured pilot’s uniform and tactical gear, as well as a dangerous amount of weaponry. Outside the museum there was a row of brightly painted tanks, exploded ordinance, and cannons. Some of the military equipment was apparently very rare, and extremely overused, giving the citadel a sad and somber feeling.

We walked back into Old Town to find the national museum, but it was under construction so we wandered around the downtown alleys looking at the elegant shops and busy cafes. Belgrade’s bohemian street, once known for its relaxing and low-key atmosphere, is now a busy cobblestone lane stocked full of tourist trap T-shirts, overpriced pubs and quaint but expensive eateries. We slipped across the cobblestones in the downpour and walked around Old Town for several hours before heading to the train station.

There was no train Sarajevo, so we found a bus that would leave a bit later in the night. We bought bus tickets for the night bus, something we swore we would stop doing since it was exhausting. Nevertheless, traveling by night means at least we are not spending money on accommodation for the day! We ate dinner in town and walked around in the rain snapping pictures of bombed-out buildings that had been left as monuments to former wars, and gazing at the beautiful architecture of the city. As the sky turned dark we returned to the bus station and were amazed to discover we would be on a double-decker bus to Sarajevo, and our seats were on the top, in the very front row!

We spent a day in Plovdiv walking around and admired the Old Town. Luckily, we met a couple from Australia who were on a honeymoon-backpacking trip, which was interesting in itself, and they had a guidebook specifically on Bulgaria. Matt and Lauren perused through the “around Plovdiv” section and discovered several things that were not even in our guide. We decided to go to a Monastery that was only about a 40-minute bus ride away. Once we announced that we were going, we ended up with a whole group of people interested in seeing the Monastery.

The next morning we got up late and left even later after gathering everyone together. We took the long way to the bus station and walked around the alleys of Plovdiv for a good 30 to 40 minutes before we arrived at the bus station. It didn’t take long and we found the bus to the Backhovo Monastery for a pleasant ride South. We played 3-person cribbage and I, of course, lost again on the way to the old Orthodox site. Once we arrived, it was only a short walk up the hill and we were already at the church. There were several Orthodox clergy walking around the grounds. We had all been told that it was possible to stay (sleep) in the monastery so we were all carrying our packs along with us. Unfortunately, no one was really willing to put us up inside or out, and they directed us to a hotel towards the bottom of the hill.

The monastery was nothing special and looked just like all the other Orthodox churches we had seen; The exception being the surrounding building, which looked like lodging for a large number of worshipers / clergy. After looking around, we all got really hungry and returned to the foot of the hill for a quick lunch. The honeymooners decided to head back to Plovdiv. They looked pretty disappointed with the excursion when they left. However, Matt, Lauren, another traveler – Tim, and I decided to start up the modest hiking trail. The monastery had been slightly disappointing so we ascended with lowered expectations.

Camping Intruder

We saw a few other buildings, which were closed down for the season, and continued to hike past obvious camping grounds that had signs NO CAMPING everywhere. Several hundred meters father, we came to a huge clearing that was amazing. The leaves were just starting to change, and we found ourselves in the middle of a vast field, flanked by mountainous treed hills. After admiring the view, we were all invigorated to go on. Next, we came across an Orthodox pilgrimage site up the hill. It was a tiny chapel surrounded by massive Tim Burton – esc trees. There was a pool, feed by a natural spring in the middle of the chapel. The whole experience was becoming a little surreal, after the ordinary morning, we had all experienced.

Farther up the hill we came upon another small wooden chapel built on the side of a cliff and beyond that, yet another church at the top. The inside of the church had beautiful frescoes and paintings, as did the other chapels. Perhaps I appreciated this more because I had been in China and Central Asia so long, but it seemed to me that the church and chapel were buried in a very dense forest. After months in the deserts, we shared great moments of happiness walking through the forest paths.

Tim, although impressed with the location, was in no position to camp – as he had intended to stay at the monastery overnight. After a quick warning about how cold it was about to get, Tim departed to catch the last bus back to Plovdiv. Lauren, Matt and I stayed and we immediately got to work. Lauren set up a campsite, then kicked up her feet while Matt and I collected firewood for the next hour and a half. After collecting enough firewood, we got ready for the fire, waited for dark, and then started up the fire. Luckily, Matt brought a water purifier, so we went to a nearby waterfall and purified some water for cooking. We all sat happily around the fire, which burned for the remainder of the night – fortunate because it was really cold compared to the nice weather we were used to while in Turkey.

We decided to take the night train from Istanbul at 10:00pm across the western boards to Bulgaria. We planned to disembark before Sofia in Bulgaria’s most relaxed city, Plovdiv. The train pulled into the station in Istanbul an hour early and we began to panic a bit at the sight of the metal beast. It was covered from head to tail in graffiti and the conductor was hanging onto the outside of the train, with his right arm reaching into the train presumably to steer. We immediately had a flash back to the horror we experienced on the Kazakh trains that looked equally rusty.

Nevertheless, we loaded ourselves into our compartment. We had spent a bit extra for a sleeper cabin for the three of us, so we were thrilled about the train ride. We talked with the cabin attendant, who ended up being the nicest person we’d met in recent weeks, and he helped us get settled in. Our cabin had three bunks, a small table, and a door to block out all outside sounds. It was perfect, the cabin attendant wasn’t corrupt, and the train left exactly on time. What more could one ask for?

We played cribbage for a few hours and drank a bit of the Cpt. Morgan I had received for my birthday a few weeks earlier. When the tracks began to deteriorate and the clock struck midnight we decided to crash for the evening and I scampered up an unstable ladder to the top bunk.

I woke up at 5am with a start realizing we were not moving. The cabin attendant came into the room and told us we were at the Bulgarian border, and to leave all of our belongings and follow the crowd to customs and border check. This was the first time that we had been asked to disembark from the train for customs, and we were a bit hesitant to just leave our belongings in the cabin. Without other options, however, we grabbed our passports and stood in line to receive a big blue stamp in our passport. “You have now exited Turkey”

I fell back asleep in the top bunk almost as soon as my head hit the pillow. I knew we had to be awake in ten minutes to go through Bulgarian customs and border control, but it was impossible to stay awake. I woke up with my arm outstretched and a Bulgarian military man grabbing the passport that was still in my clutches as I slept. He smiled and stamped the page and put the passport back in my hand. I stuck it under my pillow and was asleep again before he got the cabin door shut.

We arrived in Plovdiv by 11am and since we had no Bulgarian Leva to walk to Old Town to find our hostel. We got lost a few times in the winding, cobblestone streets and I got to try out my Russian again after a month of hiatus to ask how to get to Old Town. We found it after a long, grueling walk with our packs and were overjoyed at the atmosphere at the hiker’s hostel. People were milling around, playing cards, reading and just chatting. We dropped our stuff and started chatting with people to hear their adventures. It turned out one of the guys in the hostel (who had also been on the night train) was in Cappadocia with us a few weeks prior. Small (traveler’s) world. We settled in to enjoy a relaxing day and see the town in the afternoon.