Boris tightens his grip…

Times are tough; deep divisions in society, problems with the media and big issues with ethnic minorities. Communication is problematic with difficulties getting your message out there, to say nothing of troublesome neighbours, in particular the big power block to the south.

But Boris is in control. By the end of his reign in 907, he had not only achieved Saintly status – in the eyes of the Byzantine Church – but converted the Bulgarian empire to Christianity, brokered a deal with the Byzantines, introduced the Cyrillic script to unify the education of the whole Slavic block and paved the way for the great schism (for good or bad). He retired to become a monk but was brought back to the fray after some of his Boyars got uppity, solving the problem by murdering them all. A few years later when his son tried the same thing, he had his eyes put out, so I guess there was a steely streak under that cassock.

Trying to make sense of the history of this part of the world is well beyond me, but it is possible to see why some of divisions run so deep, given the awful things people did to one another. Later in 1014 Basil the Bulgar slayer punished the captured Bulgar army by blinding 14000 men, leaving just one per hundred with one eye, so they could get home. Hardly surprising that such abominations leave deep scars. A bit like Ireland really only with another 600 years of baggage.

Carolyn loved Bulgaria!

She loved the topography of gentle hills and forest swathed mountains with rolling vistas and small-scale agriculture. She loved the dense verdant vegetation that crowded the roads, alternating with fields of sunflowers or orchards of peach and apricot. She felt an empathy for the simplicity of the villages we passed through, with unmodernised houses with tidy little gardens, but always a rose or a few flowers brightening the oft crumbling fabric. And she also loved the people (n=3).

Once again, we arrived crossing the Danube with, you guessed it, an avalanche of trucks. I have to say that this river gets everywhere on a journey through Eastern Europe. Oh, and by the way; it ain’t blue!

We showed passports at the border but that was it, the negligible concessions to the pandemic in Romania were matched by a similar approach in Bulgaria. We motored south (what a lovely term; redolent of Noel Coward or Spencer Tracy, full frontal shot, hands clenched at ten and two, moving the wheel side to side as regular as a pendulum) towards what seemed to be the only campsite in Bulgaria. I was terrified that it would not be open, but sure enough exactly where the app said it should be, there was an ancient caravan grimed with Verdigris, nestling in a field with an open gate. Seconds later Radko (Bulgar number 1) was welcoming us in a warm non-Covid fashion, with vigorous handshake and toothy smile. We could park anywhere he assured us, as we were the only people staying.

The temperature had risen through the day, albeit nothing compared with what was to come, and we craved cool water. I was sure there was a river near as the site was in the base of a valley and we saw a stash of canoes behind the office building, which also had some hotel rooms. The river we were told, was only 200 meters. Half a mile later in the midst of a fabulous deciduous wood, lightened by grassy glades of flax and wild chicory we could hear the river. Getting to it was more problematic and getting in even more challenging, but we did, clambering through the lush foliage of a sprawling walnut tree to languish in the chill cool of the hurrying current. The air was filled with the sounds of invisible life; birds twittering, creeping and rustling things in the undergrowth and the gurgle of the stream. It wasn’t a swimming river but we lay in the cool pools letting the water washed over us, only the dance of midges and little insects disturbing the summer torpor. This wasn’t a vision of Bulgaria or anything meaningful, just a perfect moment of tranquillity and beauty in an unspoilt naturalistic setting, but I was bloody nice.

So back to the ‘restaurant’ where Radko offered us local beer and authentic regional cooking. The menu choices were meat heavy with hard-to-avoid cheese and onions where possible. Enter Bulgars two and three. Martin is a thirty something, software something, working out of Sofia. His hot girlfriend is twenty and just starting a degree in Paris where she has been at school for the last five years. They both have good English, Michaela also has very good French. So, we chat about this and that, Carolina lapsing into French whenever possible. They are delightful and our special evening, (strangely involving almost no alcohol save a pichet of yucky Bulgar rouge) leaves a lasting impression of good will to all Bulgars.

Michaela insists we must visit the Rila monastery in the south, which we can do as we are heading that way. She insists it is the cultural high point of the country. Well it is interesting and worthy, but the reception was frosty from the be-skirted matriarchs who run the place and the atmosphere was stultifying and cold rather than monastic and warm. There wasn’t a worldly monk in sight but maybe they were self-isolating somewhere. By then I had driven through too many towns of miserable emptiness and dilapidation, with crumbling tower blocks dominating impoverished cityscapes to come away with a vision of a cultural paragon. I found it all rather wretched.

We wear the baggage of our schooling heavily. It drags us back to places we don’t always want to go. Please explain why, as we crossed the border into Greece I found myself humming John Bunyan:

He who would Balkan be ‘gainst all disaster

Let him in constancy follow the master

There’s no discouragement,

shall make him once relent

His first avowed intent to be a Bulgar