Sleeping Arrangements – Making Accommodations In Eastern Europe (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #66b)

The older I get, the less I sleep. That is why I now value sleep more than ever before. To function properly I need between six and a half to seven hours of sleep now that I am on the wrong side of middle age. Getting enough sleep is particularly important when I am traveling in Eastern Europe. This is not easy for several reasons. One is that it takes a couple of days for my biological clock to adjust for the time difference between the United States and Eastern Europe. The other is that a good night’s rest is dependent on sleeping arrangements. No two rooms or beds are the same.

        Ready for rest – Secret Garden Hostel in Krakow

Staying Home – The Irrational & Highly Personal
Standardization is not a strong suit of accommodations in Eastern Europe. Nonetheless, there are outliers based on history rather than hospitality. For instance, I recently stayed in East Berlin at one of those concrete conurbations that grew like mushrooms in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). The building had been transformed from a communist youth camp dormitory to a hotel. In this case, the young communists were subjected to standardization. This made the hotel rational, but impersonal. That is not usually the case. In Eastern Europe, irrational and highly personal are the norm for accommodations. It is my experience that most hotels, hostels, homes, and flats have been retrofitted. Rental properties are a major source of income for Eastern Europeans. This is an effective way for owners to top up their income in a region where earning a living is difficult. Some of them can earn a living by renting out a handful of places. This is especially true in tourist hotspots like Prague or the coast of Croatia.  

After communism ended, families were left with little more than their flats. Entrepreneurial ones who had access to cash or loans were able to purchase other flats at bargain basement prices. Others inherited flats or properties from family members. They could alter these to accommodate tourists. It is a strange and revealing experience to be met by the owner of a flat, who lives on another floor at the same apartment building. In Novi Sad, I met one owner’s son who told me that his mother owned multiple flats in the same building. She sent her son down to greet me because his English was impeccable. This was not the first time, nor would it be the last in which I had this experience. This is part of an evolution in offers of accommodation in Eastern Europe.

After the Iron Curtain fell, it was common for westerners to be confronted by old ladies offering rooms at cheap rates to anyone who showed up in a place looking for one. This was an affordable and adventurous option. I am also sure it was a memorable one. I have always wondered what it must be like to stay with a stranger that does not speak the same language. Sign language in the form of pointing was a standard form of communication. The amount of confusion must have been incredible, as well as incredibly poignant. Many things have changed for the better in the region since that time, but I am not sure booking rooms based on ratings and reviews is one of them. Trust is the most important unspoken aspect of travel. Sleeping in a stranger’s home takes a leap of faith. Those who took that leap had experiences they would never forget, for better or worse.

       On the outside looking up – Oki Doki Hostel in Warsaw

Hostel Intent – Getting In Bed With Sofia
I have spent the night in well over a hundred different accommodations during fifteen years of travel throughout Eastern Europe. My experiences have run the gamut from good to awful. Sometimes, I have slept well in less-than-ideal conditions due to exhaustion. Other times, I spent the night tossing and turning in optimal conditions. Because sleep, or the lack thereof, can make or break a trip, my best and worst travel experiences have often been affected by it. Like anyone else these days, I often rely on ratings and reviews to decide on where to stay. Sleeping arrangements are not the crap shoots they used to be back when I did not carry a smartphone. I still booked my accommodation using the internet, but I was much more likely to take chances and book ahead only a day or two in advance. Planning and preparation can lead to pleasant experiences, but there is something to be said for adverse conditions. Spending a night among strangers can be unforgettable. The best and worst place to experience this is at hostels.

Travelers rely on guidebooks and various booking sites to tell them the best places to sleep. That still does not guarantee anyone a good night’s rest. Sleeping soundly requires more than just a nice room, firm mattress, and silence. I learned this firsthand during my early travels in Eastern Europe when I stayed in hostels rather than hotels or flats. This was before Airbn and I had yet to begin using booking.com Though I was already well past the age at which most travelers stay at hostels, I looked forward to the experience of meeting people who were young and full of energy. My first stay in a hostel was in Sofia, Bulgaria. I was already in my late thirties and did not relish the idea of sleeping in the same room with anyone, let alone a group of strangers. Fortunately, Hostel Mostel which is a legendary accommodation in Bulgaria among the young and footloose offered single occupancy rooms.

           Looking up - Oki Doki Hostel

Making Noise – Fears of Intimacy
Having your own room is well worth the cost, but I learned that silence is hard to buy. The walls can be all too thin, even at the best of hostels. A group of my fellow Americans set world records for loudness due to excessive alcohol consumption during my first couple nights in Sofia. This led to me being bleary eyed for a couple of days in the Bulgarian capital. It could have been worse. At least they were not in the same room with me. My willingness to save money led me to book a room with four bunks at the oddly named Oki-Doki Hostel in Warsaw in the hopes of having no roommates.

Luck was not with me in Warsaw. Two of my roommates were a Taiwanese mother and daughter. They were unfailingly polite and extremely quiet, but sleeping in the same room with strangers was something I found unsettling. Getting up to use the bathroom was nerve wracking. I slept restlessly and made a mental note to myself never to share another room to save money. I had already paid a small fortune to fly from Montana to Warsaw, a couple of hundred dollars more in the interest of a good night’s rest should not have been a problem. I learned my lesson the hard way. This would not be the last time.

Click here for: Sleeping With Strangers – Hostel Interactions (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #66c)

Sofia – The First Love (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #53)

Romantically inclined reality makes everything blossom. An eternal optimism takes hold. There can be nothing better, even sex pales in comparison. Time disintegrates as though one were living in a dream. A dream that occurs while you are wide awake. Distractions cease to exist, one’s daily routine disappears, love annihilates everything except the object of affection. It is like being on an island surrounded by endless horizons. Love transcends life’s limits. It is a feeling that the most powerful narcotic cannot replicate. A first love is all the more intoxicating because it feels so unique. We tell ourselves that this is the way we were meant to be.

Springing to life – Fountain in front of the Bulgarian National Theater in Sofia

Sublime Seduction – A Hidden Harbinger of Love
My first love was Sofia. I met her while traveling in the Balkans. Like most first loves, this one was unexpected. She had been on the fringes of my life for quite some time. I was aware of her presence, but not of her power. The first time I spoke her name was twenty-five years before we would finally meet. Sofia was merely an answer to a question. Sofia was a fact that flowed from deep within me. Proof that I had knowledge of her existence. This shocked those around me. How did I know her name? Where had we first met? Sofia had a cachet about her that I could not quite explain. Her name was a calling card that sounded seductive. Sofia made me seem sophisticated. The power of her name was evident from the moment it left my lips. Heads turned, eyebrows arched, jaws dropped. The memory is enough to make my eyes grow misty.

Then Sofia disappeared. She became obscure and unattainable. At that time, I had no idea how consequential she would become to me.  I now realize Sofia was always alive inside of me. My imagination would eventually lead me back to her and an enhanced version of romantic reality. Only after I fell in love with Sofia did my mind rationalize our romance as destiny. I came to realize that the day I first spoke her name was a hidden harbinger of love. Sofia sounded exotically beautiful, vaguely eastern in orientation, and insanely glamorous. She was sublime and mysterious, like all first loves.

Front and center – Rotunda of St. George in Sofia

Wandering Spirits – A Mutual Understanding
When I first came to Sofia, I was unaware of her seductive powers. She had been the cheap and easy option among a multitude of others. In other words, Sofia was not what I had imagined. All I had was a name without a face. There was nothing about her that portended the passion to come. She was known to many and understood by few. Sofia was poor compared to others of her class. She had riches, but they had rarely been discovered. Many had left Sofia, turning their backs on her, blaming her for the problems they brought to the relationship. She asked nothing of them, except to be treated with respect. Her suitors could not even do that. They were suspicious of her checkered past. She was said to have lived part of her life in slavery. That had not been Sofia’s choice, but for far too long it had been her fate. 

I brought my own problems to the relationship, but they had little to do with servitude. I had only found those who would give me what I wanted, but never what I needed. At least not until I met Sofia, she was a match made for me. Sofia intuitively understood my restless, wandering spirit. She was the one who could make my relationship deficit disorder go away. By liberating, rather than imprisoning me. Sofia opened herself up to me, showing sides to herself that revealed the scars of her past. And in her past, I recognized my own. Sofia had been abandoned so many times that she lost count. At some point, she stopped seeking attention and learned to live for herself. In Sofia, I found a kindred spirit. Her strength was remarkable. All the woes that had fallen upon Sofia failed to break her spirit. On the contrary, they enhanced it.

I came to Sofia indirectly, seeking her out, but with no preconceived notions. Over a period of days, she grew on me. I found myself being slowly seduced. The more time I spent with her, the more I learned the richness of her history. She was a daughter of the Romans, adopted by the Byzantines, reborn under the Bulgarians, and enslaved by the Ottomans. After five hundred years of slavery, Sofia had finally fallen back into the hands of the Bulgarians. They were astonished by her instinct for survival. Everyone and everything Sofia once loved had left her. She was the only one with strength to stay.

Flying high – Statue of Saint Sofia in the Bulgarian Capital

Basking In The Shadows – Shining In The Springtime
I found Sofia shining in the sunlight of springtime. She took me by the hand and led me through her past. It was just as chaotic and disjointed as her present. That was when I realized that the future belonged to us. Like all good things, our time together was limited. I would leave Sofia, but she never left me. I knew that she was still out there basking in the shadows. I could feel her presence guiding me. Sofia became the inspiration that spurred me to travel across the Balkans and deep into Eastern Europe. To stray further from her than I could ever have imagined. She was, is and always will be my first true love. I keep coming back to her, if not physically then mentally. I can still feel the warm embraces she gave me on those April days when we first met. Sofia, you are the capital of Bulgaria, and so much more to me. You are my Inspiration, motivation, and self-actualization. Romance without remorse, love without attachment, beauty without vanity. You are what I always wanted. You are what I was meant to be.

Coming soon: An Element of Mystery – A Less Than Perfect Image in Pecs (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #54)

Closing The Gap – War Crosses The Lower Danube (Russian Invasion of Ukraine #343)

If you have ever stood on one side of a large river and looked across at the other side, then you know just how far it can be. Fifty meters might as well be a mile, one hundred meters a marathon. Anyone who risks a crossing must contend with the river’s current which can easily sweep swimmers away. Many ferries and small watercraft have suffered the same fate. A river might be flat and relatively shallow, but it is still not terra firma. Water is transitory terrain with a power all its own. The other side of the river might as well be in another country because it seems unattainable. In some cases, it is in another country.

Flowing on – The Danube near Vadim Bulgaria (Credit: Janusz Recław)

Crossover Appeal – The Difficulty of Switching Sides
I can still remember the first time I saw the Danube River. It was not the way I had imagined it. The river was inky and dark, a large ribbon of water languidly flowing beneath the Friendship Bridge (also known as the Danube Bridge) on the Bulgaria-Romania border. Vienna and Budapest seemed a million miles away. This part of the Danube was a political rather than cultural. It was not an icon, but a dividing line between two nations that had a history of being at each other’s throats. Bulgaria and Romania may have had communism in common for forty years, but during that time they suspiciously eyed one another and assumed conspiratorial intent. The Friendship Bridge was nothing of the sort. It was imposed on both countries by Josef Stalin, a dictator who was never known for being friendly with anyone, especially foreigners.

Even with a bridge over the Danube, the Romanian side of the river looked impossibly far away. Some of this had to do with passport control. The wait was only 15 minutes, which is warp speed by the standards of two countries that will never be known for bureaucratic efficiency. Nonetheless, the passing minutes seemed to make the opposite side of the Danube grow more distant. I soon learned that perception had played a trick on reality. Crossing the bridge by vehicle was quick and easy. Still to this day, I cannot shake my initial perception of the Romanian side being a distant horizon. It retreats ever further in my mind as the memory fades.

I imagine that my perception of the distance between the Danube’s riverbanks is shared by those who live along the lower portion of the river. Just as the Danube has a long and storied history as an avenue of transport and trade, it has just as long a history of being a natural impediment that people have found difficult to cross. Modern engineering has mitigated some of that difficulty, but largely on the upper and middle Danube. For those living along the lower portion of the river, accessing the opposite side of the river can take a half-day or more of travel time. It all depends upon how far they are from the nearest bridge or ferry. The difficulty of getting from one side of the lower Danube to the other is demonstrated by the fact that there are four more bridges (10) across the Danube in Budapest, then there are along the entire stretch of the river that borders Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, and Ukraine (6). And one of those six bridges, the New Europe Bridge between Vidin, Bulgaria and Calafat, Romania only opened a decade ago.

Flowing away – The Danube along the Ukraine-Romania border

Natural Borders – Keeping A Distance
Bridging the lower Danube has proven difficult, if at times impossible. This is especially true when it comes to connecting two different countries. The modern age has not been kind to bridge builders on the lower Danube. A combination of geopolitical difficulties, the legacy of historical mistrust, and bad government has kept those who live along the banks of the river apart. Even with Bulgaria and Romania as European Union members, the situation has only improved marginally. Romania has no connections by bridge with either the Moldovan or Ukrainian stretches of the Danube. With war raging in Ukraine this situation is unlikely to change anytime soon, if ever.

When the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February, the geopolitical distance between Ukraine and Romania along the lower Danube widened. Romania is a member of both the European Union and NATO. The latter provides it a level of security that Ukraine can only dream of. Russia willfully avoided Romania because it was in NATO. It is not an exaggeration to say that if Ukraine were in NATO the war would never have happened, nor the occupation and annexation of Crimea in 2014. The difference between war and peace for Ukraine is NATO membership.

Since the war started, Romania has been a relatively quiet place despite combat on the Black Sea not far from its coastline. It has become one of the safe havens for refugees from Ukraine. Romania enjoys a large American military presence, part of which is stationed at Constanta, the country’s largest port. As a NATO member, Romania can rely on security assurances from the world’s premier military alliance. That has not stopped the Ukraine-Russia war from closing the distance between Romania and Ukraine. The situation is tense along the lower Danube where Romanians live a mere 200 meters across the river from the Ukrainian ports of Reni and Izmail.

Wide flow – The lower Danube in Romania (Credit: Christian Gebhardt)

A Frightening Reminder – On The Doorstep
Recent Russian attacks on grain hubs at each of those ports is making Ukraine seem much closer to Romania than the usual perception allows. The river is not so much a barrier anymore, as it is a connection. Russia’s attacks are too close for Romania’s comfort. The gap between Ukraine and Romania on the Danube is being closed. The effects of explosions are felt far beyond their point of detonation. War does not need a bridge to cross the Danube. There is nothing other than a guidance system separating missiles and drones from Ukrainian and Romanian territory. The latest attacks could be an ominous portent of what is to come. Looked at another way, it is a reminder that the war has already arrived on the doorstep of Romania. The longer the war goes on, the more likely that Romanian territory will become collateral damage. In one case it already has.

Click here for: Digging Up Bones – Evidence of Conflicts Past & Present In Ukraine (Russian Invasion of Ukraine #44)

Placeholders – Bulgaria & Montana: Taking Names (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny # 47)

It is not easy to make connections between Bulgaria and Montana. Besides the fact that both places have lots of mountains, it is hard to imagine what else they might have common. Trying to make a connection between the two is difficult, both literally and figuratively. The closest I ever came to bridging the divide between this Balkan nation and the Last Best Place (a nickname given to Montana) was on my first trip to Eastern Europe when I flew between Montana and Bulgaria. As one might imagine there was no direct flight between the two. This meant a journey that took twenty hours and required three flights. By the time I arrived in Bulgaria, bleary eyed and luggage less, I could barely remember leaving Montana. The difference between my point of departure in Billings (Montana’s largest city) and arrival point in Sofia (capital of Bulgaria) was vast. About the only thing the two places had in common were mountains rising in the distance. Everything else, including language, landscape, and culture, could not have been more different. It would only be later that I made more enduring connections between these disparate places and name associations between them. ‘.

Big sky country – Montana Bulgaria (Credit: gospodin13)

Associative Disorders – Place Based Names
The Bulgars managed to find a way to unwittingly connect Montana and Bulgaria. The city of Montana (pop. 43,000) lies in the northwestern part of Bulgaria. The city has a long and less than illustrious past. Its beginnings go back to a second century Roman military camp located along the Ogosta river. While Bulgaria is positively ancient when compared to the American state of Montana, one thing is not. The name of Montana for the city in Bulgaria is a very recent concoction. It is the fourth iteration of the city’s name. The first Slavic inhabitants referred to the city as Kutlovitsa. That name changed only slightly during five centuries of Ottoman rule, when the city went by a Turkish derivation, Kutlofca. It was not until the late 19^th century that the name changed once again. This time to Ferdinand, in honor of Prince Ferdinand (later Tsar of Bulgaria). Such an overt homage to an aristocrat would not survive communist rule.

The communists had their own brand of elites, high level party functionaries whose names graced cities, streets, and squares throughout the nation. Thus, Ferdinand became Mihaylovgrad, named in honor of party activist Hristo Mihaylove. The latter did not live long enough to see his name bestowed upon the town because he died during World War II. Like its namesake’s life, Mihalovgrad as the city’s name did not last long. When communism collapsed in 1989, another round of name changes began to occur throughout Bulgaria. Communism was out, while princes and tsars were anachronisms relegated to the dustbin of history. This left Bulgarians in a quandary. Finding a name disconnected from history would be difficult. Finding the answer meant reaching back to the ancient past, specifically a military encampment named Castra ad Montanesium. Mihalovgrad became Montana, acquiring its new name in 1993. Up until now it has yet to change.

Namesake – Pleven Bulgaria (Credit: kuchin ster)

High Plains Drifter – Plevna, Montana
There is another connection between Bulgaria and Montana that only a couple of hundred people are aware of today. That is because visiting Plevna, Montana means driving to one of the most remote regions of the High Plains. Since interstates have relegated America’s two-lane long-distance highways to obscurity, the towns along them have faced depopulation and decades of decline. Along US12 in the far reaches of eastern Montana, I once came upon this strange outlier of a town with a Bulgarian connection. The name was familiar to me for two reasons. One was that Pleven was the site of a famous siege in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, a conflict that led to the liberation of Bulgaria from five centuries of Ottoman rule. Secondly, I came across the name in one of my favorite reference books that informed years of travel throughout Montana. I purchased “Names on the Face of Montana” almost twenty-five years ago in a small, remote town that stood in the shadows of the Rocky Mountains.

The book provides etymologies for hundreds of Montana towns. Among those listed is Plevna, along with the story of how the town got its name. The Milwaukee Railroad (the route of which US Highway 12 now follows) came to the area in 1909. Originally, the railroad company planned to name the station Edina. Then Bulgarian laborers who were helping to build the line, lobbied to name it Plevna (a derivation of Pleven) instead. Railroad officials approved the name and so it became the only town in Montana named after one in Bulgaria. Plevna, Montana has neither the rich history, nor provincial cosmopolitanism that the Bulgarian city of the same name does. It was one of the last swaths of the continental United States to receive settlers. Anyone entering this tiny town, population 179, will immediately notice a sign on the eastern approach to Plevna which states that it is one hundred years old, a point of pride in a region which has seen countless towns disappear into the grass and dust. The sign is now eleven years old, but no one has saw fit to update it.

Skyscraper of the High Plains – Grain Elevator in Plevna

The Lonesome Whistle  – Old World, New Opportunities
Plevna’s most striking feature is a grain elevator, ubiquitous architectural symbols that are known as skyscrapers of the Great Plains. There really is nothing else to recommend Plevna except for the usual restaurant/bar. These seem to be the only mainstays of every small, down at the heel town in Montana. It is hard to imagine that a place so remote would have a connection to Bulgaria, but it does. Those railroad workers were among the first waves of Bulgarian immigration to the United States. Like other Eastern Europeans they were looking for jobs and economic prosperity. Working on the railroad offered an opportunity for both. Along the way, Bulgarian immigrants left a legacy from the Old World at a railroad siding and settlement that still stands today. Plevna, Montana might not be much to look at, but the name speaks across time and distance. Thus, Bulgaria and Montana will stay forever connected unless there is a name change.

Click here for: Ecstatic Experiences – Tripping by Train In Eastern Europe (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny # 48)

The Orient Express By River, Land & Sea – Contemptuous Cargo: A Bulgarian Brush With Anarchy (Part Three)

The adventures for those taking the inaugural Orient Express continued late into the night at Bucharest. They were taken by fiacre to dine in the city. This came at the tail end of their longest side journey. A journey that had already resulted in a 300 kilometer round trip train ride into the foothills of the Transylvanian Alps, a walk through a torrential downpour on a muddy road in boot deep mud to a bizarre reception where they met King Carol and Queen Elisabeth of Romania. The passengers had gotten much more than they had bargained for since arriving in Bucharest early that morning. And their eventful day was not yet finished. When they got back to the city, a very late dinner was in order. They were now at a point beyond exhaustion. It was after midnight when the train pulled out of the Gara De Nord. Bucharest was soon to become an afterthought as they fell into sleep. The Express was now headed southward toward the Danube, on the other side of which was Bulgaria.

The first Orient Express brochure from 1887

Heightened Suspicions – A Cold Greeting
The final stop in Romania would be Giurgiu set on the north side of the Danube. The town had been held by two empires (Ottoman and Russian) and one nation (Romania) at separate times over the past half-century. It looked the worse for wear as none of its occupiers had seen fit to repair the extensive war damage. In Giurgiu the passengers would exit the Express so they could be ferried by steamship across what the French journalist Georges Boyer called “the yellow waters”  of the lower Danube.  In later years the Orient Express would go by land all the way to Constantinople, but in 1883 the construction of a railway link through Serbia and Bulgaria was still being negotiated. This route would not be possible until 1888. That meant the latter part of the Orient Express journey would take place first across a spur line in northern Bulgaria and then via steamship from the Black Sea port of Varna to Constantinople.

Romania was exotic and rough around the edges, but Bulgaria would turn out to be downright wild. Bulgaria was a land of danger, tension and political intrigue. Only five years before, it had gained independence from the Ottoman yoke after the nasty violence of the Russo-Turkish War. The newly formed nation had yet to recover. It was ruled by an elite clique of Russian officers whose main duty was to keep it under the ostensible control of the Tsar.  The city of Ruse stood opposite Giurgiu on the south bank of the Danube. It still bore many scars from the fighting and was unappealing. The passengers were given a formal, but cold greeting at the station. The Russians were suspicious of the Orient Express’ intent, since it provided a strategic link between Bulgaria and western Europe. Tsarist officials saw this as a threat to the Russian sphere of influence. The upshot was that the Orient Express clientele was given an indifferent welcome before boarding another train that would deliver them to Varna.

The First Orient Express from the French publication L’Illustration

A Brush With Anarchy – The Bulgarian Countryside
The passengers were glad to see Ruse fade into the distance as the train began to head eastwards. Soon a new fear came to occupy their imaginations, the threat of banditry. The train was now crossing a hard-bitten, dusty landscape. Instead of houses, there were hovels. Mud rather than stone or brick was the main building material. It was mixed with timber to produce homes that had not advanced in construction since the Middle Ages. The only markers of civilization were solitary mosques with minarets piercing the autumn sky. This was a society stuck in a medieval level of development. The peasants were not far removed from serfdom as they tried to scratch a subsistence living out of the earth.  In such a quasi-primitive state, crime had the potential to pay much more than hard work. This was not lost on the passengers, several of whom brandished firearms ready to fend off any attempt at robbery. Stories were told of how bandits captured stations along the route, robbed officials and attempted to burn them alive inside the structures.

The Orient was turning out to be much more anarchic than anyone could have possibly imagined. There would be no problems, at least not on this train, but the tension would not subside, even when they arrived on the shores of the Black Sea.  The only stop between Ruse and Varna was the depressingly ramshackle town of Sheytandjik. It lived down to the Turkish meaning of its name, “Little Devil”. Alone and exposed out on the poverty stricken frontier, it suffered from the lawless chaos that plagued the Bulgarian countryside. Sheytandjik was a strange place to stop for lunch, but it was on the schedule. The partridge served up to them was nearly indestructible due to its rubbery consistency. This was not so much lunch, as it was an endurance contest to see who could finish any part of it. A delicious repast of Turkish desserts did go some way in ameliorating memories of the main dish.

Roundabout – The first route of the Orient Express in 1883 is shown on this map

A Seething Mass – Into The Black Sea
At Varna the rail journey came to a rather depressing end. Beggars and officials were the only one there to greet those travelers from the Orient Express. They would now board a steamship, the Espero. It was run by the Austrian Lloyd-Triestino Shipping Company and had sailed from the port of Trieste in Austria-Hungary several weeks earlier. The final stretch of the journey would be to Constantinople by way of the Black Sea and through the Bosphorus Strait, a distance of almost 300 kilometers. The seagoing voyage would be fraught with tension. This was due to some extra passengers who had been sold tickets allowing them to travel on the ship’s deck. These were Turks who had lost their homes and property due to the Bulgarization of the countryside. They had been living in subhuman conditions for quite some time, as was apparent from the body odor which wafted over the timber barrier which kept this seething mass of refugees from coming into contact with passengers of the Orient Express. The Turkish men looked at the wealthy foreign travelers with undisguised hatred. The passengers recoiled in horror. This was bound to make for a memorable voyage to Constantinople.

Click her for: The Orient Express Enters The Orient – Romania: Strangely Familiar & Totally Foreign (Part Two)

Obsessive Propulsive – Still Running: 2 A.M. Through The Streets Of Sofia (Travels In Eastern Europe #40)

Running is a ritual and an obsession for me. No matter where I am at, no matter how far from home, no matter what my schedule, a daily run has been a necessity in my life for well over a decade. Some might call my daily runs, a jog or even a trot. That is because I do not aim for speed, just to keep going for one hour. I have been told – quite correctly – that if I would take a day or two off every week my runs would be much better. That is heresy to me. If I can get in in an hour running each day, then I am satisfied. Life would not seem normal without the daily run. Trying to maintain such a rigid standard can be difficult, nowhere more so than while traveling.

Sofia

Dogged Persistence – An Exercise In Cultural Understanding
I have been a lucky man when it comes to running during my travels, specifically in Eastern Europe. I have run along the Danube in Bratislava, Budapest and Belgrade, across the Stari Most in Mostar, the Charles Bridge in Prague and the Latin Bridge in Sarajevo, dodged traffic in Transylvania and cut corners across Krakow. Most of my runs have not been in or around famous sites, but in neighborhoods or other run of the mill places such as a sports club in Kispest and farm fields on the outskirts of Debrecen.  These places I recall just as fondly as the old cities of Vienna or Vilnius. The runs helped me familiarize myself with local areas and life, especially in Hungary. By running I have learned that many Hungarians have large ferocious dogs guarding their yards. I cannot count the times that I have been startled by a massive dog suddenly smashing their snout up against a fence, snarling and salivating at me. Anyone who would consider robbing a house in Hungary better be prepared for a fight to the death from an oversized rover ready to have them for brunch. Hungarian dogs have helped keep me aware of my surroundings.

I have also learned about the stoicism and reserve of Eastern Europeans on these runs. A smile is at best met with a shrug, greetings are ignored. The people I have met along these runs are not the superficial, perpetually smiling American types. Friendliness seems to be forbidden, they take a “do not talk to strangers” attitude seriously. I can see this in their look away avoidance, a willful attempt to ignore my existence. This left me with a rather lonely feeling, making me feel more foreign than I already was. Nevertheless, I would not trade my experience jogging down the cracked sidewalks and unkempt parks found in every former Eastern Bloc country. I have gotten to see so much that I otherwise would have missed. The drunks passed out in the woods in Warsaw’s Saxon Park , the Romanian soldiers slouching while standing guard in the early morning hours at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Bucharest, the empty serpentine streets of Sibiu just after dawn. My daily run may be an obsession, but in eastern Europe it has also enhanced my passion for travel and given me unforgettable experiences. My favorite run was also the toughest, one that coincidentally happened in the earliest hours of the morning, when I could see next to nothing and the experience devolved into a dream.

The Final Destination –Running To Stand Still
I crawled out of the bed in Sofia at 2 a.m. on a Monday morning, knocked back a cold cup of coffee and grabbed my IPod. It was time to go for a morning run, a very early morning run. This would be the earliest I had ever went running before. Why was I going for a run in a strange city, where I could not speak a word of the language or even read the alphabet at such an early hour? The only reasonable explanation – as though anyone going running at 2 a.m. can provide a reasonable answer – was that I had a 6 a.m. flight from Sofia to Paris. This would be followed by two more flights to get back home. If everything went according to plan I would not arrive in my final destination of Billings, Montana, until 10:00 p.m. This meant that it would be especially difficult for me to get in my daily run unless I did it in Sofia. I had barely slept during that short night. Even so I did not feel that tired. I was in a wired state of sleep deprivation, shaking slightly with a fast forward like motion sickness.

My nerves were on edge. I was kept awake for most of the night with worried thoughts of impending danger. What if I ran into a crowd of drunks or a gang of young males looking to kick the ass of a stupidly dressed stranger in sweats, a hoody and trainers on a street in Sofia during the wee hours of the morning? What if some corrupt police officer noticed me? I imagined being dragged away to the police station for questioning then missing my flight while trying to explain away this daily run madness. As I walked outside into the chill morning air, I noticed that the streets were deserted. There was scarcely any traffic except for the random taxi. I began to run down one of the main streets, a moving target in super slow self-propulsion. I quickly formulated a plan to safeguard my existence and remain anonymous. I would find a quiet, mostly dark side street, then repetitively run back and forth along it. This would be quite tedious, but the goal was to complete the daily run, not try for speed or stimulation. It was not long before I found such a street. For the next half hour I did little more than jog 400 meters one way and then do the same again in the opposite direction.

Isolation Chamber – Passing Thoughts
Boredom got the better of me halfway through the run. I found another street, rather well lighted where I could do the same thing. It was not much better, but at least it was different. With music blasting in my ears I lost track of everything. I was in another world, beyond Bulgaria. It was like being in an isolation chamber, alone with just my thoughts. This must be what it is like just before dying. Then suddenly I was frightened into reality. I found myself suddenly upon the heels of two people who were walking up the street in front of me. I almost ran into the back of them. They were startled, said something which I could not hear, then parted so I could pass. I accelerated out of fear and did not look back until several minutes later. When I did glance behind me, they were nowhere to be seen. I realized that they were probably more scared of me, than I was of them. It was not long thereafter that the run was finished. I was relieved to be done with it. My daily run goal for the day was attained. I could live another day in contentment. Now all I had to do was spend the next 24 hours traveling. I was not worried about the flights or the waits or the lack of sleep. My only worry was about tomorrow and the next daily run.

The Red Star of Sofia – Falling Up: From The Sky Down In Bulgaria (Travels In Eastern Europe #39)

Boykan, our Bulgar guide, began the Free Tour with a short overview of the importance of Sofia in the history of the Balkans and Bulgaria. Today Sofia is one of the least visited European capitals, but it had once been of great importance. During the Ottoman occupation, which all Bulgarians, including Boykan, refer to as “the 500 years of slavery” Sofia was of prominence due to its location as the midpoint between Constantinople and Belgrade. Like so much of Eastern Europe, Sofia was a “used to” place. This was a recurring theme in the region’s history. The Bulgars “used to” have an empire, the Hungarians “used to” occupy large swaths of Eastern Europe, the Lithuanians “used to” have a massive kingdom and so forth. Sofia “used to” be important. As a marker of just how far they had fallen geopolitically, Bulgarians were elated when they were allowed into the European Union. This seemed to re-legitimize their importance. Sofia and Bulgaria were not what they used to be, but the decline provided some fascinating history, especially during the 20^th century.

St. Nedelya Church after the assault in 1925

Terror In Bulgaria – An Explosive Situation
The inaugural tour stop was at St. Nedelya Church, which had also been the first attraction I noticed upon my arrival in the city two weeks earlier. At that time, there had been crowds coming out from a noon time service, the same was true today. A crowd gathering in and around a church is usually not of great interest, but once I learned the history of St. Nedelya that crowd took on a whole new meaning. The church looked ancient, but its Byzantine Revival architecture was deceptive. While there had been a church on this very site since the 10^th century, the latest version was only consecrated in 1933. The church I attended while growing up in my little hometown of western North Carolina was older than the current iteration of St. Nedelya, so much for Old Europe. To be fair, any architecture in a region as riven by conflict as Bulgaria has been over the last thousand years has virtually no chance of still standing in its original form. The present St. Nedelya was the umpteenth version of the church. The previous one was irreparably damaged in the spring of 1925, during what has come to be known as the St. Nedlya Church assault. Boykan pointed out a memorial plaque which commemorated that event. A plaque can never do justice to what happened during the worst terrorist incident in Bulgarian history.

On April 16^th, Holy Thursday, a funeral was held at St. Nedelya Church for General Konstantin Georgiev, who had been assassinated a few days earlier by communist radicals. The assassination was actually part of a larger plot to murder important Bulgarian governmental and military leaders who would attend General Georgiev’s funeral.  The act was carried out with almost perfect precision. During the funeral, 25 kilograms of explosives were detonated in the attic of the church causing the roof to collapse. 150 people were killed and another 500 injured. The church was condemned and had to be completely rebuilt. What our group stood looking at was the result of that effort. As crowds milled around outside, I tried to imagine what the scene must have been like on that horrific day. Terrorism does not care about churches or beautiful blue sky days, families or their loved ones. The ends can always be made to justify the means. And sometimes the terrorists eventually end up in charge.

St. Nedelya Church as it looks today (Credit: Stolichanin)

Long Shadows – The Death & Life of Communism
Twenty years after the roof was blown off St. Nedelya Church, the communist radicals were ruling the country. Communism’s long shadow loomed over Sofia and informed the tour. At one point a Bulgarian man who looked to be in his sixties was drawn to us. He must have heard Boykan speaking in English. He suddenly let loose with a rant of “Death To America” and yelled at all within earshot that “the Soviet Union will rise again”. Boykan hardly batted an eye. He calmly ignored the provocateur, than after we moved on told us how much of the older generation had trouble letting go of the past.  The upheaval experienced in Eastern Bloc countries during the fitful transition to capitalism had made many look back on the era of communism as a time of stability, a time of full employment and few worries about life’s necessities.

Even if the country was impoverished during that time, everyone shared in that poverty. The problem with communism was that it was static and intolerant of dissent. This made the system incapable of reform. Any hint of reform was met with the black boot of repression. This rigidity led to a total collapse from which Bulgaria had yet to fully recover. It would take generations before the legacy of communism would finally fade. Its symbols had disappeared much faster. One of these was the red star of Sofia. For decades a five pointed red star crowned the pinnacle of the Communist Party Headquarters building. When it was finally taken down, this red star was left propped up against a wall in the courtyard of Sofia’s Central Bathhouse and that was where it had stayed.

The red star of Sofia

The Star That No Longer Shines – A Symbolic Message
Boykan was proud to offer us a peek at the red star. Without his guidance, we would never have known that it was hidden in plain sight behind a fence. Looking at it, I was astounded by how fragile and nondescript it looked. This symbol of Soviet might, that Bulgarians had been forced to look up to for years, was now abandoned. It looked rather lonely and pathetic. A few months later, the red star would be removed from the courtyard. It was taken away to be displayed at the forthcoming Museum of Totalitarian Art. When I first heard this, I was saddened. I felt that the red star should have been left where we saw it. It was a stark illustration of just how far the Soviet empire had fallen.  I could not thank Boykan enough for showing everyone the red star. Boykan was part of a new generation, pro-European, looking to the west. The generations that had grown up under communism were still struggling to make sense of this new world. The old stars from the east had fallen, including a large red five pointed star. It was tucked away behind a fence and propped up against a wall. Now it was history.

Ghosts In Daylight – The Largo: Sofia’s Spectral Presence (Travels In Eastern Europe #38)

Several stops on the Free Tour were in Sofia’s most famous architectural area, known as the Largo, home to some of the most outstanding examples of Communist architecture to be found anywhere in the world. The buildings themselves dwarfed our group. As our youthful guide, Boykan began to talk about these buildings, I wondered how his generation felt about what they had inherited. He, like other young Bulgarians I had met, were cautiously optimistic. This was totally opposite of the menace expressed by the architecture of the Largo. The future of Bulgaria – even a democratic one – would be decided within the confines of Stalinist-inspired structures. Aesthetically the buildings were impressive, if uninviting. Their style, a megalomaniacal neo-classicism enhanced by the ideological steroid of totalitarianism.

Largo under construction in the 1950s – Party House in the background (Credit: stara-sofia)

The Nightmare Vision – Landscape Of Intimidation
The most magnificent or revolting of these buildings, depending upon one’s political persuasion, the Party Building, reminded me of a gigantic ship that had been anchored in the heart of Bulgaria. While the country sank into stagnation around it, this grim beast of a building stayed afloat. The Party Building was flanked on either side by a pair of sizable monoliths. Presently these structures housed, among other things, offices of the National Assembly of Bulgaria, the President’s Office and the Council of Ministers, as well as a department store, archaeological museum and hotel. Much of the current Bulgarian government worked out of the same buildings that the communist party elite had inhabited less than thirty years before. How much had really changed in the country from a political standpoint was open to debate.

The Largo is both the most enduring symbol of Bulgaria’s communist era and of the post-communist cronyism that plagues the country. The actors had changed, but the setting was still the same. Standing in the cobbled square, I found the inhuman scale of the architecture intimidating. Row upon row of windows lined these buildings. I had the feeling that someone or something was watching me, whether it was or not seemed beside the point. I could not shake the feeling of me versus the massive, a place where the individual did not stand a chance then or now. For all the showiness and symbolism of the Largo, there was a pervasive lack of transparency to the space, a sort of facelessness to these facades. It was difficult for me to envision what went on behind all those windows. Bulgaria was riddled with corruption, there was virtually no separation between government and business, one was used for the purposes of the other or vice versa. How could it be otherwise when the most important governmental space in the country was hidden behind monumental amounts of concrete and murky windows.

Lenin’s replacement – The statue of Saint Sophia (Credit: Bin Im Garten)

Dream Quest – A Tantalizing Transparency
At least there had been a few superficial, yet symbolic changes to the Largo since the fall of communism. The ruby red star of Soviet power that once crowned the Party Building, had now been replaced by a Bulgarian flag unfurling in a gentle, spring breeze. A gigantic statue of Lenin on the western end of the Largo had been removed for a much smaller statue of the city’s namesake, Saint Sophia. Sophia had been selected because she was viewed as a non-ideological figure, symbolizing wisdom. She looked like a miniature goddess, her golden skin covered beneath the folds of an immaculate robe. The utter antithesis of Lenin, erotic rather than revolutionary, open armed instead of close fisted. If the statue of Sophia was viewed at a certain angle, a Unicredit Bank building stood positioned perfectly in the background. Perhaps Sophia was promoting the wisdom of capitalism, the benefits of which most Bulgarians had struggled to acquire amid the scourge of endemic corruption.

The west had won the Cold War and colonized Sofia with capitalism, paradoxically it was also the West that was inadvertently responsible for the Largo’s totalitarian architecture. In 1944, American and British bombers had badly damaged this area of the city. Once the rubble and ruins had been cleared away, the post-war Stalinist government decided to rebuild the area as a symbolic showpiece for the communist ideology. Despite such a gargantuan makeover, one set of ruins were not plowed under. These undergirded a greatness that had not been seen in Sofia since antiquity, namely that of the Roman city of Serdica. When I visited the Largo, the remains of Serdica could only be viewed by going underground. That situation has changed. Now visitors walking along the Largo can look down through glass at them. Ironically, this is one of the only transparent things to be seen in the Largo. It is also a reminder of Sofia’s former importance.

Serdica was made an administrative capital of the surrounding region in the first century AD. Two hundred years later, it gained eternal fame when the Roman Emperor Galerius issued an Edict of Toleration from the city in 311 AD. The edict was the first time Christianity was legalized in the empire. In the coming decades, Rome would increasingly turn to Christianity, but this did not save Serdica or the empire. In 447 AD the Huns destroyed the city, but it was rebuilt by the Byzantines. It would be several centuries later before the Bulgars appeared on the scene. The subterranean ruins of Serdica were impressive to look at, several streets have been unearthed. The remnants of what were once the city’s protective, eight-meter high, stone walls could still be seen in shortened form. I found these ruins interesting, but not much more than that.

Larger than life – The Largo in Sofia

Staying Power – The Free Tour
I could not help but wonder how Roman ruins had anything to do with modern Bulgaria. Maybe the point was to link Bulgaria and Sofia with the greatness of the Roman Empire. It was a strange, disconcerting connection. The ruins were worth seeing, but the giant buildings now towering over the Largo somehow seemed less worthy. I wondered if, in two thousand years anything would be left of the Party Building. Despite the colossal structure’s size, I doubted it. The Soviets were no Romans, their presence lacked permanence, instead it was spectral. A ghost that could be seen at any time and was just as frightening in the day, as it was at night.

Boykan led us away from the Largo to show us a few more of Sofia’s sights. I eagerly followed, soaking in everything he said. Just a couple of hours earlier, I had barely been able to entertain the thought of doing anything in a city that I felt was forgettable. I had been wrong, Boykan changed my opinion of Sofia. The Free Tour introduced and then interpreted Sofia as a place with a rich spirit, despite or perhaps because of its deep and dark history. All this left me enthralled. When the tour ended I thanked Boykan profusely, then began the walk back to my accommodation. It was not long before that last day travel depression started in on me again. This time it was different though, I felt it not because I wanted to leave Sofia, but because I wanted to stay.

 

A Second Chance For Sofia – Boykan The Bulgar: The Cure For Anti-Curiosity (Travels In Eastern Europe #37)

It was my last day in Sofia and I did not have the eagerness or energy to explore the city. I have always found the day before the end of a trip to be among the most difficult. The moment when there is nothing left to look forward to is fast approaching. A feeling of resignation sets in, putting an end to any ambition I may still have to explore. My thought process can best be described as: “it will all come to an end soon enough, so why bother.” Everything I see or do on the last day will be a painful reminder of all that I will leave behind.  The mysterious, the exotic, the otherworldly will soon vanish, replaced by forty hours a week of frustrations, made worse by the displeasures of domesticity. Such a fatalistic instinct does not lend itself to site seeing, it is more conducive to laying in the bed at midday with the curtains closed and covers pulled over my head. I have come to understand this as a form of travel depression. It is quite the opposite of the usual maladies that plague travelers such as bad flights, impure water and foreign food. Instead, my depressive malaise was induced by a counter-reaction to all the life altering experiences and magnificent memories that came earlier on the same trip.

A Second Chance For Sofia (Credit: Falk2)

Sleepless In Sofia – A Broken Relationship
To be honest, thoughts of re-experiencing Sofia did nothing to lift the cloud looming above my final day in the city. My flagging spirits were reinforced by thoughts of when I first explored the city two weeks earlier. I had found it confusing and disjointed. The main attractions, such as a clutch of magnificent churches and a fine mosque offered windows into the mysterious beauty of Bulgaria, both spiritually and architecturally, but I had trouble developing a coherent idea of the city or country after hopscotching around for a couple of days. The gigantic Stalinist structures in the government quarter had left me aesthetically intimidated. While the seemingly endless rows of concrete apartment blocks that loomed on the urban horizon were the height of soullessness, both literally and figuratively.

There was a disconnect between me and Sofia. I could never mesh the city’s beautiful name with what I felt while visiting it for the first time. My intuition told me there was something wrong.  In short, Sofia and I were headed for an inevitable breakup that I was looking forward to. My attitude was not helped by the fact that I had barely slept in the stifling hot box compartment of the night train from Belgrade. A couple cups of ultra-stout coffee kept me upright as I stumbled down the street wondering just what to do. I was not a day sleeper, even when at the point of exhaustion. Besides, I would likely be kept awake by the screaming sunlight of a brightly lit Sunday morning, thus I had a choice to make, either summon what strength I had left or hide beneath the bed sheets. This was likely to be my last day in Sofia, not just on this trip, but forever. I had to do something, but did not have the energy to formulate an independent plan. In my current state, all I could hope for was to be led around.

Free Sofia Tour Logo

Motley Crew – Foreigners On A Free Tour
There was one thing that might provide an antidote for such overwhelming lassitude, the Sofia Free Tour. My friend Tim, who had first introduced me to free tours in Bucharest and Budapest, had recommended the Sofia tour. I discovered that the tour would meet at the noon hour, ironically outside what I imagined to be one of the least friendly places in Sofia, the Palace of Justice. The Bulgarian government is notorious for its opacity and corruption. I half-wondered if the tour was meeting at the Palace of Justice so the government could keep all foreigners under surveillance. In my groggy, zombie like state I found it to be an unsettling thought. Just making it to the meeting spot at the appointed time was a triumph. I was surprised by how many other foreigners were there as well. Tour participants numbered well into the double digits. All were foreigners, the lone exception being our guide.

I met a very handsome and well-spoken Spaniard who enjoyed having photos taken of himself. An older Swedish husband and wife couple. I admired the husband more than he could possibly imagine because of one simple fact, he was retired. His wife had taken a job with a multi-national company in Sofia. While she worked, he planned on hanging out. With a Swedish pension, he could live like royalty in Sofia. According to the husband, wine was very cheap in Bulgaria. From the look of glee on his face, he planned to enjoy many libations.  There was also a short, skinny and rather scared looking Argentine. I imagined his role in life was to look frightened. I just had to talk to him, if for no other reason than to ask how he found the courage to travel abroad. He looked terribly worried when I asked him where he had been. His previous stop had been Edirne in the European part of Turkey. It was famous for a beautiful mosque, I inquired if he had visited it. Yes, he had, but he was glad to get away from the city. I asked him why?

He said the Turks would not leave him alone. They kept trying to sell him things and followed him everywhere he went. He could not get away from them. Listening to this man, I began to get worried as well. Not so much about Edirne, as to how many nervous breakdowns he had each day. By the looks of it, he was on the verge of another one at any moment. There was also a Greek family, with an older mother who could not understand a word of English, but smiled pleasantly. I talked with her daughter about how I had planned to visit Thessaloniki, but the debt crisis had hindered that trip since all international trains into Greece had stopped running. She gave me a go to hell look that put the fury of Electra to shame.

Boykan the Bulgar – Sofia Free Tour guide

The Optimistic Bulgar – A Guide To The Future
Our pleasant and affable guide, a young Bulgar by the name of Boykan, was there to greet everyone. He was young, still at university and very enthused about Bulgaria’s membership in the European Union. His English was excellent. The cold diffidence with which older Bulgars treated strangers was nowhere to be found. Communism was history, rather than a memory for Boykan. I was looking at an exemplar of Bulgaria’s future. Youthful optimism was something Bulgaria badly needed. As Boykan began the tour, his affable nature and intelligent discourse helped clear the cobwebs out of my head. This tour might be better than advertised. I was ready to give Sofia a second chance.

 

 

Strangers, Friends & Enemies With Benefits – Crossing The Danube In Bulgaria (Travels In Eastern Europe #15)

My lasting impression of Ruse will always be the inquisitive, staring eyes of Bulgars. Their dark eyes and suspicious expressions followed me and my traveling companion Tim as we bought bus tickets for Bucharest. When we then proceeded to purchase food, the entire gathering of silent strangers followed us with intense stares. Their stares were not mean or harsh, but focused. They could not take their eyes off of us. It was obvious that we were foreigners, ethnically we looked the part. Tim, with his Asian features, was an obvious outsider. I was quite noticeable due to my red hair and fair skin, a rare trait in Bulgaria. Our every move was scrutinized by watchful pairs of eyes. We were guilty of being different.

The most disconcerting stare came from a middle aged man standing off to the side. Tall with broad shoulders, he could not hide his interest and not just in us. His eyes were fixated on our baggage. I half expected him to make an attempt at trying to steal them. After we got our food he slowly and deliberately approached us. I had my mind made up that he would either ask us for a cigarette or try a scam. Instead he pointed at our bags, than signaled towards a door. He was offering to keep our bags safe behind a locked door, which he would guard until our bus arrived. Strangely for such a suspicious acting character there was a mysterious charm about his behavior. Our intuition said to trust him and so we did. It turned out that he was a man you could trust, for a very small price.

Aerial view of the Danube Bridge (former Friendship Bridge) spanning the Danube River between Bulgaria and Romania (Credit: Yavor Michev)

The Unknown Danube –  A City Called Ruse
Ruse is the largest city on the stretch of the Danube River that borders Bulgaria and the fifth largest in the entire country. That is notable, though it is hardly ever noticed. A host of spectacular cities are known for their placement on Europe’s most famous river. When the Danube comes to mind, thoughts of it are inseparable from Vienna and Budapest and to a lesser extent Bratislava and Belgrade, all capital cities which the mighty river flows through. With that kind of competition Ruse does not stand a chance. Nearly all tourist cruises of the river end at Budapest. The lower Danube that skirts Bulgaria and Romania scarcely exists in the popular conscious. That is a shame, but also an opportunity for more adventuresome travelers.

Unfortunately I did not have time to explore the Bulgarian portion of the Danube, let alone Ruse. I regret seeing nothing more of the city than its bus station. It would have been great for cocktail conversation to say that I toured one of the great cities on the Danube, Ruse. That will never happen since I cannot stand cocktails or the conversation that goes with them. Not to mention the fact that Ruse commands little to no interest, even among hardened travelers, except for the fact that it has a bridge over the Danube. For Bulgaria and neighboring Romania that makes it a very big deal.

Bridging a troubled relationship postage stamp from a 1948 stamp portraying the future bridge over the Danube River between Bulgaria and Romania (Credit: Karen Horton)

Imperial Forces – Romans And Soviets Bridging The Danube
On July 5^th, 328 AD the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great was present at Oescus (the same place exists today in Bulgaria) for the opening of what would be the longest bridge ever constructed in the empire. Known to history as Constantine’s Bridge, it was built largely of wood with abutments on each end acting as gates. The bridge spanned the Danube from Oescus to Sucidava (Corabia, Romania’s present location). Running over a mile in length, the bridge was in use for at least forty years. It would be over sixteen hundred years later before another bridge would span the lower reaches of the Danube. Neither Bulgaria nor Romania was capable of achieving such an engineering feat. This was due not to a lack of scientific knowledge, but instead political disagreements and territorial disputes that proved intractable.

These disputes were mainly over the region of Dobruja through which the lower Danube flows. Even after these were settled the two sides still could not agree on how or where to bridge the Danube. The solution came from of all places, the Soviet Union. Following the end of World War II with the imposition of hardline Communism a new force was brought to bear upon the situation. Under the guise of Communist solidarity and with the will of Stalin bearing down upon the parties, a bridge was constructed in just two and a half years. Opening in the summer of 1954, it was ironically named the Friendship Bridge. Former enemies were now forced into a friendship of convenience that benefited the strategic and economic needs of their Soviet overlords. Over a mile in length, the steel truss bridge has in more recent times become known as the Danube Bridge. Today it bisects an internal border of two European Union members. This bridge would be our corridor to Romania.

Friendship Bridge (now Danube Bridge) from Ruse, Bulgaria to Giurgiu, Romania (Credit Tiia Monto)

Crossing Over – From Many Centuries To A Few Minutes
Our crossing of the Danube was rather easy. The baggage guardian summoned us at the appointed time for our bus ride. The fee for his services was the equivalent of a couple of dollars. He led us not out into the main bus terminal, but through a back door and down a stairway. We were in for a pleasant surprise. There was no “bus” to be found. Instead we were part of a group of four taking a maxi taxi (a hybrid car/bus vehicle) to Bucharest. The vehicle looked almost new, it was a shiny Volkswagen that could have seated several more passengers. The driver was yet another suspicious looking person, who spoke no English and would stay almost completely silent throughout the ride to Bucharest. He was there to do his job without conversation or pleasantries. Crossing the Danube from Bulgaria had been extremely difficult for centuries on end, but now we crossed the bridge in a few minutes to Romanian border control. The Danube Bridge was hardly worth noting. It was nothing more than a large bridge, over a large river. It had taken so long, to build something so simple, a historical metaphor for the idea of progress in the Balkans. Nothing came easy in this region.