Yekaterinburg: Trans-Siberian Railway Part 2

Moscow to Yekaterinburg

Russia

Our comfortable four-berth sleeping compartment was nominally second-class, though it was much the same as a ‘soft sleeper’ on a Chinese train and offered the same opportunity for a close encounter with complete strangers. On our journeys in China we have sometimes had interesting travelling companions, sometimes companions with whom no communication was possible beyond a smile but we have never encountered a problem. There were to be no problems for us on the Trans-Siberian, either. We shared our compartment to Yekaterinburg with Erling, a retired Danish police officer travelling to Vladivostok for the fun of it. He spoke excellent English and was a most genial companion.



Comfortable sleeping compartment
- and Erling's knees

On Russian trains much depends on the provadnitza, the woman (and they are all women) in charge of the carriage. The modern style provadnitza understands that she works in a service industry and looks after her passengers. Not all are of the modern style, but our first provadnitza could not have been more helpful; smiling cheerfully, she fetched an English menu from the dining car and then brought dinner to our compartment. When we departed she seemed more than reasonably delighted with a very modest tip and hugs were exchanged.

Villages of wooden houses

Leaving Moscow in the late afternoon, we stopped at a couple of towns and passed through several villages of wooden houses, but spent most of the evening travelling through birch forest.

Russia with Yekaterinburg enclosed in a red rectangle

We slept. Sometime in the night we crossed the River Volga and in the morning we were still in the birch forest. We emerged from the trees, eventually, arriving at Sverdlovsk Station in the early evening.

Yekaterinburg: Introduction

Yekaterinburg

During soviet times, many cities changed their names to those of revolutionary heroes. Although most have reverted to their pre-soviet titles almost all retain their statue of Lenin and have their main streets named after Lenin and Marx. Yekaterinburg was founded in 1723, became Sverdlovsk in 1924 and reverted to its original name in 1991 - a change Russian railways have yet to acknowledge.

Yekaterinburg is an industrial city of just over a million people standing on the boundary between Europe and Asia. It is a fine example of the ambivalence with which Russians are coping with their past.

The Church of the Blood, Yekaterinburg

After the revolution Tsar Nicholas II and his family were imprisoned here in the house of military engineer Nikolai Ipatiev. In July 1918 they were murdered on orders from the local commander, General Sverdlov. In 1977 the Ipatiev House was destroyed amid fears that it might provide a rallying point for royalist dissidents. Its destruction was ordered by local party chief, Boris Yeltsin, who would play a major part in dismantling the Soviet Union become Russian president. Today Nicholas II has been declared a saint and ‘The Church of the Blood’, dedicated to the Romanov family, has been built on the site.

The Church of the Blood, Yekaterinburg

Women are expected to dress conservatively in Russian Orthodox churches, while outside the trend is to make the most of Yekaterinburg’s brief summer by wearing as little as possible. In the entrance to the ‘Church of the Blood’ our guide Maryana, a slim dyed-blonde with very long legs and very short shorts disappeared into a stall to borrow some appropriate clothing. She returned looking like a little old lady in a long dark skirt with a black shawl draped over her head and wrapped round her shoulders.

Exhibition of photographs of the Romanovs
Church of the Blood, Yekaterinburg

The church is on two levels: the lower, surrounding the space where the murders took place, is dark and sombre, the upper is light and airy, symbolising hope for the future. It was full of pilgrims, praying and lighting candles. At the front of the building is an exhibition of photographs of the Romanovs. At the back, somewhat incongruously, is a monument to the ‘Urals Young  Communists’.



The Church of the Blood
and the Urals Young Communists monument, Yekaterinburg

Yekaterinburg's Soviet Past

Stranger yet, on a nearby bridge the city proudly displays the Lenin medal it received for being a model Soviet city and.....

Yekaterinburg, a model Soviet city

.....less than a kilometre away on the central reservation of Lenin Street, is a statue of General Sverdlov, the man who ordered the killing.

General Sverdlov
Yekaterinburg was renamed Sverdlosk between 1924-1991

Afghan War Memorial, Yekaterinburg

The city is twisting itself in knots as it tries to express regret for the gruesome murders while holding true to its revolutionary past. And the recent past holds its demons, too; walking to the ‘Church of the Blood’ we had passed the war memorial for the ill-fated Russian adventure in Afghanistan 1979-89.  It is a striking monument, and, perhaps, a warning about our own ongoing involvement.

Afghan war memorial, Yekaterinburg

The Graves of the Romanovs, near Yekaterinburg

Next day our driver Dennis (‘I’ve got two cars in case one breaks down’) took us out of town and into the forest. Seven newly built wooden churches, one for each member of the family, cluster round the mineshaft where their bodies were dumped - there is no church for their family doctor or the three servants who died with them. It was raining and water dripped from the trees. Inside the buildings smelled of new wood, whilst outside there were the dark, musky odours of wet forest. There were few people about and the churches were largely empty, though the small crowd in the one church where a service was being held emerged for a procession amid much showering of holy water.

Stations of the Cross Procession
Romanov graves, Yekaterinburg

 It should have been impressive, but the churches seemed too cute to be taken seriously. It was difficult to shake off the belief that the design for the largest was based on a Walt Disney cartoon train.

Is it a church?
Is it a train?
Romanov burial site, Yekateriburg

The Boundary between Europe and Asia

After lunch we visited the line marking the boundary between Europe and Asia. The boundary follows the watershed of the Ural Mountains, but as the mountains peter out well north of Yekaterinburg the positioning of the line in the flat local landscape is somewhat arbitrary. It seems they want to develop this site as a tourist attraction, but they have hardly started yet.



Sometimes I feel we are on different continents

Memorial to Stalin's Victims, near Yekaterinburg

Close by, the construction of a new road led to the discovery of unmarked graves. The road builders had stumbled upon the last resting place of some thirty thousand victims of Stalin’s purges. Here, at least, the Russians have faced up to their past appropriately and the resulting memorial park is dignified and moving.

The victims of Josef Stalin

Dealings with Real Russians, Yekaterinburg

Our hotel was an example of the new entrepreneurial Russia. One floor of what seemed to be an office block had been converted into a comfortable boutique hotel – not that anyone would know, there was no sign outside. We breakfasted in the block’s communal cafeteria - an unreconstructed soviet canteen. The buffet had no knives and only one cup when we arrived. We pointed this out to the woman in charge. Her look said ‘What do you expect me to do about it?’ We persevered with our pointing. It took some time, but eventually she scowled, shrugged her shoulders and fetched what was required. Just because a Russian is paid to perform a service, you should not expect them to do it willingly, and certainly not with a smile. 

But the Russians are a warm hearted people and small acts of random kindness are not uncommon. As our cutlery arrived the security man from the front door came in bearing a pot of homemade jam. We had nodded and smiled at him as he pressed his button to let us in and out and he recognised us, came over to our table and insisted we shared his jam. Damson and blueberry, it was, and very good too.

Lenin, Yekaterinburg
Even in post Soviet times most cities still have a statue of Lenin

Eating in Yekaterinburg

Jam apart, eating in Yekaterinburg was hearty, rather than elegant. The first lunchtime we sat outside a café in the city centre, studied the menu and eventually deciphered the word ‘shashlik.’ We enjoyed a kebab in a spicy tomato sauce. That evening we found a more up-market restaurant. The sight of foreigners struggling with a menu in a language they do not speak in an alphabet they can barely read, often prompts restaurant managers to send over their youngest waitress – because she is studying English at school. Sometimes the only English they have mastered is the embarrassed giggle, but in this case a charming young lady helped us choose very reasonably priced starters of chicken and salmon salad, and a satisfying main course of beef with rice.

After our sojourn in the forest, Maryana was charged with finding ‘typical local food’. We were mildly surprised when she took us to a supermarket cafeteria, but have to acknowledge that ‘herrings in a blanket,’ is a traditional Russian favourite. Fish with beetroot and sour cream does not sound appetizing to the English ear, and the colours were a little alarming, but once you have slurped your way through a portion straight from its plastic supermarket packaging, its virtues become obvious. Comfort food is comfort food, in any language.

Central Yekaterinburg

For that evening we had earmarked a cheap and cheerful restaurant on the far side of Lenin Street, but a sudden downpour turned the road into an impassable torrent. Instead, we descended into a basement on our side of the flood which may, or may not, have been a Ukrainian restaurant. After negotiations with a giggling girl we ordered a rabbit starter and a pork main course. We had apparently stumbled into a ‘destination restaurant;’ all the other diners were dressed up and we were the scruffy peasants in the corner. We ordered draught beer while around us the local oligarchs purchased elaborately packaged bottles of vodka. After extensive research in Poland and Armenia, I have concluded that all vodka tastes the same, and that paying more than the minimum required to avoid blindness and death is a waste of money. I could see nobody who shared my view.

Our ‘rabbit’ turned out to be liver, served with a schooner of raspberry coulis. Liver and raspberry sounds even worse than herring and beetroot, but there was enough acidity in the coulis to make the dish surprisingly successful, though too filling for a starter. For our main course we were each served a slab of pig the size of a house brick. We wrapped one in a napkin, dropping it into Lynne’s handbag for tomorrow’s picnic, and shared the other. Even that was more than we could eat.

At 3.15 the following morning Dennis came to drive us back to Sverdlovsk station, where the 03.51 train eventually turned up at half past four. We crept into our compartment, stowed our luggage and tried to sort out our bedding in the dark, anxious not to disturb our roommates – after all we were going to have to live with them for the next 54 hours.

The Trans-Siberian Railway

Part 1: Moscow

Part 2: Yekaterinburg

Part 3: Across Siberia to Irkutsk

Part 4: Listvyanka and Lake Baikal
Part 5: Irkutsk

Part 6: Ulan Ude (1)

Part 7: Ulan Ude (2)

Part 8 : To Naushki and into Mongolia

Part 9: Across the Mongolian Steppe from Ulan Bator to Burd Sum 

Part 10:With the Mongolian Nomads

Part 11 Ulan Bator 

Moscow: Trans-Siberian Railway Part 1

Moscow

Russia

In a Second World War radio broadcast Winston Churchill described the Soviet Union as a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. The Soviet Union is long gone and each of its constituent parts has officially abandoned communism, yet Russia, once the heart and soul of the Soviet Union, remains a difficult country to understand, maybe the most enigmatic we have visited.

A nice wave from President Putin

Arriving in Moscow

We arrived in Moscow in a thunderstorm. Lightning flashed and the wind buffeted the 80-seater Embraer, swinging the small plane alarmingly from side to side as we came into land. We were probably much safer than we felt; at least that is what I prefer to believe.

Sheremetyevo airport is cavernous, the walls bare, the floor litter-strewn. ‘Welcome to the Soviet Union’ it seemed to be saying. We found our driver, a stooped elderly man with bloodshot eyes swimming behind improbably thick glasses, and he led us to his aging Lada. The rain had eased off, which was fortunate as the windscreen wipers engaged only marginally with the water streaming down the cracked screen.

The drive through semi-flooded streets seemed both interminable and directionless, as we turned first one way, then the other and then back the way we had come. In a regular taxi I would have accused him of inflating the fare, but in a prearranged transfer that made no sense.

A picture of St Basil's is compulsary in all writings about Moscow

Eventually we arrived at smallish hotel deep in the northern suburbs. It looked pleasant enough. ‘There is no hot water this week,’ we were told as we checked in. Hot water is centrally supplied and the authorities occasionally turn off a whole block for servicing or maintenance. Sweating in the warm humid air we might have welcomed a cool shower, but that was not an option, there was only melt water pumped direct from the arctic in an ice lined pipe. Welcome to the Soviet Union.

Using the Moscow Metro

Next day we took the metro to the city centre. Petrovsko-Razumovskaya, our nearest station was a short walk away through a market. There was a ramp for handcarts where an overground railway crossed our path, but neither there nor anywhere else was there a barrier to prevent a boy chasing a football to his death or an inattentive trader stepping backwards to oblivion.

'Long Armed' Yuri Dolgorukiy, the founder of Moscow

The metro is Moscow’s pride and joy, carrying (in 2009) 2.4 billion passengers between 182 stations, some of which are works of art in their own right, but it is not the easiest system for a foreigner to use. The lines are deep and the escalators move fast. A surprising number of people read books as they plunged through the earth - thick, weighty novels by the look of it, but for all I knew they could have been the latest Dan Brown. The carriages were crowded, despite it being a weekend, and the ride was bone shaking and noisy. The train’s screeching drowned out the announcements – and the station names were written in ludicrously small print on the tunnel side only. A limited ability to read Cyrillic hardly mattered, as we rarely caught sight of a station name. We emerged at the right place by observing the map and counting stops. Further confusion is added when you change lines. Interchange stations have different names on different lines and you find yourself wandering through the bowels of the earth, as you attempt to navigate a path through up to four linked stations with four different names.

Eliseevsky - once a palace now a grocer's

Tverskaya, Eliseevsky Grocers and Yuri Dolgorukiy

Saturday morning in Tverskaya, the main drag leading down to Red Square, was remarkably quiet given the crowds below. We dropped into Eliseevsky, a palace converted into a grocery store, which is not something you see every day.

Further along we passed the statue of ‘long armed’ Yuri Dolgorukiy, credited with the founding of Moscow in the 11th century. There is some debate as to whether he was physically long armed, or whether it was only in the metaphorical sense. The KGB, the locals say, was notoriously long armed.

Dinner at the Metropol anyone?

Through the Hotel Metropol to Red Square

Continuing towards Red Square we passed through the art nouveau Hotel Metropol, where Isadora Duncan and her Russian husband cut a rare dash in post-revolutionary Moscow. Outside a score or more vintage Citroens of the sort Maigret used to drive with running boards and huge inverted chevrons on the radiators, were being photographed before the start of a Moscow to Paris rally.

I had always lazily assumed that Red Square had been so called by the communists, but the name is actually much older. It is either a reference to the colour of the buildings, or more likely, is a consequence of the word ‘krasnaya’ meaning ‘beautiful’ as well as ‘red’ in old Russian.

Wedding Party, Red Square

The end of the square is occupied by the State History Museum, a red brick building with white piping like a birthday cake. Down one side is GUM, once the Soviet Union's one and only department store, now rather disappointingly, a shopping mall with the same names you see in every other major city. Opposite GUM is the Kremlin Wall and Lenin’s tomb, while at the far end the extravagant onions domes of St Basil’s Cathedral look down on a scene which is otherwise all straight lines and right angles. Inside, where you might expect grandeur, there is a series of small rooms and corridors, many of them disappointingly dull.

The old guard goose steps away

The square was crowded with locals, tourists and most noticeably wedding parties. They trooped in procession behind the bride and groom, many swigging from bottles of Champanski as they went. Occasionally they stopped for photographs or to throw loose change over their shoulders to ensure good luck. Marriages used to be blessed outside Lenin’s tomb, but the approved site is now by the Eternal Flame at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Since 1997 the Guard of Honour which once looked after Lenin’s corpse has been attending the Unknown Soldier. We watched as four ‘young men of Slavic appearance with good legs’ goose-stepped out and, after some elaborate choreography, four others goose-stepped away. There were moments of unintended comedy, the old guard’s knowingly perky look of recognition at the newcomers extracted an involuntary chuckle from an otherwise respectful audience.

The Kremlin

Eschewing Macdonald’s and KFC (come back Soviet Union, all is forgiven) we fought our way through the crowds to acquire a slice of pizza which, though regrettable, was not the very worst I have eaten. Then we queued to enter the Kremlin.

The Bell Tower of Ivan III in the Kremlin

In Soviet days ‘The Kremlin’ denoted the government, but ‘Kremlin’ merely means ‘citadel’ and many other Russian cities have Kremlins of their own. Inside Moscow's;are twenty towers, six cathedrals, five palaces, any number of officious security guards and one bell with a big chip out of it. There is also the Kremlin Armoury, one of Moscow’s ‘must-sees’. Our time, though, was finite - maybe next time.

There are plenty of hints that the Russians have abandoned communism with reluctance. St Basil’s multi-hued onion domes may have been built at the city’s geometric centre but Moscow’s real spiritual centre is a couple of hundred metres away by the Kremlin Wall.

Lenin's Mausoleum, Red Square

Visiting Lenin's Tomb

We went to visit Lenin’s tomb early on Sunday morning, queuing at the side of Red Square half an hour before it opened, along with several hundred Russians from all over the country. At ten o’clock precisely the barrier was lifted and we were allowed forward in small groups. We walked up the side of the square and through the doors into the darkened interior. Russia’s tallest and smartest soldiers stood to attention along the walls ready to hush to silence anyone who had the temerity to talk. We were required to walk slowly and reverently past the embalmed corpse. One man of central Asia appearance stopped by the open coffin, placed his hand on his heart and lowered his eyes as if in prayer. Quietly but firmly the guard moved him on. Lenin looked quite well – for a man who has been dead eighty-four years. In fact, he looked like a waxwork, and perhaps, in truth, that was what we saw but, despite all the changes that Russia has undergone, Lenin is still there, and still deeply revered.

That afternoon the man with the bottle glasses came and drove us to Moscow’s Yaroslavl station where we were to start our journey to the east.

St Basil's - a closer look

The Trans-Siberian Railway

Part 1: Moscow

Part 2: Yekaterinburg

Part 3: Across Siberia to Irkutsk

Part 4: Listvyanka and Lake Baikal
Part 5: Irkutsk

Part 6: Ulan Ude (1)

Part 7: Ulan Ude (2)

Part 8 : To Naushki and into Mongolia

Part 9: Across the Mongolian Steppe from Ulan Bator to Burd Sum 

Part 10:With the Mongolian Nomads

Part 11 Ulan Bator 

Sofia and the Master of Boyana

Updated and expanded February 2020

A City Break in one of Europe's Less Well Known Capitals

Bulgaria

Sofia

City breaks were a new idea for us in the noughties, we tested the idea in Lisbon in 2005 and it seemed to work, so we chose Sofia for our second venture. An unusual choice, maybe, only a blinkered Bulgarian nationalist would claim that it was one of Europe’s great cities, but it has more than enough to occupy a long weekend. And we like places where few people speak English - and the unfamiliar alphabet was a bonus.

Sofia, Goddess of Wisdom, Sofia

Goodwill and the words for ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ are enough for survival, and that was all we knew. I am not proud of my ignorance - we have (as of 2020), successfully practised illiteracy in Arabic, Chinese, Thai, Lao, Khmer, Armenian, Georgian and five Indian alphabets – but we made an effort with Cyrillic. Reading was (and remains) slow and painful. Sounding out words letter by letter was an experience I had not enjoyed since Miss Morgan’s class in 1957 but it is surprisingly pleasing when sense suddenly emerges (like sounding out кафе еспресо and getting café espresso). Being barely literate was an improvement on our situation in some countries, but the Bulgarians throw in a unique confusion by nodding for ‘no’ and shaking their heads for ‘yes’. Aware that they are out of step, some Bulgarians helpfully revert to European standard when dealing with foreigners. At that point you are truly lost.

Sofia: First Impressions

We stayed in a ‘boutique’ hotel near the centre. We were unaware when we booked that it was a gay hotel, but their policy was to welcome everybody, regardless of orientation, and the staff were unfailingly friendly and helpful.

Scotty's Boutique Hotel, Sofia

Sofia looked in good repair, with the assortment of boulevards, parks and fountains that are mandatory for a capital city. I hesitate to comment on fashion - with good reason - but even I noticed that much clothing looked cheap and poorly made, some young women adopting a style best described as 'streetwalker chic'. We saw the same in Russia when travelling the trans-Siberian railway a few months later. Traffic was orderly, though cars tended towards the venerable; Bulgarian registration plates often stuck over German or Austrian plates, suggesting the cars had been imported second hand.

Bulevard Vitosha, Sofia

Mount Vitosha, still snow covered in late April, could be seen from almost everywhere, bringing a sense of openness to the city.

The church of Sveta Nedelya with Mt Vitosha in the background, Sofia

Sofia: The last 150 years

Alexander and Louis Battenberg

In the latter half of the 19th century the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire was spawning new countries in need of rulers. At the same time a uniting Germany had an abundant supply of underemployed princelings. The Great Powers (Great Britain, France and Russia) wanted stability and at a series of conferences they fixed the borders of several new (or reborn) states and nominated spare German princelings as monarch.

In 1879, Bulgaria became a semi-independent protectorate of the Ottoman empire and the Great Powers decided 22-year-old Alexander of Battenberg would be the ideal ruler. He turned out not to be, but still sits on his horse outside the unassuming parliament building.

Prince Alexander I outside the parliament building, sofia

Despite being a nephew of Tsar Alexander II, he displeased the Russians and was deposed in 1886. Alexander spent the rest of his short life in Austria, dying in 1893. He is buried in the Battenberg Mausoleum just round the corner from his statue. I was disappointed to find it is not covered in marzipan.

Battenberg Memorial, Sofia

[An irrelevant but interesting interlude: Alexander’s older brother Prince Louis of Battenberg was born in Austria, spent his early years in Italy and Germany, but joined the British Royal Navy at the age of 14. In 1883 he married a granddaughter of Queen Victoria and by 1912 was the First Sea Lord. As war with Germany approached, he renounced his German titles (he was made Marquis of Milford Haven in recompense) and changed the family name to Mountbatten. His eldest daughter became Queen of Sweden, his second daughter, Alice, married a younger son of the King of Greece (a Danish princeling, the Greeks had tried a German one but without success) and became the mother of Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh. Louis’ son Lord Louis Mountbatten also became First Sea Lord, was the last Viceroy of India and an early mentor of Prince Charles. He was killed by an IRA bomb in 1979.]

Back to Sofia:

Tsar Simeon

Simeon before ascending the throne

Simeon Sakskoburggotski as prime minister
photo by Grey Geezer - Wikipedia

Having failed with Battenberg they tried Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The dynasty lasted three generations, upgrading from Prince to Tsar when Bulgaria became fully independent in 1908. The last Tsar, Simeon II (the earlier Simeon had ruled the First Bulgarian Empire 893-927) ascended the throne in 1943 aged 6. He was deposed by the communist revolution in 1946 but returned to Bulgaria in 1990 and formed the National Movement for Stability and Progress which won the 2001 election. He was Prime Minister 2001-5. He and Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia are the only two former monarchs ever to have become heads of government through democratic elections – though Sihanouk is unique in having been both monarch and communist party leader.

The Former Communist Party Headquarters

Now a member of the EU and NATO, Bulgaria is busy forgetting its recent history. The Communist Party headquarters were formerly described as ‘forbidding’ but today look harmless enough in spring sunshine.

The former Communist Party Headquarters, Sofia

Monument of the Soviet Liberators

The monument of the Soviet liberators stands in a park. With the impressive backdrop of Mt Vitosha, a soviet soldier heroically protects a peasant, a woman and a child. Skateboarders weave across the surrounding flagstones, and part of the park has been boarded off, leaving ample scope for charmless graffiti. It has a sad, neglected air.

Monument to the Soviet Liberators, Sofia

The Presidential Palace

The current presidential palace is modest, more a presidential apartment. The two guards, dressed in the sort of uniforms favoured for such tasks,….

The Presidential Palace, Sofia

….are changed hourly in a goose-stepping display that sometimes has to weave between passers-by.

Changing the presidential guard, Sofia

Sofia: One Museum, two Churches, a Mosque and a Synagogue

National Archaeological Museum

First settled by the Thracian Serdi tribe, the city became Serdica under the Romans, Triaditsa when part of the Byzantine Empire and then Sredets under the Slavs who renamed it Sofia in the fourteenth century. The National Archaeological Museum opposite the Presidential Palace covers all these eras and has a fine and varied collection of Thracian and Roman treasure, including 6th century bronze figurines, Greek and Roman Stelae and frescoes rescued from dilapidated churches.

The National Museum of Archaeology, Sofia

Rotunda of St George

The Roman Rotunda of St George is the oldest church in Sofia and contains some interesting and ancient icons. It is a lovely if over-enthusiastically restored little building.

Rotunda of St George

Cathedral of Aleksandar Nevski

If St George’s is the oldest, the cathedral of Aleksandar Nevski, completed in 1924, is the largest. Squatting like an enormous toad, it dominates its eponymous square and the surrounding gardens. According to some it is the finest building in the Balkans, though I found it difficult to like. Inside it is dark and sombre. The large pew-less space - Orthodox congregations stand or kneel - is sufficient for 5000 worshippers, though the only activity we witnessed was an old man vigorously pushing a broom.

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Sofia

Banya Bashi Mosque and Baths

Other religions have equally monumental accommodation. After five hundred years of Ottoman rule, it unsurprising that the Banya Bashi (Big Bath) Mosque is large and prominent. It is still used by today’s much smaller Muslim community.

Banya Bashi Mosque, Sofia

It stands in front of the thermal baths, the Banya Bashi themselves, which were closed for renovation. The warm, brackish water is available from taps in the square. Locals cart it away in buckets, but I contented myself with washing my hands.

Checking out the thermal springs, Banya Bashi, Sofia

Central Synagogue

Opposite our hotel was the solid bulk of Sofia’s central synagogue. For good reasons synagogues are not usually built to stand out, but this is a statement of confidence and permanence. Sofia’s Jews were an important and well-accepted part of the community but Bulgaria backed the wrong side in 1939, more out of geo-political necessity than conviction. Asked to round up their Jewish citizens for mass-murder the Bulgarian authorities procrastinated and kept procrastinating until the war ended. Most of Bulgaria’s Jewish population survived, but subsequent emigration to Israel means the community is now too small to keep the synagogue functioning.

Sofia Central Synagogue

I wrote that up as good news in the original version of this post. I have since learned that saving lives from the Nazis was a zero-sum game. They had quotas and they had to fill them and if not from Bulgaria then somewhere else. The consequence of saving the Bulgarian Jewish community was the annihilation of the Macedonian Jewish community. There are times and places when good news stories are hard to find.

Eating in Sofia

Bulgarians are grazers and street food is available in quantity, if not always quality. The best, a full range of the baklava-like filo pastry, nut and honey desserts normally associated with Greece or Turkey, we found in the Halite market near our hotel. The worst, the flaccid slices of something sold as pizza is best avoided. Doner Kebabs (another reminder that the Eastern Mediterranean is not far away) were ubiquitous.

The city has very few restaurants for its size (that was 2007, has it changed?). It is possible that we ate in some of the best though prices were modest by Western standards. Bulgaria has no great culinary tradition, but we were impressed by simple cooking that respected the high quality and freshness of the ingredients. Once or twice we encountered bilingual menus, which caused the usual amusement. Lynne ordered a dish of ‘lambkin’ mainly because of the translation, and was rewarded with a pile of small and deliciously tender lamb chops.

Bulgarian wines, once apparently set to dominate the British market but now all but disappeared, combined high quality with minimal cost. As aniseed lovers we also enjoyed mastika, which looks like ouzo but tastes more like pastis. Salad is the universal first course, and with that it is customary to drink a colourless brandy. All restaurants offer a range, based on grape variety, and served in a tulip glass on a tall thin stem. It seemed an unusual way to start a meal, but the Bulgarians having been doing this for generations, and a little experimentation suggested they know a thing or two.

The Master of Boyana

I have left the best to last. The tiny church of Boyana is not only a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is an unexpected gem that left me slack jawed with amazement.

Boyana is theoretically a suburb of Sofia, but we had left the city street for country lanes across the wooded slopes of Mount Vitosha before the taxi dropped us outside the entrance to a small churchyard. A little concerned as to how we might get back, we bought tickets and collected an elderly guide who seemed delighted by an opportunity to practice his English.

The eastern part of the church is a tiny tenth century chapel. The larger central part was added in similar style three hundred years later and in the nineteenth century, an even larger lobby was built on the west end. I cannot imagine who thought that was a good idea, it ruins the church from the outside but fortunately the glory of Boyana lies within.

The Church of Boyana, from left to right oldest, old, execrable

We entered the darkened lobby and waited for our eyes to adjust. Then the main church was unlocked and we stepped into an interior completely covered in frescoes. Some of the work in the older chapel is rustic, to put it kindly, but it is the extension, painted in 1279, that takes away the breath. The chapel is circular and we stood in the centre, turning slowly to absorb the wealth of detail. The work of a man known, until recently, only as the ‘Master of Boyana’, it represents a break with the flat-faced icons of Byzantine orthodoxy and forms a stepping-stone between medieval art and the Italian renaissance. Recent renovation has revealed that the painter’s name was probably Vasiliy, but I think he should still be known as the Master of Boyana, because that is what he was.

The Crucifiction and Last Super, Boyana, borrowed from ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com

Biblical characters are depicted in medieval dress, the last supper is Bulgarian peasant fair of radishes, garlic and bread. The figures are so lifelike you expect them to move, and each has a real face, probably recognisable to the people of the time, that would pass unremarked in the streets of Sofia today. The king and queen are shown with haloes, and Boyana’s patrons, the Sebastocrator Kaloyan and his wife Desislava hold the church in their hands. ‘Sebastocrator’ is a Byzantine designation meaning ‘venerable ruler’. Kaloyan is the only Bulgarian known to have used the title, which I find strange. If I had been a medieval Bulgarian nobleman, I would have fought anybody and everybody to be able to style myself ‘sebastocrator’.

The Sebastocrator Kaloyan and Desislava, Boyana Church
Borrowed from ArchaeologyinBulgaria.com

For conservation purpose, the lighting is dim. the temperature and humidity controlled, and our visit limited to a frustrating 10 minutes. Photography was not permitted,

Visitors are limited in number as well as time; if it was anywhere else you would have had to buy a timed ticket on-line, but we had the place to ourselves, a privilege you won’t get in the Sistine Chapel.

The Bulgarian National History Musuem

As we left, a taxi drew up bringing the next two visitors and conveniently solving our transport problem. We did not go far, the National History Museum, is only a couple of kilometres, technically also in Boyana, but the width of a ring road from urban Sofia.

Bulgarian National History Museum, Boyana

Housed in a former palace for the communist leaders, it contains everything that is too big or too good or too modern for the Archeological Museum. Its five halls contain treasures, icons and frescoes; photographs from the 19th century Bulgarian National Revival, military uniforms, theatre posters, costumes for operas...something to interest almost anyone. It is Bulgaria's most important museum, but its location means a small proportion of Sofia's small number of visitors get to see it.