Property for sale in all regions of Bulgaria
Property for
sale in Bulgaria News
News 07 May 2006
Press praises Bulgaria’s property market
The Wall Street Journal and London-based newspaper The Independent have
published articles praising property market opportunities in Bulgaria.
In an April 18 report in The Independent, which describes Bulgaria as a
“beautiful country”, writer Robert Nurden says that property
investment in the country falls into four main categories.
The first is in the capital city, Sofia, which is “growing economically
and geographically faster than any other former East European capital”.
The property boom has now hit the centre, with locals themselves pitching
into the market, always a good sign, the report says.
“With the country on the threshold of EU membership – and entry
into the euro itself likely in about three years’ time – an
international and transitory population in this ‘engine of the country’s
growth’ is inevitable. This means a huge demand for good rented accommodation.”The
Independent says that an average, two-bedroom, newly built apartment in
the centre sells for between 69 000 pounds and 87 000 pounds (195 245 to
246 190 leva), and values are “rising almost by the day”. The
rent from such an apartment would be up to 700 pounds a month, according
to Robert Jenkin of estate agents Bulgarian Dreams.
“‘These are fantastic investment opportunities in a city that
is becoming more cosmopolitan and whose economy is stable and performing
well,’” he is quoted as saying.
The mountains provide opportunity number two, The Independent states.
The report praises the infrastructure at Bansko,
and says that in the past two years, it has added on a large number of apartment
blocks geared to the winter season. In Bansko,
a typical two-bedroom, newly built apartment costs 71 000 pounds, “with
the mouth-watering prospect of a rise in values of about 20 per cent a year”.
“The Black Sea, with its sunshine, cheap beer and great food, beckons
investors too. Locations such as Sunny Beach may be set to become the new
Costa del Sol.” The report says that there are signs that Bulgaria
is throwing off its bottom-end-of-the-market image and moving towards building
more luxurious properties. The Government has introduced legislation aimed
at protecting the coast from the worst gourmandises of the Spanish costas,
the report says.
The article quotes estate agent Iliana Yordanova of Home Cottage Bulgaria:
“‘But the really canny investment, and one open to those on
a low budget, is to buy land. Plots are unbelievably cheap’”.
She continues: “‘If you are prepared to look at undeveloped
areas, either by the coast or inland, you can pick up good agricultural
land for as a little as eight euro a square metre. The town of Kavarna would
command prices of 70 euro a square metre, and Balchik 58 euro. But I have
heard of a plot going for three euro a square metre inland’”.
On April 19, The Wall Street Journal reported that real estate investors
are continuing to flock to Central and Eastern Europe, to the point where
there is not enough buying opportunities to go around.
“As countries join the European Union, they are viewed as more stable,
making investors more likely to jump in with their money,” the WSJ
report says.
Dreaming snowbirds warned to make a reality
check
Growing numbers of Britons are retiring abroad, swapping the cold and rain
for mostly warmer climes. No wonder that they are now known as “snowbirds”.
About 1m British pensioners are drawing their state pension abroad, according
to the Department for Work and Pensions. This is up from 770,000 in 1997.
Britain’s former imperial reach explains part of the pattern with
Australia accounting for 241,000 and Canada for 151,000. But sunnier European
destinations have a strong appeal with Spain accounting for 71,000, Italy
for 32,000 and France for 31,000.
“There has been a shift from a second home for retirement being regarded
as a luxury to it being something attainable by most people with the drive
to achieve it,” says Liam Bailey, head of residential research at
Knight Frank, the estate agent.
In 1995 the average price paid for a second home overseas was 165 per cent
of the average UK property price. By 2005 it had fallen to 90 per cent,
reflecting in part steeper house price inflation in the UK but also the
fact that second homes had become more of a mass market aspiration.
Internationally, recent rapid growth in house prices has slowed, according
to the global house price index launched last month by Knight Frank. The
average house price globally rose an annualised 6.1 per cent in the first
quarter of 2006 compared with 10.9 per cent in 2004. But the news for Britons
selling up to retire to the Mediterranean is not so positive. Spain rose
11.6 per cent while France was 9.3 per cent higher compared with an increase
of only 5.3 per cent in the UK.
Despite recent unfavourable price trends, the impact of growing prosperity,
cheap flights and the low cost of borrowing – even lower in the eurozone
than in the UK – mean the trend for retiring abroad is expected to
accelerate.
In countries such as the UK and Germany, retired people will probably outnumber
the young in a decade or so. If money were no object, 22 per cent of Britons
and 35 per cent of Germans would be certain or likely to retire overseas,
according to a poll for King Sturge, the estate agency. On present numbers
of over-65-year-olds, this would mean 2m UK citizens and 5m Germans would
be seeking to retire overseas.
Five per cent of Britons – equivalent to 2.2m people – already
own a home abroad and that number is set to double, research by Barclays
shows. Many of these homes will be holiday homes or buy-to-let properties
but experience of short spells abroad could pave the way for owners deciding
to use them for retirement later.
“We deal with a lot of people in their mid-40s who want a second home
for summer fun or a buy-to-let property with an element of own-use which
they could retire to later,” says Mike Boles, head of the international
division at Savills Private Finance.
Many of the favoured countries for would-be purchasers are the traditional
destinations of Spain, France
and Italy. But other countries are proving popular following the opening
up of eastern Europe and the growing popularity worldwide of second-home
ownership.
Bulgaria, Croatia, Dubai,
Morocco and Egypt appear among the top 10 destinations
favoured by overseas home buyers, according to Savills. But some have their
limitations for retirees. “People want a good quality of life, good
food and good medical services,” says Boles. “You can’t
necessarily get that in Bulgaria
and Croatia. You go where it is safe when you retire, not where it is exotic.”
So how should you select a retirement destination? Start by weighing up
advantages and disadvantages, says Age Concern, the charity. This may sound
obvious but it is easy to be swayed by memories of short summer holidays
that bear little resemblance to year-round living.
Age Concern asks: are you planning to live overseas permanently or just
for part of the year? Do you plan to return to the UK regularly to visit
friends and relatives and for medical appointments? How will you cope living
far away from family and friends?
Can you afford to retire abroad and what will your future income be? Sterling
has been strong recently but foreign currency markets can be volatile and
a falling pound would hit your income. How will you cope living in a foreign
culture and climate full-time? Some people are happy to depend on a large
local expat community for support while others try to merge in with the
locals: which are you? How would you cope with the death or serious illness
of your spouse or partner?
Age Concern advises people planning to retire abroad to visit the country
of their choice at different times of the year. “Your needs as a resident
will be different from your needs as a holiday visitor,” it says.
“If you know someone who has already moved there, ask them about the
things you are interested in.”
Mastering the local language will not only help you settle in, gain access
to services and deal with emergencies. It will also add immeasurably to
the pleasures of living abroad and allow you to get much closer to the locals.
Retiring abroad will determine how you live for many years to come. So don’t
rush into any decisions, is the advice of Mark Dampier, research director
at Hargreaves Lansdown, a financial adviser. “Wait after retirement
before making any big changes,” he says.
That the sun may shine
Magdalena Rahn travels to Bulgaria’s southeast wine-growing region
to learn about the traditions in this area and the wine co-operative that
is fighting to preserve them.
Friday: first impressions
Even in the twilight they stun the eye: striated tan cliffs, topped with
scrub verdancy, a lone pine on pinnacle, twists of pikes like sandstone
Matterhorns. We are in a taxi from Sandanski, after a four-hour bus ride
from Sofia the first Friday evening in April, on our way to Melnik for the
weekend.
One enters upon the panorama unexpectedly, among chapparel hills; the road
turns: a sudden hewn valley.
“It’s natural,” says Josh Kroot, a US Peace Corps volunteer
from Pazardjik who has invited me to come to see the projects on which he
and Audrey Amara, a US Peace Corps volunteer from Kazanluk, have been working
since the beginning of 2005.
The two regularly go down to Melnik to speak with various viticulturists
and oenologists about problems they as local producers have been facing
in bringing wine and grapes to market. Most of the people they met while
travelling with another Peace Corps volunteer, Joe Ferguson from Kolarovo.
Though possessing only slight information about vine cultivation and winemaking,
Audrey and Josh soon recognised there to be a number of ways to work with
people in the region. Through the Peace Corps, they were put in contact
with Volunteers for Economic Growth Association (VEGA), a group funded by
USAID, which helped them to bring a wine expert from California to the region
and evaluate the potential to create an organisation that would brand and
sell the wine that was being made by small local winemakers.
“We’re almost there,” he says, “and after we drop
our stuff off at Hotel Mario, we’ll go to this great place for dinner.”
Upon reaching the town – officially the smallest in Bulgaria with
a population of 275 – one immediately remarks its picturesqueness:
all the buildings must be built and maintained in the Bulgarian National
Revival style. And it’s clean, and fresh, and charming. A canal runs
down its one main street, itself lined with guest houses, hotels and mehanas.
Still at 8pm, one can make purchases from selections of local wines, honeys
and fruit preserves.
We cross a bridge to reach Hotel Mario, where the proprietor enthusiastically
greets us and shows us our rooms. He’s warm, animated about his reunion
with Audrey and Josh, chattering in Bulgarian about random occurrences,
something.
I ask Audrey and Josh about the history of the hotel, and Audrey advises
me to ask the man, who the two call Mario, as he’ll probably tell
me every detail since its origin. Later, on Sunday morning, I do ask, and
find that his name is Petar “Pesho” Dimitrov (Mario is his son),
and he’s had the hotel for five years. Before that, he was a architect.
Surprisingly, he talks more about how “it’s the people who will
make a democracy, not the state. You must do it yourself”, as opposed
to the hotel itself.
Our short walk up the main street takes us to Mencheva Kushta, a traditional
restaurant, like all in the town. Though it’s not cold outside at
all – we’re relishing the first week of true spring weather,
and remark how much further advanced the trees are in their blooming here
than in Sofia – the hearth inside heartens and warms.
Firstly ordering some of the house wine, we decide to share kyupolu (mashed
aubergine salad), tsarska turisha (hashed lacto-fermented vegetables, a
traditional saur-type preparation) and a combinirani sach. The two describe
sach as a type of meat-and-vegetable dish served sizzling on a hot clay
skillet.
“If Rice-a-Roni is the San Francisco treat, then this is the Melnik
treat,” said Josh, an SF native.
It comes, and the proprietor instructs us: “Tryabva da oburkvaite”
(you’re to stir it around).
For some reason, we were talking about vacuum-cleaners, and he seems amused
when I confirm that the correct word in is Bulgarian “prahocmukachka”,
or dust-sucker.
To accompany our second round of wine, we decided on desserts, thick house
sheep-milk yoghurt topped with green-fig preserves, and homemade icecream,
which tasted of honey and walnuts.
Some hours of good conversation later, we are happy enough to head off to
bed.
Saturday: the vines’ struggle for survival
Saturday I awake early, at about 7.45am, to a clear sunny sky and the voices
of calm local chatter below my window.
“I want to live here,” I think.
And Audrey was right: the wine of Melnik is a no-headache concoction.
After revelling a half hour in the non-necessity to arise and regret a cell
phone alarm, I decide to explore the area, and set off on a 1.5 hour trek,
up the road in the direction of the Rozhen Monastery. I hadn’t planned
to attain it, but simply wanted to see what was around the village. There
is now a nice collection of photos of white budding trees of the Prunus
genus on my camera.
I had spied a cemetery on an escarpment across the river, and resolved to
visit in on the way back to the village. Crossing the ancient Rimski Most
(Roman Bridge) to find the place, I walk a bit around some houses, chickens
scratching around, but don’t feel like traipsing through someone’s
fenced-off yard and turn back.
Audrey, Josh and I had agreed to meet at 11am. Someone had greeted us last
night while walking to the restaurant; he turned out to be the man who would
drive us around all day today. Kiril Ivanov moved to Melnik five years ago
with his wife to open a guest house. Before that, he was a caller at a casino
in Sandanski.
His white VW van becomes an intrepid 4x4 as we drive the village roads to
Harsovo, Bulgarian popular music on the radio, quick motorings interspersed
with regular unforeseen near-stops for the potholes.
Hills lined with vines, or remnants, sandy soil.
Our entrance to Harsovo is greeted with piles of rubbish on the left side
of the road, and a village man standing besides a cow and her newborn calf.
Arriving in the centre, Konstadin Atanasov enthusiastically greets us. He’s
sitting on a bench with three other older men, chatting, enjoying the sun.
You can see, feel the respect and admiration and love that the people here
have for Audrey and Josh.
Atanasov, a native and again a resident of Harsovo, is the chair of the
board of the grape-growing and winemaking co-operative that Audrey and Josh
helped create. Among other posts, he was a former state oenology expert,
and worked in countries including Tunisia and Switzerland for the company
that is now Ciba.
I have been warned that he’s a bit old school, preferring to talk
man to man. I wonder what he’ll make of a female journalist.
He decides to join us in the van and directs us to his vineyards on the
outskirts of Harsovo. Along the way he points out acres of vineyards that
someone recently purchased, someone not of local origin.
“This person is a robber,” he says, referring to the unknown
way in which the purchaser obtained enough money to purchase such a quantity
of land.
“These were vineyards,” he says in laborious English, pointing
out scraggling vines and remnants of furrows that line the hills, “and
these, and these. Now there aren’t. The people are old, and can’t
work. Now, a robber, who got money from somewhere, came and bought the land,
and makes vineyards.”
Kiril drives us up some chunky dirt path to attain Konstadin’s vines.
“He’s great. He’d take this thing anywhere,” says
Audrey.
We arrive at Konstadin’s family’s plot of vineyards, about a
kilometre out of Harsovo, on the side of a hill with a view of the late
Emil Kyulev’s villa. It’s windy, blowing.
Asking about his background, Konstadin and I discover that we both speak
French. This facilitates conversation, and he frees his mind’s workings.
He shows us how the area is divided into sections: the entire vineyard area
is divided among a number of people from the village, many somehow related
to him. Someone owns a few rows, another owns the next few, a third the
next few, and so on. And, one might have a few rows here, a few there, and
a few yonder.
Konstadin is one of these. He tells us how some people don’t take
care of their rows, and they become just pathetic-looking rows of sticks.
Also due to the neglect, disease can spread easily among the parcels of
various owners.
“Few men are of the age where they can take care of the vines. They’re
not cultivated like they should be,” he mourns.
“I don’t produce wine, only grapes,” he says. “There
are two caves to which I sell grapes, and when I give them the grapes, those
cave owners make wine with them.”
Taking up a twig in his hand, he shows how the vines should be pruned, leaving
only two buds on at the branch’s base. He explains how, in order to
make grapes suitable for good wine, the vines have to struggle, to not be
lush, leafy things, but to think that they must put all their energy into
their progeny – here, the grapes – in order to assure the continuation
of their lifeline.
“The vine is like a lion, it fights to survive. To make it fight,
we prune.”
His grapes are of a high quality – 22 degrees of sugar, “which
is sufficient for a nice wine”.
Love for these vines shines through his eyes, as he proceeds to walk through
the vineyards. He indicates spots where there should be vines, and demonstrates
how he propagates new ones in their place.
“It’s like this,” he instructs. “You make a little
hole, and take a branch and stick it in the hole. We don’t do grafts
here, because there are too many roots in the ground.” So he takes
a living branch – a cutting –, sticks it in the ground, it eventually
will root and, after five to 10 years, he said, be suitable to produce wine
grapes.
Numerous areas over the whole hillside have received this care of his.
His wife’s sister owns some sections of the vineyard, but, as Konstantin
explains, “she hasn’t worked it and it’s going to disappear”.
Like on other hillsides visible, fading vineyards remain as lines of near-brush.
In other areas, Konstadin rehabilitates these dying vines.
“Three years ago, these vines were like old, dead sticks. The first
year, nothing; by the third year, grapes came.”
He explains how, from each vine, three to four kg of grapes need to be produced
to be profitable. He gets about 1.5 tons per decar, which is the amount
necessary for vineyards.
For some reason, the varietal – Shiroka Melinishka Loza – isn’t
good on the market, he says.
I’m not sure why this is.
As Audrey, Josh, Konstadin and I load back into the van to return to the
centre of Harsovo, Konstadin explains to me the history of the grape co-operative.
I have a hard time hearing him and writing as we jolt around over the dirt
tracks that lead to the pot-holed main road.
We decide to break for lunch; Konstadin regrets not being able to invite
us over, as his wife is sick. The only restaurant in town doesn’t
have any food, because it’s not tourist season, so we have to drive
to Katountsi, a town about five km away, to eat.
On the way there, Josh tells me a bit about what the objectives of the co-operative
really are. He explains how the viticulturists try to sell their harvests,
but often have a hard time making any money off their productions, due to
price gouging by the purchasers. The co-op wants to gather together enough
growers to be a collective bargaining power against the buyers.
It started in October 2004, when the growers-residents of Harsovo called
a public meeting to discuss their displeasure with the prices intermediary
buyers had been paying them for their grapes. It was at this meeting that
Konstadin suggested forming a co-operative, says Josh, that would bargain
in favour of the residents of Harsovo.
“This would protect them against bait-and-switch pricing, in which
buyers advertise one price for grapes, then gradually lower it as grape
producers bring their grapes to market,” Josh continues. “Nineteen
producers initially agreed to join. The Melnik’s Vine 2005 Co-operative
was registered on March 10 2005 in Blagoevgrad District Court. It has since
grown to include 34 Harsovo grape growers.”
This is the organisation of which Konstadin Atanasov is chair; he is joined
by five board members.
Unfortunately, he continues, “the other board members are unable to
take over entirely for Mr Atanasov because of the heavy demands that non-mechanised
vine cultivation impose”.
Having just been given the tour of Konstadin’s vineyards and their
care, this makes perfect sense. Nearly everything is done as it would have
been 100, 150 years ago.
Audrey and Josh actually didn’t meet Konstadin until August 2005,
when they were in the region evaluating wine and tourism development potential
with Volunteers for Economic Growth Alliance Bulgaria director Aideen Mannions.
Here the two Peace Corps volunteers agreed to aid the co-operative and assist
in the creation of a business plan.
Josh would later tell me about Konstadin’s heart attack in September
2005, at which his daughter, who lives in Holland, brought him to her for
surgery and recovery, he only returning to Harsovo in February.
During this time, Harsovo’s mayor Stefan Parlakov “picked up
a lot of the slack”, as Josh put it. Over the winter, Stefan and Josh
began to work on the business plan.
About 10 minutes after leaving Harsovo, we arrive in Katountsi, and our
conversation about the co-operative comes to a pause. Restaurant Doksis
at the Hotel-Resort Liapchev wins our leva as the first, and possibly only,
place there appears to be to eat. We choose to sit outside, as it is sunny
and warm, but the wind is blowing so... And the restaurant doesn’t
have half of what is on the menu, and what we do order – a shopska
and an ovcharska salad, fried chicken bits – turns out to be on the
lower side of decent. The salads are fine, but the breaded chicken tidbits
gleam like a second Exxon Valdez. Josh can barely tolerate it. We soon escape.
Back in Harsovo, we meet Konstadin and decide to sit at the one cafe in
town and discuss. The cafe is closed between 1pm and 3pm; we arrive at about
2pm. No matter, we take advantage of the empty tables outside. At about
2.30pm the owners re-open and the denizens gradually return.
This discussion is important for Josh, because Konstadin and he need to
decide on steps to take for the business plan, for the future of the co-operative.
They mostly discuss in Bulgarian; I catch about 70 per cent of it; it seems
to be going in circles, much due to Konstadin’s stubborn old-school
personality.
I take advantage of this to ask Konstadin again about what he had been telling
me in the jolting van ride. It concerns a formerly common-use village distillery
for the residents of Harsovo to distill their own rakias. It had been seized,
like many of the other buildings, due to a decree about 10-15 years ago
that property must return to its original owner, he says.
It had been necessary to prepare documents to obtain these soon-to-be restored
properties, he continues, but they didn’t have the money to prepare
them. Now, the mayor of Sandanski has ultimate control over the town’s
distillery’s fate.
Konstadin mentions that the mayor of Sandanski wants to put the distillery
up for auction. This, he says, is part of why they formed the co-operative.
In the 1930s, there had been another grape co-operative, this one with power,
which not only controlled the distillery, but also common bread ovens, a
cellar and some other area buildings.
In 1948, after the creation of VinProm, these were given over to the state,
and the state took control of the co-operative.
In 1959, the numerous small co-operatives in the area made “a big
step”, he says. They joined together to form a large one based in
Sandanski. Now, Sandanski has governance over the former Harsovo co-operative’s
buildings.
Konstadin takes a break here to show me the house where the original Kooperatsia
Melnishka Loza saw its creation. It’s an agreeable, somewhat run-down,
smaller classical-style building with a plaque on it commemorating the founding.
I am moved.
“There are a lot of obstacles that hinder us. I wanted to inform Strasbourg,
but I got sick,” he says, referring to the European Union and to his
September heart attack.
His current goal is to go to surrounding villages – Lozenitsa, Melnik,
Vinogradi – and rally up support and members for the new grape-growing
co-operative. He wants to find a lawyer to go to the state archives and
find the original documents of the 1932 incorporation.
“When we get together seven people, per Bulgarian law, we can restart
the 1932 co-op,” he insists. This is his dream, his purpose, to restore
and make flourish something that will continue that to which he has given
his entire life: grapes.
“I want to, until I’m no longer alive, have this co-operative.”
He sighs. Says to Josh: “This is very difficult, captain.”
The people are old, he says; they can’t do much for the co-operative.
He avers that when the locals can come together and form an fruit and vegetables
association, they can receive subsidies from Brussels, and survive.
During his fervent discourse, another older local man has joined us, sits
listening to Josh and Konstadin, keeps inviting us to his house to drink
some of his wine.
Konstadin seems annoyed.
Audrey, Josh, Kiril our driver and I go with the man. Konstadin stays at
the cafe. He has to visit with a cousin of his who has also stopped by.
We arrive at the house. The man has introduced himself as Kiril Simeonov
Dimitrov, and has lived his whole life in Harsovo, growing grapes and making
wine, among other work.
Kiril prods us into the foyer, into the kitchen, insists that we sit at
the table: on chairs that he drags up, not on the two beds that side the
table, which look to be the typical place for seating. Taking some random
glasses from the counter, he rinses them out, sets them on the table before
us. Searches out two little pitchers, a jar of canned beef that his snaha
(daughter-in-law) made. He fills the pitchers with his wine – a red
and a white – and gimps back to the table, insists on pouring our
tumblers to the brim. I try to desist, begging only a half glass –
“I’m small; I want to try both the red and the white”
– to no avail.
He goes to the sink and washes dust off the jar of beef. Audrey, Josh and
I eye each other, wondering if and how we’re to eat home-canned meat.
I’ve read enough Joy of Cooking to have ideas about the pathogens
that could be harboured in this concoction. Cookbooks recommend boiling
for 20 minutes before consumption.
Fwomp, fwomp goes the meat, as it suctions out onto the two plates. We eye
each other again.
Kiril plomps down the plates on the table, sets out four forks: we’re
guests; he won’t eat any. Cautiously we try the meat; it’s tender,
tasty, in a, per me, delicious beef-broth jelly. We’re still alive,
so fears of bacteria prove needless.
“Nasdrave!” we cheer.
Kiril’s wine is amazing: fresh like a natural product should be, not
manufactured-tasting. It looks somewhat thin, and we are deceived. Lush,
a tad sweet, fruitful nose, a perfect balance of coarse and soft. I mark
in my notebook that the white is “dancing”.
I think we’re all surprised.
He makes the white from a mixture of the cepages Brestovitsa, Keretsuda
and Chaoush, and the red from Rubin and Merlot.
The Kirils somehow discover that our driver knows the daughter of our host.
The latter becomes teary as he talks about his family.
He insists that we drink more, finish the meat. He looks worn, older than
his 60-some years. Life here has not been easy. We appreciate his hospitality.
As we drive out of Harsovo at about 4.30pm, we pass by the cafe. Konstadin
is still there, discoursing, insisting, dreaming.
Back in Melnik, the sun shines warm, and the wind is almost non-existent.
We three Californians decide to wander about the village a bit. As we do
so, people greet Audrey and Josh, express their pleasure at seeing them
again, ask about the project, life.
Climbing up a hill takes us to Shestaka Izbata, run by winemaker Mitko Manolev.
Josh greets Mitko, and wants to talk with him about desires and plans to
increase viticultural tourism in the area, something that Mitko would like
to do, but the man is busy with other customers, and we take a seat on a
split-log bench overlooking the valley.
“I think that his wine is my favourite,” says Audrey.
People have climbed to the top of one of the cliffs across the valley, and
we debate doing the same. Audrey and Josh tell me about the ruins of an
old church and a fortress. I’d like to see them, but am tired. Maybe
tomorrow.
Instead, Josh takes me to the Kordopoulov House, which is now a house-museum.
The four-storey building was constructed in 1754 for the wine merchant Manol
Kordopoulov in the Revival style of the era. I admire its beautiful tile-decorated
ceilings and curious-shaped fireplace hoods..
Josh is debating to which restaurant we should go for dinner, and decides
on “the good one”. I’m glad that he hasn’t decided
on a possible bad one, whatever that may be.
His choice turns out to be Mehana Aleksova Kushta, another smallish, traditional-style
restaurant.
Audrey soon joins us, and we proceed to order the house red, a salata snezhanka,
a salata tikvichka c kiselo mlyako (grilled courgettes in garlicky yoghurt),
an order of chicken hearts, and braised lamb.
The dishes arrive Bulgarian-style, when they’re ready, and we share.
He’s right; it is good. Josh and I are both excited about the kidney
that comes with the meltingly tender, somewhat shredded lamb.
I hone my drawing skills by sketching a traditional-style house in my notebook,
and am probably overly pleased when it turns out resembling its model. Ah,
simple pleasures.
Stimulating discussions, heartening food, blessed wine.
We decide to return to Hotel Mario, and share a bottle. The bottled stuff
isn’t as good – maybe, not as real, down-to-earth and complexly
simple – as what we’ve drunk from pitchers.
Sunday: finding the right path
Sunday morning I again awake early, at about 8am. Shining sun, but I know
it will be cool, and remember my gloves.
I decide to climb the facing hill, and go ask Hotel Mario’s Petar
for directions to a path. He says something about after the third bridge,
I take a right between some traditional-style houses, and will see a path.
I also think: “All the houses in Melnik are traditional”.
He proceeds to effuse about the things to see on top of the cliffs, about
the frescoes in the ruined medieval church.
I set off, pass the third bridge and take a right. And don’t see a
path. And wander. And ask. And don’t see. And wander. And ask. And
someone says that it’s by the church (the one that is currently in
use, not the medieval one). I return to the church, and decide that seeing
a few empty water bottles and crumpled tissues in brush on the side of the
hill is enough of a path for me.
It is a path, as the plants do not exist on this narrow strip of dirt. Still.
I’m climbing, hands on the ground, grasping at branches, hoping they’ll
hold, boosting myself up ledges using rocks as footholds.
“This cannot be the path,” I think. I become hot, and remove
my jacket, but don’t want to remove my gloves because of all the scratchy
plants.
Eventually, my “path” crosses with a main path – one wider
than 20cm – and I proceed to the top of the hill, no longer afraid
of falling off a precipice.
The first ruin I see is of the 12th-century St Nicholas Monastery, out on
a promontory over another valley.
Because I’m up there, I decide to see everything from one side of
the hilltop to the other. The walk to an older – but not old, not
in ruins – chapel on another promontory is pleasant, lined with spring
flowers that I love: muscari.
At the ruins of the church with the frescoes, I climb on one of the walls
and take a picture of my shadow.
Attaining the ruined 13th-/14th-century Slav fortress on the opposite end
of the hilltop, I am becoming tired and decide to take the clear path down
the hillside. It’s easy and quick and dumps me into the village, right
next to the current church, where it should have been originally. I don’t
know how I missed it.
Audrey, Josh and I congregate on the verandah of the hotel’s restaurant
again at 11am. As our bus to Sandanski doesn’t come till about 12.45pm,
there is time to grill them about what exactly their involvement is in the
Melnik wine world.
Actually, the bus passes through Melnik on the way to Rozhen Monastery at
about 12.30pm. We’ll catch it on its return trip, thus, the time is
only approximate. It arrives at 1.08pm. No problem, as we arrive in Sandanski
with five minutes before the 2pm bus to Sofia.
The ride home passes with talking, reading, looking out the windows, planning
a future get-together.
Josh would like to stay in Bulgaria after their Peace Corps contract ends
in June to work for a few months with the co-operative. This, of course,
depends on visas and his still-unknown plans for the autumn.
As to Audrey, she will be returning to California to begin a journalism
job, and will also study linguistics and Teaching English as a Foreign Language
at the University of San Francisco. She will continue working on the project
from there.
And as to Melnik, the area’s wine, and the young co-operative, the
only thing we can really do is hope that it will not become misled or lost
with the arrival of the European Union, that dreams will succeed.
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