Sofia, Bulgaria: changing of the guard, public art and communist locations tour

Sofia, Bulgaria, is much more modern and pleasant than I expected. My knowledge of Bulgaria came from college history and political science classes in the mid-1970s. At that time, Bulgaria was part of the Warsaw Pact, separate from the Soviet Union but closely aligned and receiving direction from it. The dissolution of the Soviet Union led Bulgaria to adopt democratic and free market policies beginning in 1991. By 2004, Bulgaria joined NATO and became a member of the European Union in 2007. 

Long before its Soviet ties, Bulgaria was part of the Roman Empire, like almost all of Europe and North Africa were 1800 years ago. When recent city leaders expanded one of their subway stations, they came across extensive Roman ruins.

Roman ruins in downtown Sofia

They built the subway station around the ruins and created displays in the subway station itself.

Phillip looking at ruins, subway turnstile on the left

Bulgaria was also part of the Ottoman Empire for a few hundred years, so colorful or patterned tiles are frequently used on buildings and parks.

During its history, Bulgaria has also been ruled by a monarchy, although not for about a hundred years. The President's abode, though, is still called a palace and has a changing of the guard ceremony that we watched. 

Only the ceremonial guards wear a colorful uniform. 

One of the sights in Sofia is the St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, the largest cathedral in the Balkans. Like other Orthodox churches, no stained glass, but with gold-plated domes.

On the other side of the church from my photo, the City was having a community fair. It reminded me of Fort Worth's community policing events. The police and fire departments had booths and activities for children. The police officers were letting kids sit in their SWAT-looking vehicle. The fire department had a cute activity, a pump-up sprayer that the kids could use to spray water and knock down plastic bowling pins, "putting out the fire."

the mother helping reset the pins for the next junior "firefighter" 

Like other European cities, Bulgaria has lots of public art and statues of historical figures.

military leader, in the middle of a traffic circle

not a historic figure, just a muscular man

some almost abstract statues

some statues in fountains

and some quirky and fun ones

One thing that we found the authorities are serious about is parking. We walked up on a car being removed from a no parking spot. The sign was clear; we understood it even though it was written in Bulgarian Cyrillic lettering. 

The "tow" truck parked next to the illegally parked vehicle. A worker put metal clamping arms on each of the four tires. 

An arm with adjustable spreader bars came from the truck and attached canvas-covered chains to the tire clamps.

The car was lifted up from its space and put on the truck. The workers guided the dangling car so that it never touched the vehicles in front and behind it.

The workers didn't lash the offending vehicle down as the arm and tire clamps kept it secure on the truck. 

And off they go.... The entire removal of the illegally parked car took three minutes and twenty seconds. The action that took the longest time was when the workers checked each tire clamp and adjusted the canvas chain cover so the chain wouldn't touch the car. 

We walked into one of the largest parks in town, a very nice green space in a city that has a lot of one-square block parks. 

Some parts of the park had very few people

We did this walk on Saturday, so vendors were set up around the edge of the park. Grilled corn for me. Phillip couldn't resist the ice cream vendor. 

one large scoop in a waffle cone cost about $2.50

About three blocks from our hotel, a wide, pedestrian-only street continues for about eight blocks. Restaurants extend their serving area out into this street, sometimes with covers, sometimes not. We ate dinner twice at restaurants on this street. 

During our last day in Sofia, we took a tour of communist sights in Sofia. I found it fascinating, Phillip enjoyed it. Our tour guide, Dino, had a loud voice, so Phillip had no problem hearing the stories. We used the statue in the following picture as a landmark when we came up from the subway near our hotel. We called it "the lady on a stick." During the tour, we learned that she represented liberty and replaced a statue of Lenin (on a stick) when communism ended in Bulgaria. She overlooked the former Lenin Square, a broad expanse of pavement surrounded by government buildings. 

The lady on a stick faces the square and at the other end of the square is the former communist party headquarters, now their congressional building. We learned that nobody wanted to tear the building down, but they did remove communist symbols from them. The hammer and sickle had been in the center adornment but was ground out. We could see the faint outline of where it had been in the center of the decorative leaves. 

We saw numerous other locations that had been important to the communist regime. When we visited the former secret police headquarters, Dino told us that his mother, while in college, was approached to inform on fellow students to the secret police. She didn't and told her father, a diplomat and person of prestige. The secret police did not follow up with her after that. 

Tomorrow, we leave Sofia and travel by bus to Skopje, North Macedonia. Skopje is the capital of North Macedonia and the birthplace of Mother Teresa.