The trip from Nafplio to Sofia always seemed like it was going to suck, and it did. A two-hour bus ride to Athens crammed in with a polite but very large gentleman with spiderweb tattoos who fingered worry beads obsessively; another hour parked in traffic on the back streets around Kifissos; a search for airport bus tickets and the bus itself; a decision, after sighting one of the jammed buses, to give up on that and take a cab, instead; an idiotic argument with Wizz Air staff about whether I could have a boarding pass or not; the actual flight -- the most comfortable part of the day, because, almost no one else being dumb enough to pay extra for exit row seats for a one-hour flight, I had a row to myself -- and then we arrived at Sofia Airport.
From a strong field of contenders, the most exasperating part of all this was dealing with Wizz Air. I am not saying that there is any link between Wizz Air and the devil. But I am suggesting that if there were a supernatural power of great evil, and it were involved in the aviation industry, as it would be, then it would have ties to Wizz Air.
Passport control at Sofia Airport works like this. As each flight arrives, it dumps its passengers outside the airport, and they tack themselves onto the back of a huge, shapeless crowd waiting to be sieved through three or four open passport booths. Someone shouts something, and then a line of families with babies comes snaking through to the front like jerks at a rock concert, and this inspires other people who think they have a case for priority to do the same. (In hindsight, it was actually a fairly polite crowd, overall; and Sofia in general was like that.) I also still had this cold, which I think might be the creation of some Soviet germ warfare program, tasked with annoying enemy troops and making them sleepy, that escaped into the wild and has been passed down since by generations of sneezing children at hotel breakfast buffets.
To walk into a new hotel room after a day like that is a personal triumph. I even went out afterwards to buy beer, almonds, and Family Stix brand chocolate wafer cookies. I had no Bulgarian money, and it was a tiny shop. I held up a credit card: do you take these? Shrug: you can try, but we are both the playthings of fate. Bulgaria's supposed to have a bit of a problem with credit card fraud, so whether this is a good idea or not will depend completely on how badly you need beer and cookies.
Architecturally, you get the feeling central Sofia got off pretty lightly in the communist era. A few glum high-rises, the mad gray dreams of postwar communism made real, but mostly it's a city of joined six-storey buildings and hidden courtyards (the one overlooked by the hotel contains the back patio of an Irish pub, where soccer fans in red jerseys get together at night to groan at televisions).
Vitosha Mountain lies just to the south, and, along with some of the architecture in the city centre and the corporate logos stuck up on rooftops with pins, gives the place a surprising alpine feel. There are elevated police boxes above important intersections, and underpasses beneath them with shabby stores and oddball subterranean buskers banished from the surface world for having depressing acts. Some stretches of these places are abandoned, but in others people are clinging on in hopes someone who just wants to get across the street will have an impulse to gamble, buy shoe inserts, have a t-shirt made, or give money to a singing Bulgarian cowboy.
The Museum of Socialist Art
This place is hidden away like a dirty secret. I turned right out of the metro station (Sofia has a dowdy but clean subway system) and, ten minutes later, stood in a half-demolished building between a heap of old furniture and a ruined grand piano. This may not be the way. The entrance lies in the opposite direction, past a new office complex, through a gate where an old man in rolled-up track pants stops you. He says, "English? Deutsch?" And then gives directions in Italian. (I may have nodded at "English"; nodding means "no" in Bulgaria, and it is impossible to remember this.)
Bulgaria moved on decisively after the collapse of communism. The whole era seems squeezed into this one tiny museum; whatever survived the post-collapse damnatio memoriae was collected and tucked away discreetly here in the suburbs. Outside is a graveyard of monuments: sombre, chunky sculptures of Lenin, Dimitrov, and assorted Heroic Workers. In the corner by the parking lot stands the red star that once topped the parliament. Here and there, idiots take selfies with Lenin for their dumb blogs (see photo). Inside is a gallery of heroic paintings of socialist martyrs in a surprising mix of styles, and also acres of art blather on white placards.
When you walk into the gift shop, the woman there exclaims something and fires up a video in a tiny adjoining theatre. This is film propaganda from the 50s, 60s, and 70s: fulsome gratitude to the USSR for its friendship, parades, and finger-wagging speeches by Georgi Dimitrov (who led Bulgaria for a few years after 1944) being applauded deliriously. I don't know about anyone else, but I am now fervently committed to the five-year plan. The film was cut here and there with colour footage from after the collapse: a crane lifting the red star off the parliament building, Dimitrov's mausoleum being blown up. The gift shop itself sells Lenin mugs and smiling portraits of Stalin, for which there seems to be a market.
Parks of Sofia
Central Sofia has great parks. The Park of the National Palace of Culture is a bit spoiled by the Palace itself, which squats in the middle like a bloated concrete toad that ate all the culture. It's hung with purple bunting celebrating Bulgaria's turn in the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU. Over a bridge and a short walk west, there's a small one where three guys do pull-ups and raises on rusted playground equipment while anthemic Bulgarian metal blasts from a portable stereo. (I think Bulgarian metal is mostly about doing reps, like Norwegian metal is about burning churches and decapitations.)
The best park, though, is Knyazheska Garden. It has a huge monument to the Soviet Army, with deep bronze reliefs of forward-leaning soldiers. The insoluble historical, moral, diplomatic, and political problems such a thing poses have been addressed by turning it into a pretty nifty skate park. There's furniture for stunts out front and a painted halfpipe at the side, where a small boy on a razor scooter rolls glumly back and forth.
Overall, a very pretty, pleasant, relaxed city. Next: Nis, Serbia.
From a strong field of contenders, the most exasperating part of all this was dealing with Wizz Air. I am not saying that there is any link between Wizz Air and the devil. But I am suggesting that if there were a supernatural power of great evil, and it were involved in the aviation industry, as it would be, then it would have ties to Wizz Air.
Passport control at Sofia Airport works like this. As each flight arrives, it dumps its passengers outside the airport, and they tack themselves onto the back of a huge, shapeless crowd waiting to be sieved through three or four open passport booths. Someone shouts something, and then a line of families with babies comes snaking through to the front like jerks at a rock concert, and this inspires other people who think they have a case for priority to do the same. (In hindsight, it was actually a fairly polite crowd, overall; and Sofia in general was like that.) I also still had this cold, which I think might be the creation of some Soviet germ warfare program, tasked with annoying enemy troops and making them sleepy, that escaped into the wild and has been passed down since by generations of sneezing children at hotel breakfast buffets.
To walk into a new hotel room after a day like that is a personal triumph. I even went out afterwards to buy beer, almonds, and Family Stix brand chocolate wafer cookies. I had no Bulgarian money, and it was a tiny shop. I held up a credit card: do you take these? Shrug: you can try, but we are both the playthings of fate. Bulgaria's supposed to have a bit of a problem with credit card fraud, so whether this is a good idea or not will depend completely on how badly you need beer and cookies.
_____
Architecturally, you get the feeling central Sofia got off pretty lightly in the communist era. A few glum high-rises, the mad gray dreams of postwar communism made real, but mostly it's a city of joined six-storey buildings and hidden courtyards (the one overlooked by the hotel contains the back patio of an Irish pub, where soccer fans in red jerseys get together at night to groan at televisions).
Vitosha Mountain lies just to the south, and, along with some of the architecture in the city centre and the corporate logos stuck up on rooftops with pins, gives the place a surprising alpine feel. There are elevated police boxes above important intersections, and underpasses beneath them with shabby stores and oddball subterranean buskers banished from the surface world for having depressing acts. Some stretches of these places are abandoned, but in others people are clinging on in hopes someone who just wants to get across the street will have an impulse to gamble, buy shoe inserts, have a t-shirt made, or give money to a singing Bulgarian cowboy.
The Museum of Socialist Art
This place is hidden away like a dirty secret. I turned right out of the metro station (Sofia has a dowdy but clean subway system) and, ten minutes later, stood in a half-demolished building between a heap of old furniture and a ruined grand piano. This may not be the way. The entrance lies in the opposite direction, past a new office complex, through a gate where an old man in rolled-up track pants stops you. He says, "English? Deutsch?" And then gives directions in Italian. (I may have nodded at "English"; nodding means "no" in Bulgaria, and it is impossible to remember this.)
Bulgaria moved on decisively after the collapse of communism. The whole era seems squeezed into this one tiny museum; whatever survived the post-collapse damnatio memoriae was collected and tucked away discreetly here in the suburbs. Outside is a graveyard of monuments: sombre, chunky sculptures of Lenin, Dimitrov, and assorted Heroic Workers. In the corner by the parking lot stands the red star that once topped the parliament. Here and there, idiots take selfies with Lenin for their dumb blogs (see photo). Inside is a gallery of heroic paintings of socialist martyrs in a surprising mix of styles, and also acres of art blather on white placards.
When you walk into the gift shop, the woman there exclaims something and fires up a video in a tiny adjoining theatre. This is film propaganda from the 50s, 60s, and 70s: fulsome gratitude to the USSR for its friendship, parades, and finger-wagging speeches by Georgi Dimitrov (who led Bulgaria for a few years after 1944) being applauded deliriously. I don't know about anyone else, but I am now fervently committed to the five-year plan. The film was cut here and there with colour footage from after the collapse: a crane lifting the red star off the parliament building, Dimitrov's mausoleum being blown up. The gift shop itself sells Lenin mugs and smiling portraits of Stalin, for which there seems to be a market.
Parks of Sofia
Central Sofia has great parks. The Park of the National Palace of Culture is a bit spoiled by the Palace itself, which squats in the middle like a bloated concrete toad that ate all the culture. It's hung with purple bunting celebrating Bulgaria's turn in the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU. Over a bridge and a short walk west, there's a small one where three guys do pull-ups and raises on rusted playground equipment while anthemic Bulgarian metal blasts from a portable stereo. (I think Bulgarian metal is mostly about doing reps, like Norwegian metal is about burning churches and decapitations.)
The best park, though, is Knyazheska Garden. It has a huge monument to the Soviet Army, with deep bronze reliefs of forward-leaning soldiers. The insoluble historical, moral, diplomatic, and political problems such a thing poses have been addressed by turning it into a pretty nifty skate park. There's furniture for stunts out front and a painted halfpipe at the side, where a small boy on a razor scooter rolls glumly back and forth.
Overall, a very pretty, pleasant, relaxed city. Next: Nis, Serbia.
