The Alien Diaries: The Alien Diaries Visits Bulgaria Part One

Um... Bulgaria is an interesting country. The people are lovely. There are potholes the size of small planets.

Rachel Nichols

Photo above taken in Plovdiv

Regarding the quote above I agree with the author on Bulgaria being an interesting country. My experience with the country and the people was very positive. My motivation to visit was connected with history and folklore. I was not disappointed.

People from the States, in general, know little about Bulgaria. World history and geography aren't taught much in the schools here. So it is not a surprise that many people here have misconceptions.

Does Bulgaria have a seacoast?

Where is Bulgaria exactly??

Is the water drinkable?

Do they use the Russian alphabet?

Do the people live in housing projects?

Are the roads riddled with potholes?

First, let me clear up some of these misconceptions.

A woman I knew years ago who was educated and who also taught a writing class asked me the question about the seacoast. Bulgaria has a seacoast facing the Black Sea. It is very popular in summer with foreigners, especially British and Germans, who are sun-starved. It's (almost always) sunny in Bulgaria from June to September.

People from northern Europe flock to Sunny Beach (near Nessebar). It is a party town infested with tourists. Avoid it if you can, it is too commercialized and full of bars and drunks. Go to Varna instead. The beach was quite nice in mid-September, after most of the tourists left, and the weather still warm.

Varna

The video below is of the craziness that is Sunny Beach:

To verify the location of Bulgaria on the map, go to Wikipedia. See the green object on the map? That is Bulgaria. Greece and Turkey form the southern border; North Macedonia is west, Romania and Serbia to the north.

As for the water, the large cities have potable water, I can't speak for the villages where people use well water. In Dupnitsa, I saw a fountain where people bottled the water and used it for drinking; it was mineral water with healing qualities. The answer to the drinking water question is: yes. Bulgaria has been an EU country since 2007. They have to meet certain standards for membership. You can safely drink the tap water in the larger cities, although most people prefer bottled water.

Dupnitsa

The Cyrillic Alphabet, used in most of Eastern Europe (that includes Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Serbia, Ukraine, and Russia) was a descendant of Old Church Slavonic, used by Saints Cyril and Methodius. They were originally from Thessanoliki (Greece). The purpose of the alphabet was to teach literacy and religion to the Slavs. On May 24th, there is a Bulgarian holiday to honor Cyril and Methodius.

There was an exhibit of Old Church Slavonic side by side with the Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet in a museum in Sofia: The saints are in the lower right hand corner. By the way the Bulgarian alphabet was the precursor to Cyrillic alphabets used in other Eastern European countries, including Russia.

Ask anyone who has been to a former Eastern Bloc country, and they will mention the apartment blocks. They look like housing projects in the States, basic, utilitarian housing with very little sense of esthetics. I grew up in the South Bronx in one of those projects, so Bulgarian apartment buildings had a sense of familiarity about them.

Bulgaria has a reputation for potholes. The highways are well maintained, however, some of the back roads in the smaller towns and villages have a pothole problem. The tour bus driver avoided most of them; however some of the back roads in some of the smaller towns and villages were quite bumpy. (This is not a problem unique to Bulgaria, we have them in the United States too). I live in Massachusetts and the potholes cause major damage to cars during the winter months. I have seen potholes in Massachusetts that can swallow cars!

I don't recommend driving in Bulgaria, but if you plan to (good luck) see link for a pothole map. It is updated periodically.

Part two of this series will be about some cool sights in Bulgarian cities as well as some scary stairs.

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Odds and ends: Misconceptions about the Cyrillic Alphabet, Bagpipes, and Bulgarian Geography