Category Archives: My Travels

Trip to Baylovo Village, Meeting a Living saint and Elin Pelin birth house

Trip-to-Baylovo-Village-Meeting-a-Living-saint-and-Elin-Pelin-birth-house-and-museum-Elder-Dobri-1

Today thanks to my dear friend Cvetomir, I had the chance to visit Baylovo village with us was also his wife Dimitrina (Dima) and their 3.5 years old Son Boris. Baylovo is very famous nowdays in Bulgaria because of Elder Dobri (Dqdo Dobri) – who is considered by many in Bulgaria a living saint for more about him see http://saintdobry.com.

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These Elder is said to posses the gift of prophecy and many other gracious gifts from the Lord Jesus Christ. Already for years he has taken on himself the cross of poor life and beggery. The overall appearance of elder is unique as he continues to wears a typical old Bulgarian times dresses which was common among Bulgarians, about 100 years ago.

 

Dyado-Dobri-from-Baylovo-the-living-saint-begger-from-Bulgaria

Dyado Dobry has consciously choose the way of simplicity and poorness to honour God. He can often be seen in Sofia streets begging and then all the collected money he gives for the creation and reparation of old Churches and monasteries.

Seeing the elder gives you faith that there is still hope for us the sinners.

Cyrkva-Baylovo-next-to-home-of-dyado-Dobri

We had the chance to see the Living saint living room (house) which is few meters from the Baylovo village Church. Elder Dobry lives in a small room with an old wood stove. He has a prayer corner with many icons of the Lord Jesus Christ, The Mother of God and saints.

He doesn’t even possess a bed but sleeps on sheep leather directly on the ground, the picture below is the other room where is living another relative of him who is nowadays taking care about the elder.

dyado-Dobri-one-of-two-living-rooms-of-his-house

I had the chance to receive his blessing and kiss his holy hand.
The elder advised me to persist in the blessed silence, because silence breaks up the devils and brings us closer to God.

He also advised me to be careful with empty speech (by which I suffer often), few of the other things he told me were also striking.
Hearing my name Georgi he immediately mentioned the Great Holy Spirit that Saint George possesses and how Saint George helps all the earthly people named after him.

Interestingly Dyado Dobry also told me few things which for me was an evidence he posses the gift of clairvyoance (soul seeing).

We also had a chance a little bit earlier to go and Visit Spasova Mogila’s small Chapel which is situated in a very beautiful nature place.

 

Spasova-Mogila-chapel-from-the-famous-Elin-Pelin-story


After Spasova Mogila
is named the famous Elin Pelin short story, for those unfamiliar who Elin Pelin is he is a famous after liberation from Slavery of Bulgaria Bulgaria Author.

 

Later on after leaving Dyado Dobri we went to see the Elin Pelin Museum.

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Museum contains all the major writting works of Elin Pelin with unique pictures with Bulgarian King Boris III, Ivan Vazov and his friends and various intellectuals.

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One of the interesting works of Elin Pelin we saw there was of course Yan-Bybian (Ян Бибиян).

yan-bibiyanelin-pelin-1162-500x500-famous-children-story

We also passed on near Elin Pelin’s birth house but unfortunately didn’t have the time to visit, however if we have a second chance to visit there, we will definitely see it too.

Baylovo-Elin-Pelin-birth-house-picture

Trip to Koprivshtitsa history preserved city, Kalofer and Kalofer Nun Monastery – “Birth of The Holy Virgin Mary”

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A bit outdated but I found it necessery to put here my travelogue from last week with Mitko my wife Svetlana and Margarita we went for a small trip to Kalofer. We wanted to have some rest with Mitko from the very static life we live as system administrators in HP and Interoute. The initial plan was to visit Kalofer however on our way to there Margarita suggested we have a few hours visit to Koprivshtitsa is a mountain city situated nearby Klisura, Panagiurishte, Pirdop, Klisura and Strelcha. It is one of the most famous tourist hotposts in Bulgaria.

koprivschica-oslekova-kyshta-bulgaria-museum

What makes Koprivshtitsa so famous is its huge connection with the Bulgarian liberation war against Turkish enslaving that wasted from 1840 until liberation of Bulgaria in 1878. Our liberation come true thanks to the Russo-Turkish War, however 1877-1878, however Bulgaria made a lot of steps until we were supported by our Russian brothers in Christ to liberate. Koprivshtitsa was a birth place of a number of notable Bulgarians like Luben Karavelov, a home of yearly Bulgarian school enlightenment. Koprivshtitsa is probably most famous with the April revort attempt to liberate Bulgaria from 5 centuries of Turkish slavery. In the small town inhabited by approximately 2300 constantly living inhabitans, one can see the Bulgarian ethnic life from the XIX century, the whole city is preserved like it used to look 150 years ago, the houses architecture is from the revival Bulgarian period and is quite unique and interesting to see.
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The town used to be also a major trade center in the past and had a strong tradition of carpet weavening. Also over the centuries local inhabitants were famous for their stock breeding where historically inhabitants had the record count of about 12000.

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The most interesting fact in Koprivshtitsa history is the creation of the Bulgarian revolutionary commutee – created by greatest revolutionary of Bulgaria of all times (the apostle of freedom) Vasil Levsky.

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In 1876 a revolt fires up and the Turkish Commander (Bashibozluk) with the Turkish “police” slaughtered most of the citizens and the city was plundered, soon after another Turkish pasha came and robbed all unraked in the city.

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Koprivshcica is a home place of the famous Bulgarian poet and author who died during the First World War. Each year in Koprvschica Balkan (Old Mounta Stara Planina), there is a Koprivschica openair folklore songs and dance festival and we were lucky to see this nice event too. It is interesting fact that according to legislation if new buildings are built in the town they have to be the architecture style of the 19th century just like the rest of the town. As the town is a mountain one there is outstanding nature all around and a river flowing nearbly …

After leaving Koprivschica we continued our trip to Kalofer another revolutionary city that played key role in liberation of Bulgaria from Turkish.

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Kalofer‘s most famous thing is the museum (born House) of another of the great Bulgarian liberation revolutionaries – Hristo Botev is one of the Bulgarian most important – 100 national museums (tourists sites) of Bulgaria.

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Botev is important for his overtake of the German ship Radetsky and entering in Bulgaria to rise up a Bulgarian revolt against Turkish empire.

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There is not much to say about Kalofer except it is really, really cheap place for resort and it is generally beautiful city as well however it is a place if you want to have a rest from the noisy life. There is really nothing in that city to see except a 2 old Churches on the city center, few old houses in the same style as Koprivschica and a beatiful mountain nature nearby. There is just few places where you can go to buy some food and few resturants and that’s all. We found a room costing only 5 euro per person / night, and the price is outstanding. The city is divided by a river like most of the Bulgarian mountain cities. Also Kalofer is probably great place for people who like mountain hiking journeys. About 6 / 7 km from Kalofer deep in the mountain is situated a nun Kalofer monasteryThe Birth of The Mother of God. Kalofer has two monasteries but I didn’t hae the time to visit the othermale monastery.

kaloferski-nun-monastery

Kalofer Nun monastery is small sister-hood and the Abbotess is around 80 year old! Nun Kalofer monastery is very blessed place to go and very hard to go by car as the road to it is steep and hard to drive in.

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I’ve learned that nearby Kalofer monastery there is another small Skete, where alone only one lady lives almost like a hermit.

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