Tag Archives: Vasil Levsky

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

Koprivstiza-ethnic-house
A bit outdated but I found it necessery to put here my travelogue from last week with Mitko my wife Svetlana and Margarita we went for a small trip to Kalofer.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.
koprivschica-house-museum-room

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.

koprivschica-house-museum-in-very-beautiful-architecture-bulgaria

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.

koprivschica-cyrkva-uspenie-bogorodichno

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.

izgled-koprivschica
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.

kashta-ekskurzii-muzei

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.

born-house-museum-of-Hristo-Botev

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

kalofer_hristo_botev

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.

kaloferski-manastir-the-birth-of-the-mother-of-God-Holy-Virgin-Mary

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

kalofer-nun-monastery-nearby-skete

Best place to marry in Bulgaria, Vladimir and Ina’s wedding and Trip to Karlovo – The birth place of brightest Bulgarian Revolutionary Vasil Levsky

This Saturday and Sunday – 16.08.2014 – 17.08.2014, we were invited for my dear friend Vladimir’s wedding in the amazingly beautiful mountain town Karlovo. Karlovo along with Troyan and Sopot was the heart from where Bulgarian Revolutionary activities originated which later led to Liberation of Bulgaria from Turkish Slavery.

We started the trip to Karlovo with the borrowed car from Mitko Honda Civic around 11:15 in one of the most traffic loadded times. We travelled through the Plovdiv’s highway which is a terrible highway (be very cautious if you travel to this highway – as it is mostly dangerous) . Along with the joyful event, we had quite unpleasent event a Car Incident (Car Crash). I was driving through the highway with 110 km an hour in the rightest slow speed strip and out of a parking a TIR truck appeared in order to prevent crashing with it, because the truck was quite close I’ve move to the other leftest strip where there was another car and we crashed so the left side mirror broke and flew away and the car was unstable for a while – by God’s great mercy – Thank you Lord Jesus!!! I was able to hold the car and keep it straight and moved to the emergency car strip. The other car with which we hit was with a Bulgarian married for a Hungarian lady, thanks God the guy was polite and admitted the hit we had was due to the crazy truck (probably Turkish driver – this guys are killers on the road really). In a short the police came and we explained the situation, due to truck which escaped after the accident we couldn’t blame noone, but in order to pay the insurance to the bulgarian-hungarian family, we had to write retributive act and I was the one responsible for the car incident because I didn’t hit the breaks but moved to the other strip (if I had to hit the breaks we would have hit the truck …). Anyways I have written an objection for I’m not really guilty as it was the truck driver who did entered half of my car strip, we moved to the closest gas station to fix the police act.

Thanks God even though the crash, everything was normal, the car was operating the left side-door which was hit still opened and closed as normal and the only, problem was to drive the car without left-side mirror. We drived that way without a left-mirror to Karlovo, though I was severely stressed by the whole situation and I’m thankful for my wife being near to encourage me and try to mitigate stress by keeping calm and clear spirit.

We had to find the Hotel where we were installed “Hotel Shterev“, situated right on the very center of the city. We were lucky to find the hotel in a very quick manner by only stopping twice asking for it and by God’s mercy we find a free parking space near old “probably” abondoned Mosque in the beginning of the center.

We had to walk only 3 minutes and we were in Hotel and were accomodated in few minutes in a very confortable and good looing 1 room apartment with a luxurious bathroom (the bath had even a call phone in case of emergency – if somethings wrong happens in the bathroom), the room was equipped with fire-alarm, an aircondition and a TV and free-internet. We had to take a quick bathroom and call for a taxi because the marriage ceremony was to happen in a small village near Karlovo Sokolica in a complex restaurant-hotel – Jiaev.

The hotel was more than a beautiful, a garden with artificial waterfall, a small artificial river, a beautiful grapeyards, an amazing sideview to the mountains, clear air in a very silent and clear aired place. Sokolica was amazingly small village probably with 637 inhabitants. We later learned Jaev is a famous marriage place and many people choose to marry, there because its cheap and its perfectly organized for marriages up to 120-140 people!!!

Yes this was the biggest marriage ceremony I was in 140 guests, were there! The marriage ceremony was only the standard ceremony that is without a Church marriage, so it was quick and the usual “bla-bla, we wish you live long in happiness and sorrow, keep your love and affection in the hardships etc. etc.“, even though generally the ceremony wording was much better if compared to other state-marriages I was into earlier for example on my cousin’s marriages in Burgas. Well yes it was cool and the Marriage couple was amazingly well dressed and both were young and beatiful as it was meant to be.

Before the ceremony, there was champaign for the guests and some accompanying small foods as it is in the cocktails. After the ceremony all the guests went to take a photo with the Just married couple. Then the marriage begun and all went to tables and started eating some nuts, drinking some wine and salad as it is in the traditional bulgarian marriages nowdays. We had some chat in that time in our table was another 12 people most of which were among the closest people of Vladimir – so I was mostly delighted to see how much Vlado (UTP) honors me, 2 of the people were Vlado’s cousins who live nowdays in London England and it was an interesting time to have some interaction and know a bit about London and the emigrant life of Bulgarians in London. All went as it should Alex was on our table among with the classmate from school years Kamen, another friend from early teenage company years “Chocho”, almost all were families and many were with kids, so we had heard some stories about kids etc. etc.

There were plenty of nice music and most importantly no-chalga (which is like a bulgarian-serbian-turkish ethno music). The music selection was really good, there as a life band playing some nice music. Plenty of national dances – the horo dance, some Bulgarian traditions were there too like the kick of the menche (a small vessel filled with water on top of which is a red and white flower), it is believed that according to how many times the vessel moves after being kicked this could foretell the first kid of the bride (will it be a boy or a girl). Well there was plenty of Alcohol and Alex got quite high as he usually does when, there is plenty of alcohol – No offense Alex I’m telling the truth 🙂

There was the first dance, the cutting of the marriage cake etc. We got back to the Hotel about 3 o’clock went to bed and on the other day we had a walk in Karlovo which is town with amazingly beautiful architecture of houses and buildings. Everything is small but very well preserved and many of the buildings are from the early 19th century.

We were to the Amazingly big Church – The Dormition of the Virgin Mary which has the size of a Cathedral and shows clearly the huge faith the locals had in the past (and probably in present).

The prices were amazingly cheap, a coffee costs about 0.80 stotinki (0.40 euro cents) and a quick breakfast like banice is just 0.50 eu cents.

There are few museums including the national museum, the statue of Vasil Levsky, what makes the town of Karlovo distinctive is it is the birth place of the Apostle of Freedom Vasil Levsky – who was among key players who led Bulgarians to the Liberation of Bulgaria in 1876.

The birth house of Vasil Levsky is also is preserved and a museum, in there is plenty of interesting artefacts from Bulgarian Liberationa and post liberation times, intersting information about liberation, exposition of how the traditional bulgarian home looked in that times and probably most interesting the hair pair of the archideacon Vasil Levsky.

The national museum of Vasil Levsky is one of Bulgaria’s 100 national tourist places to visit.


After the museum we had a walk around the city center, visited the Church with Cathedral size where I bought two nice books about the living of Saint John of Kronstadt
and another book titled “Is there God?“.

Then I drinked a quick coffee and get some quick food and jumped to car and drived back to Sofia. By God’s grace, we safely arrived Sofia even without a left-side mirror – Svetlana was a big help and served the service of a left-mirror 🙂