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BULGARIAN TOWN MEZDRA, A MOSAIC OF OLD AND NEW MEMORIES

Red Heart

By Gabriela Dimitrova Published 4 years ago 3 min read
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BULGARIAN TOWN MEZDRA, A MOZAIC OF OLD AND NEW MEMORIES

Today, I have been taken on a mental trip to my homeland, Bulgaria, from the distant Australian shores. It’s not enough to say that this trip is like a blood-camping and a spiritual journey to my country, whose smells and sights still brings me to tears.

The touch of Bulgarian soil, permeated with the moist agricultural aroma, has a personal value to me. You can’t stay oblivious to the thoughts that many feet, cartwheels and animal hooves have trodden the chunky gravel road of my hometown’s main street, Christo Botev, which is a connecting artery to the heart of the town where my dear mother first received me with a pounding heart, in her frail hand straight from the birthing midwife.

Bustling with community life and the cheers of carefree children, this street runs through a luscious green park at the centre of which my family’s residential unit is located. Beautiful alleys transect the park, bringing images of child wonder and discoveries.

Kaleto, archaeological complex

200 metres further down from my place, Botev Street bypasses the famous archaeological wonder, ‘Kaleto’ – home to ancient Roman artefacts and buildings, which have the power to transport you to different eras where time did not ‘fly’ and some people were aware of how to control time, mapping slowly the roads to their ambitious imperial expansions. Many good soldiers came from this land. And the contemporary gold-diggers. The old ruins are the main object left to marvel now.

Mezdra town centre is an attractive scenery of old and the new. The marketplace smells of BBQ mince sticks, kebaptcheta, and stops you short of all your other senses, as it unconsciously drags you to follow the smell to the irresistible barbeque. Beer at the site is of an abundant offer.

Once you leave the markets, you may wish to digest the kebapcheta with the help of an aromatic Arabic coffee at the cafe plaza, where shop owners compete for serving the best coffee drink in the bet possibly ways. Never mind the occasional cigarette smoke. What beats it, is the Bulgarian bakery, served on-site: the famous succulent cheesy banitza, and walnut-and-cinnamon pastries.

Nights at long weekends, starting with Fridays, are full of colour and music. My first love encounter – at the Mezdra discotic. I fell in love with a not-giving-a-dam-to invite me-to dance boy, who preferred to shoot at me only cheeky, curious looks from the opposite side of the dance floor. Sissy Cach and Modern Talking are still popular stars.

The Cherepish Monastery

F0r those who like religious music, specifically Byzantine chants, the Cherepish Monastery reveals a place of wonder. The monastery is hard to see from below the rocky hill, as the lush green bosom of Lyutibroad gorge firmly surrounds the monastic building. Inside, history, culture and religion provide a breathing space for one another. The building used to be a priest seminary. From there young priests would write to their prospective or current wives, contemplating their prospects of becoming permanent monks. Speechless. Their female partners would not question these prospects, and will only convey their feelings of how much they had miss their lovers. Remember, that Christian Orthodox priests still can marry and have children.

Some priests loved music so much, that they chose to become popular singers. Music and dance are in the bones of the people of Mezdra. If you come at Easter, a spring season in Bulgaria, you will marvel at the vigorous dance-line, choro, and soak in the divine tunes of the traditional folk music and song. A part of this music bears the sad legacy of the years, when Bulgaria was enslaved by the Ottoman Empire for nearly five hundred years in the 15th century. The most famous song is the one of Valya Balkanska, Delyo Haidutin, copied onto the NASA Voyager’s disk with international songs, which was sent into space in the last century. The story of the song recalls the sad fate of the revolutionary Delyo in the war for liberation from the Ottomans. He reassures his beloved woman that he can’t be killed even with a silver bullet.

Once, you’ve become intimate with the Bulgarian culture and history, you’ll feel in the songs the tug of a blood bond. A bond that will remind you of your need to revisit Bulgaria, a place of wonders waiting to be discovered.

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About the Creator

Gabriela Dimitrova

Freelance writer of poetry and fiction

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