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French Consul Bashi-Bazouks

The French Consul tells me of Bashi-Bazouks relating to circles of admiring listeners how the cut off the heads of little children, and how the dismembered trunks would leap and roll about like those of chickens; and I shut my ears and say, “ This is enough; I do not want to hear any more ; I do not care to investigate any further/’ It does not matter to me that a few more or less have been committed. You cannot increase or diminish the horror of the thing by mere statements of round numbers. I shall leave the statistics to Mr. Schuyler and Mr. Baring, and shall be quite willing to accept their estimates.

It has been said that these acts were committed by irregular troops, over whom the Government had no control, for whom the Turkish authorities were in no way responsible, and that the latter would, on the contrary, have been very glad to restrain them. Unfortunately, there are many facts connected with the business which show that this view of the case is altogether erroneous.

Had the Government really been in earnest in making these protestations, it would have seized some of the principal leaders of the Bashi-Bazouks, some of those who had particularly distinguished themselves by their ferocity, and punished them summarily. Chefket Pacha, for instance, who burned the village of Bazardjik, and slaughtered nearly all of its inhabitants under more than usually revolting circumstances, should have been one of the first to feel the strong arm of the law City Tours Istanbul.

Sultan at Constantinople

But having done all this, he has been promoted to a high position in the Palace of the Sultan at Constantinople. Again, there is the case of Achmet Aga, a captain of a company of Bashi-Bazouks, who likewise distinguished himself by his ferocity. He wished to burn Philip- popolis, and was only withheld from doing so by the energetic action of the governor, who has since been removed, and who threatened to attack him with the regular troops. It was he who slaughtered 8,000 people at Batak, and burned 200 women and children alive in the school.

He is a low ignorant brute, who can neither read nor write, and yet he has been promoted to the rank of Pacha, and with that exquisite mockery of European demands for justice, for which the Oriental is so distinguished, he has been named a member of the commission appointed to prosecute and punish the Bashi- Bazouks. The reason is clear and simple. These men carried out the wishes and intentions of the Government, if not the positive orders. They did their duty, and have been rewarded.

But it has been said that the Bulgarians set the example of committing atrocities, and even Lord Derby, upon the authority of Sir Henry Elliot, made the statement before the House that both sides had been equally guilty in this respect. It might be interesting to learn where Sir Henry Elliot obtained his information. As I have already explained, the English Government had no agent here capable of sending information until the arrival of Mr. Baring. He could not have obtained it from other Governments, for the reason that the various consuls here, with all of whom I have talked, never reported any atrocities on the part of the Bulgarians to their respective Governments.

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The civilised part of Europe

There were three schools in the place—one for girls and two for boys; and, to judge by the ruins which I saw, they were fine large buildings that no village of the same size, even in the civilised part of Europe, need have been ashamed of. There were six teachers in all—three male and three female; and the number of children that attended the schools was 680, of whom 500 were boys, and 180 girls.

The teachers were well paid—better, I think, everything considered, than they are in England, France, and Germany. The three male teachers and Raika received each sixty pounds a year, a sum which, in this country, where living is cheap, where no great expenditure is required in the way of dress, and in a mountain village far away from railways and telegraphs, was really a very comfortable income.

For a young girl like Raika especially, who had her home, it was a great deal of money. She applied half of it, however, to paying back to the literary society the money spent on her education. She soon became the head mistress of the girls’ school, and as she was the only one of the teachers who was a native of the village, she was a great favourite of the people.

Bulgarians voluntarily

It should be remembered that the schools in Bulgaria are supported by a kind of tax which the Bulgarians voluntarily levy upon themselves ; and the flourishing condition of the schools in one little place like this, and the way in which they were supported, will enable us to form an idea of what they are all over the country, and of the efforts these poor people are making to rise from the grovelling condition in which they have been held for so long. Raika’s position as schoolmistress in a place like Panagurishti was by no means an unenviable one Private Turkey Tours.

A schoolmistress in a place like this is a different sort of personage, it should be remembered, from a schoolmistress in London. With her cleverness, her education, her good looks, the esteem and respect in which she was held by everybody, her position was a very pleasant one, and she was in reality a sort of village queen.

I asked some of the people there if she had no sweet heart all this time, and what had become of him. They said there seemed to be nobody who aspired to her hand, for the reason that she was so far superior to the young men of the place, that they did not dare to hope for such a prize as she would have been. Poor girl; not one of the young men who then thought her so far above them would marry her now.

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The civilised part of Europe

There were three schools in the place—one for girls and two for boys; and, to judge by the ruins which I saw, they were fine large buildings that no village of the same size, even in the civilised part of Europe, need have been ashamed of. There were six teachers in all—three male and three female; and the number of children that attended the schools was 680, of whom 500 were boys, and 180 girls.

The teachers were well paid—better, I think, everything considered, than they are in England, France, and Germany. The three male teachers and Raika received each sixty pounds a year, a sum which, in this country, where living is cheap, where no great expenditure is required in the way of dress, and in a mountain village far away from railways and telegraphs, was really a very comfortable income.

For a young girl like Raika especially, who had her home, it was a great deal of money. She applied half of it, however, to paying back to the literary society the money spent on her education. She soon became the head mistress of the girls’ school, and as she was the only one of the teachers who was a native of the village, she was a great favourite of the people.

Bulgarians voluntarily

It should be remembered that the schools in Bulgaria are supported by a kind of tax which the Bulgarians voluntarily levy upon themselves ; and the flourishing condition of the schools in one little place like this, and the way in which they were supported, will enable us to form an idea of what they are all over the country, and of the efforts these poor people are making to rise from the grovelling condition in which they have been held for so long. Raika’s position as schoolmistress in a place like Panagurishti was by no means an unenviable one Private Turkey Tours.

A schoolmistress in a place like this is a different sort of personage, it should be remembered, from a schoolmistress in London. With her cleverness, her education, her good looks, the esteem and respect in which she was held by everybody, her position was a very pleasant one, and she was in reality a sort of village queen.

I asked some of the people there if she had no sweet heart all this time, and what had become of him. They said there seemed to be nobody who aspired to her hand, for the reason that she was so far superior to the young men of the place, that they did not dare to hope for such a prize as she would have been. Poor girl; not one of the young men who then thought her so far above them would marry her now.

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Bulgarians stood a great statesman

In the beginning of the 9th century ahead of the Bulgarians stood a great statesman – Khan Krum (803-814) who expanded his kingdom to the north, reaching the Carpathian Mountains. Meanwhile, the Byzantine Emperor Nicephorus I launched an attack against him. In 809 Krum seized the Byzantine fortified citadel of Serdika (Sofia) and made peace proposals to the emperor. Nicephorus turned them down, attacked the capital Pliska with his big army, reduced it to ashes and looted it, then headed back home with the spoils. But the Bulgarians laid an ambush in a mountain pass and on the 25,h of July 811 they defeated the Byzantines.

Nicephorus I himself was killed and the Khan Tour Packages Bulgaria – following an old pagan tradition – plated the emperor’s skull in silver and drank wine from it. As the next peace proposals were rejected again the Bulgarians seized Philipopolis (Plovdiv) and undertook a victorious march to the south. In 813 their cavalry reached the walls of Constantinople. A siege of the Byzantine capital went in preparation, so the new emperor Leo V sent for help from Charlemagne, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. But in the spring of 814 Khan Krum died of a heart attack.

Peace treaty with Byzantium

Krurn’s successor, Khan Omurtag (814-831), concluded a 30-years peace treaty with Byzantium. Then he expanded the territory of the state to the north-east and north-west defeating the Hazars and the Emperor Louis II. Omurtag reconstructed the capital Pliska, enlarged it and ordered the building of several new fortresses. His son Malamir (831-836) and his grandson Presiyan (836- 852), after subjugating some more Slavic tribes, added territories in the southwestern part of the Peninsula – the Rhodopes, Aegean Thrace and South Macedonia – to the Bulgarian state. So in the mid 9th century Bulgaria established itself as the third political power in Europe – after Byzantium and the Holy Roman Empire…

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Tiara on head

The foot or southern panel, represents four young men standing in pairs, as if engaged in conversation, clad in short tunics, girded at the waist, and carrying sticks in their hands.

The panel on the eastern side is carved to represent a satrap, tiara on head, clothed in a long flowing mantle, or cloak, and seated in an arm-chair, with a sceptre in his left hand. He is watching the departure of a four-horse chariot, into which the driver, closely veiled and wearing a short tunic girded at the waist, is in the act of mounting. At the horses’ heads stands a groom leaning on a staff, holding the fretting steeds, and at the same time looking in the direction of a fellow-servant on his right holding a saddle-horse. Behind the satrap are two figures apparently in the act of conversing with each other.

The western panel represents a hunting scene, in which the central figure is that of the satrap, on horseback, in a long flowing cloak, and with raised lance holding a lion at bay. Opposite him is the figure of another horseman with couched lance charging the king of beasts. Towards the right is the figure of a frightened horse galloping off, and dragging along the ground its dismounted rider, whose hands still clutch the reins. Behind the satrap are the figures of a wounded hind, and of a horseman pulling up his galloping steed.

Hamdl Bey at Saida

The Weepers or Mourners’ Sarcophagus, No. 4,9. —This was discovered by Hamdl Bey at Saida in 1887, and is of white marble; it was originally coloured, and traces of blue, red, and yellow are still visible on it. During the process of excavation a corner of this sarcophagus, and another of its cover, as well as a head on one of its panels, were broken.

This monument belongs to the Attic school of art of the fourth century, and is in the form of a Greek temple. Its frieze is ornamented with about a hundred little carved figures of archers and hunters, in Phrygian caps, short tunics drawn in at the waist, and flowing cloaks, engaged in hunting bears, lions, panthers, wild boars, etc. The carvings on the sides represent incidents of the chase, while those at the head and foot depict the return of the hunters loaded with game.

At each of the four corners is a pillar, and each side is divided into sections by five Ionic columns, while the head and foot are each divided by two only. Every alternate column bears the figure of a woman; in all there are eighteen of these female figures, all in mournful attitudes, and clad in variously draped long robes which cover them from head to foot. These figures are most symmetrically arranged; in the centre of each side are two women standing up, and to the right and left of them is another woman in a sitting posture, and at the corners another standing ; at the head and foot of the sarcophagus is the figure of a woman seated, and to the right and left of her another female figure standing.

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Sultan Muhammad V

The Sultan. — The present Sultan, H. I. M. Sultan Muhammad V., thirty-fifth Ottoman Sultan since the foundation of the Turkish Dynasty, and twenty-fifth of his line since the taking of Constantinople, was horn on the 3rd November 1844, and ascended the throne on the 28th April 1909. He is of a generous and very kindly disposition; he is the first real constitutional Sultan Turkey ever had, and is extremely popular among the people. Before he ascended the throne he was confined by his elder brother Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid Khan II. in the small low building which adjoins his present residence, the Volmah Baghcheh Palace.

People.—The population of Constantinople is a mixed one, composed chiefly of Turks, Greeks, Armenians, Levantines, as the half-breed descendants of Europeans are styled, and Jews.

The Turks, as their name implies, were originally of Turkoman descent; the race, however, is at present a very mixed one, owing to the continual introduction, through intermarriage, of the Arab and Circassian elements.

God will provide

The average Turk is of medium stature, with dark hair and an aquiline nose, and is noted for his punctilious politeness and hospitality, which latter he inherits from his nomadic ancestors, and for his indolence and apathy. This latter quality often stands him in good stead in the event of disaster or misfortune, which, like good fortune, he attributes to the will of God, or more often to Kismet (fate); he is in fact nothing if not a fatalist, and the Kismet of the Turk has become even more proverbial than his politeness and hospitality. This apathy, for it cannot be dignified by the name of stoicism, may be accountable for the comparative absence of suicide among the Turks, who console themselves for the greatest losses or mishaps, private or national, by piously ejaculating Kismet dir (‘ it is fate ’) guided istanbul tours, or Allah kerim (‘ God will provide ’). The Turk is extremely simple in his habits, frugal and sober, and on the whole may be said to be good- natured, easy-going, fairly truthful, and charitable; but is, on the other hand, extremely superstitious, and utterly destitute of any but the crudest artistic taste, and of any liking for the fine arts.

Even in his pleasures and pastimes his indolence and apathy assert themselves. His games are all of a sedentary nature, and he will sit for hours over a succession of games of backgammon. He never dances, all his appreciation of the Terpsichorean art being confined to viewing from his cushioned divan, through the fragrant mediums of coffee and cigarettes, the lascivious posturings and contortions of gipsy girls, performed to the accompaniment of monotonous, dirge-like strains.

The Turk’s favourite pastime is what he calls Keyeffy which is somewhat akin to the dolce far niente or sweet idleness of the Italian. This ‘ enjoyment ’ is attainable by repairing to some picturesque spot, and sitting for hours in listless, thoughtless, vacant contemplation, over the soothing coffee and cigarette. This is kcyeff downright, pure, unadulterated keyejf or whatever one likes to call it, for the word baffles all translation.

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By the time of the Liberation

By the time of the Liberation, some fifty years later, there were twelve new churches in Plovdiv. Eight of them have survived on the Three Hills today in a comparatively good state of preservation. They are the St. Marina Metropolitan Church, the Holy Virgin Cathedral, the churches of the SS. Constantine and Helena, of Sveta Nedelya with its St. Presentation of the Virgin Chapel, of St. Nikola, St. Petka and St. Dimiter. The Armenian Apostolic Church of St. Kevork (St. George) built in 1828 should also be mentioned, as it is located within the Old Town.

The Revival Orthodox churches in the Old Town were created by some of the most outstanding figures of the Bulgarian schools of architecture, woodcarving and painting of that period. The construction work was commissioned to renowned masters of the Bratsigovo School. The iconostases were carved by masters of the illustrious Debar School of woodcarving and to masters from Metsovo in Epirus.

The iconography was executed by icon-painters of the Samokov and Adrianople Schools of painting and abounds in creations by such famous artists as Zahari Zograf, his elder brother Dimiter Zofraf and the latter’s son Stanislav Dospevski, by Nicola Odrinchanin and others. The major part of the Revival churches in Plovdiv belongs to the common at the time architectural type of the three-aisle pseudo-basilica. After the Crimean War (1853 -1856) when the restrictions imposed by the Ottoman authorities were suspended, the first bell-towers and domed basilicas appeared in Plovdiv travel bulgaria.

ST. MARINA METROPOLITAN CHURCH

Plovdiv Diocese and its ecclesiastical administration represented by the Plovdiv Orthodox Bishopric have a long history. They were established at the beginning of the New Era, as early as the middle of the 1st c. as a result of the evangelizing activity of Apostle Erm, who was sent to Thrace by Apostle Paul himself.The first Christian community in the Thracian lands appeared in Plovdiv. This explains why the ecclesiastical authority of the eparchy founded subsequently was set up here. For centuries on end the seat of the eparchy – the Plovdiv Orthodox Bishopric was housed below the rocky southern slopes of Taxim Tepe. In mediaeval times, even before the Ottoman invasion, the metropolitan church was devoted to the martyr St. Marina.

The temple was demolished and rebuilt on numerous occasions. In 1851 it had to be raised from its very foundations. At that time some of the restrictions on the construction of Christian churches were suspended, and it was possible to erect a much more imposing and befitting temple. The church was built by masters headed by Nicola Tomchev-Ustabashiiski of the Bratsigovo School of construction, a man known far beyond the boundaries of Thrace. The temple is designed in the style of the spacious and imposing pseudo-basilicas of the Revival Period. Inside, seven pairs of slender columns crowned by a polyhedral dome divide it into three aisles. To add to the solemn effect, a colonnade encircles the narthex on the western side.

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The ancient theatre

The cultural life of the city is very rich. Plovdiv has a phil-harmonic orchestra, a puppet theatre and an opera company, as well as a drama theatre. There are several higher educational establishments in the town for medicine, food industry, agriculture, music, research institutes, English and Bulgarian language schools and the Paissi of Hilendar University. There is an Archaeology Museum, a National Revival Museum, a Museum of the Workers’ and Revolutionary Movement, art gallery, etc.

Tourist attractions

The old part of the town, the Three Hills, is an architectural reserve. In Roman times the Three Hills were known as Trimontium; few cities in Bulgaria have such picturesque spots from the National Revival Period. On both sides of the cobbled narrow streets rise the walls of old National Revival houses, painted facades, bay windows and vaults, eaves curved like yokes, solid wooden nail-studded gates, grassed courtyards, stone wells. A big granary from the Roman times was discovered on Nebet tepe hill. The fortress walls were destroyed and restored again and again during Roman and Byzantine times, and later under the Bulgarians. The eastern gate of the fortress, Hissar kapiya, was rebuilt and repaired several times private tours istanbul, as was the Round Tower to its southeast.

One of the major recent archaeological finds is the Ancient Theatre (2nd century) discovered in the Old town. It has been restored and now carries out its former functions. An ancient stadium was discovered in the main street which complements it.

The Argir Koyumdjioglou House on the eastern slope of Nebet Tepe hill, built 1847, is typical of Plovdiv symmetrical houses. It holds the Ethnographic Museum. An international chamber music festival is held in the museum’s courtyard each September.

The Georgiadi House east of Hissar Kapiya was built in 1846. It has a picturesque facade with bay windows and yokelike eaves. It houses the Museum of the National Revival and of the National Liberation Struggles.

The Alphonse de Lamartine Museum, built in 1829-1830. It is also a typical Plovdiv symmetrical house. The famous French poet Lamartine lived here in 1833 after his return from the Orient.

I he St Constantine and Elena Church, built 1832 on the remains of an older church. The belfry has five storeys. The gilded iconostasis is in early Baroque style and was made by the Debur engraver Ivan Pashkoula. Many of the icons were painted by Zahari Zograph in 1836.

The St Marina Church built 1852-1853 on the southwestern part of Taxim Tepe hill. It was the main episcopal church. The woodcarvings of the iconostasis, the pulpit and the bishop’s throne are particularly valuable. The holy gates feature scenes from the life of St George and St Dimiter, Adam and Eve and Samson Killing the Lion. The icons were painted by Stanislav Dospevski.

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S0FIA STANKE DIMITROV RILA MONASTERY

S0FIA-STANKE DIMITROV-RILA MONASTERY- BLAGOEVGRAD-SANDANSKI-MELNIK (181 KM)

Starting from the south-western Sofia (part of the E-79 international motorway) — via the Knyazhevo suburb, drive along the Vladaya Gorge. To the left you will see an impressive monument commemorating the Soldiers’ Mutiny at the end of World War I (autumn 1918) when influenced by the October Revolution, soldiers left the front for Sofia to overthrow the monarchy.

The road forks after about 30 km. To the right is the road to Pernik (population 90,000) — a large mining and industrial centre. On the west side of the town rise the high terraces of the local park. Here once stood a medieval fortress of Krakra of Pernik, a Bulgarian feudal ruler from the second half of the 10th century. Hotel Strouma has 26 single rooms, 111 double rooms and 2 suites, restaurant, bar, coffee-shop and hairdressers’ salon. The next town is Stanke Dimitrov (population 43 000) situated on the banks of the Djerman River at the foot of the Rila Mountains. This area was inhabited in ancient times by Thracian tribes. During the Middle Ages several for-tresses stood here, but were destroyed by the Ottoman invaders.

After Bulgaria fell under Ottoman rule, the settlement developed as a centre of crafts and stockbreeding. After Bulgaria’s liberation from Ottoman domination in 1878, tobacco

growing was developed and the town grew rapidly. Doupnitsa, as the town was then called, was the birth place of an outstanding figure in the Bulgarian Communist Party, Stanke Dimitrov (1899-1944), whose name the town bears today.

Stanke Dimitrov

During the years of popular rule, Stanke Dimitrov developed and is now one of the country’s largest tobacco-producing centres.

Points of interest are the local museum, the old clock tower dating from the end of the 17th century and the Stanke Dimitrov Museum Hotel Rila — (two star), has 14 single rooms, 94 double rooms and 2 suites tours sofia, restaurant, bar, coffee- shop, information desk and souvenir stand. There are filling stations and a repair service station.

A road branches off to the right from Stanke Dimitrov and leads to Kyustendil (population 51,000). Kyustendil dates back thousands of years and is one of the oldest towns in Bulgaria. The Roman conquered it in 46 A.D. and developed it further to their own needs. They named the place ‘a town of springs’. Pautalia grew rapidly in the 3rd century A.D. and became a large trading centre. Lying between Macedonia and Serdica (Sofia), Pautalia’s warm mineral springs and its mild, almost Mediterranean climate turned it into an important spa. According to historical data, the Roman Emperor Ulpia Trajan (98-117) suffered from a skin disease which was cured there.

As a token of gratitude to the God of medicine, Ascelius, he named the town Ulpia Pautalia and contributed to its further developmeat In the 11th century, the town was known as Velbuzhd, and in the 15th century, as Konstantinilli, after the ruler of that time, Konstantin Dragash. Eventually it came to be known as Kyustendil and is today a modem town and a major fruit-growing centre. However, Kyustendil is best known for its mineral water whose temperature is as high as 74°C. It is rich in sulphates and hydrogen sulphates and has various curative properties. There is a modem hydropathic medical centre and therapy includes mud treatment, paraffin wraps, etc. The waters are recommended for treatment of chronic inflammation and generative diseases of the joints, diseases of the peripheral nervous system and the spinal cord, chronic gynaecological disorders, stenlity, chronic intoxication from metals such as lead, bismuth and mercury.

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Bulgarian Slavs settled in this stronghold

Later, probably about the 8th century, the Bulgarian Slavs settled in this stronghold and as they felt secure from external danger, utilized the old building materials of the fortress for new buildings. Semi-dugout dwellings of that day were found, with hard clay floors, wooden walls plastered with clay, and fine stone hearths. Articles used in daily life, such as iron implements, ploughshares, axes, sickles, knives and so on, pottery vessels, bone awls, belts, jewelry and many other objects, reveal different sides of the life of this population at a period when the Bulgarians were forming a united people.

Archaeological excavations and studies in the surroundings of Popina revealed traces of another Slav settlement as well; this one, however, lay at a distance of about 2 km. to the west of the Kale (fort) in a place known as Djezhovi Lozya (the Djezhov’s vineyards). Its three cultural strata correspond to the three stages in the development of a Slav settlement, which was lounded here as early as the 7th century. A primitive type of handmade pottery is typical of the oldest period. The second stratum reveals the introduction of a primitive potter’s wheel which was set in motion by hand private tour istanbul. The pottery of this period was still made by hand, but was finished on the wheel.

Djezhovi Lozya

The uppermost and last stratum belongs to the time in which the Slavs learnt to throw their pottery on an ordinary wheel, which increased production, and at the same time enabled them make pots of a great variety of forms and ornamentation. The excavations of the settlement at Djezhovi Lozya enabled us for the first time to learn something of the life of the Slavs in the earliest period after they settled in the Peninsula. The settlement consisted of a considerable number of dwellings of the dug- out type, gathered in several separate groups. Besides the rectangular stone hearths in the dwellings, cupola-shaped ovens had been built of clay outside in the yards.

The local production of pots is evidenced by the presence of patters’ kilns. One of them is in an excellent state of preservation, and shows its particular construction. It is round, made of clay, with a hearth and a thick grid on which the unbaked clay vessels were placed to be fired. About 70 pots in a great variety of forms were found around this kiln, as well as a heap of the clay used in making them. These pots were thrown on a hand-worked wheel, and therefore belong to the second period of the settlement. Among the pots of the earliest period, the small clay dishes, used in baking bread on the hearth, are of particular interest.

Most of them, like the pots, are not ornamented. The pottery of the second stratum is mostly ornamented, however, with groups of undulating or horizontal lines placed at certain intervals. The pottery of the third and uppermost stratum is widely known with its undulating and horizontal lines, often combined, or with its polished bands, forming a network of diamond-shaped ornaments. It is precisely this type of pottery with polished bands, which certain scholars ascribe to the proto-Bulgarians.

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WORKING HOURS AND OFFICIAL HOLIDAYS

Eastern European time is in force in Bulgaria. When it is 12 a.m. in Sofia, in Belgrade, Budapest, Vienna, Warsaw, Prague Paris and Rome it is 11 a.m., in London – 10 a.m., in Washington and Ottawa – 5 a.m., and in Moscow – 1 p.m. Institutions work usually from 8.00 to 12.00 a.m. and from 1.00 to 5.00 p.m. Official holidays are: January 1 – New Year, May 1 and 2 – Labour Day, May 24 – Day of Bulgarian Education and Culture and of Slav Letters, September 9 and 10 — Freedom Day, and November 7 – the Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution.

TOURIST ORGANIZATIONS

Balkantourist – State Economic Trust for home and international tourism under the Committee for Recreation and Tourism in Bulgaria, Sofia, 37, Dondoukov Blvd, tel. 88-44-30 and 88-41-77. It offers all kinds of tourist services. It has a wide network of hotels of different classes, motels, camp sites, private lodgings, restaurants, night clubs and places of entertainment, auto transport and tourist ships. It exchanges foreign currency, organizes excursions in the country and abroad, organizes group or individual holidays in the popular Black Sea resorts of Zlatni Pyassatsi, Drouzhba, Slunchev Bryag and Albena, as well as at the mountain resorts of Borovets, Pamporovo and Aleko; organizes the holding of international meetings, con-ferences, symposia and congresses by placing at their disposal halls, technical equipment, qualified staff, etc.; supplies guides and settles all formalities in connection with passports and other documents private tours bulgaria.

Bureaux of the National Tourist Information Service

Sofia, 37 Dondukov Blvd 88-06-55 Plovdiv, 39 Vassil Kolarov St. 2-48-71 Vama, 1 Moussala Square 2-28-03 Bourgas, 1 Slivnitsa St. 4-55-50 Veliko Tumovo, Velchova Zavera Sq. 2-14-45 Pleven, 2 S. Alexiev St. 20-95 Tolbukhin, 1 V. Kolarov St. 23-16 Haskovo, Aida Hotel 50-75

Balkantourist Bureaux

Sofia, 37 Dondukov Blvd 87-44-81 Plovdiv, 35 V. Kolarov St. 2-25-60 Varna, 3 Moussala St. 2-26-50 Bourgas, 2 First of May St. 4-55-53 Veliko Turnovo, 1 V. Levski St. 2-02-36 Rousse, 1 R. Daskalov St. 2-24-06 Zlatni Pyassatsi 6-52-27 Slunchev Bryag 488 Drouzhba 6-13-01

Information and details can be obtained at the agencies of the Committee for Tourism.

SHIPKA Agency for Travel and Tourism at the Union of Bulgarian Motorists, Sofia, 6 Sveta Sofia St., tel. 87-88-01: runs camp sites and offers all kinds of tourist services to foreign motorists and other guests – reservations, organization of excursions, car hire, currency exchange, sale of vouchers for gasoline and oils, route maps, badges, etc.

PIRIN Tourist Bureau at the Central Council of the Bulgarian Hikers’ Union, Sofia, 8 Lenin Square, tel. 87-05-79. Telex: Sofia 357. Runs its own resort on the Black Sea — the Kamchiya Resort Complex, as well as resorts on all Bulgarian mountains and in many towns. Organizes excursions along the Black Sea coast and to various parts of the country.

ORBITA Bureau for International Youth Tourism – Sofia, 76 Anton Ivanov Blvd. tel. 65-29-52. Cables: Orbitur; Telex – 22381 Orbita. Runs the well-known International Resort Complex of Primorsko as well as certain places in Varna. The bureau organizes excursions all over the country.

Agencies: Pleven, 180 G. Dimitrov St., in Kailuka Hotel; Vama, 25 V. Kolarov St., Orbita Hotel.

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DROUZHBA

This was the first resort complex built on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast. Its construction started in 1946 and today it has 20 odern hotels with 3,000 beds, many restaurants and folk taverns, bungalows with 200 beds and a camp site for 1,500.

Situated 10 km to the north of Varna and 7 km to the south of Zlatni Pyassatsi. Temperature of the air in July – 22-23°C, and of the water during the whole season — from 23 to 27°C.

There are volleyball and tennis courts, equipment for table tennis and for water sports (scooters, water skis and pedaloes) available for holidaymakers.

On the beach, not far from Varna Restaurant, there is a large pool with mineral water, the temperature of which at source is 48°C. At the Riviera Hotel, which is open throughout the year, there is also a pool with warm mineral water.

Next to the bus stop in front of Chernomorets Hotel is the medical centre and the pharmacy (tel. 6-10-31). In urgent cases medical care is administered in the patient’s hotel room.

Zlatni Pyassatsi

The resort is connected by regular bus services with Varna and Zlatni Pyassatsi.

Round the clock taxi service. Telephones guided tour ephesus: 6-52-19, 2-22-33 and 6-56-75.

The post office is next to Chernomorets Hotel and is open from 7.00 a.m. to 10.00 p.m.

Shops for personal services are situated north of the central bus stop. The hairdresser’s is between Manastirska Izba Restaurant and Odessos Hotel.

Every hotel has a car park. You can have your car repaired at the service shop which is next to the filling station, as well as at the automobile service shop of Balkantourist at Zlatni Pyassatsi (tel. 6-53-16). The filling station is open round the clock.

Interesting places:

Manastirska Izba – a restaurant, open from 7.00 a.m. to

12.0 p.m. The bar is open until 4.00 a.m. Tel. 6-11-77.

Sedemte Odai Restaurant. Situated next to the Manastirska Izba. Open from 5.00 p.m. to 12.00 p.m.

Chernomorets Tavern. An interesting programme by Bulgarian and foreign musicians. Open from 10.00 p.m. to 4.00 a.m. Tel. 6-13-13.

In July and August concerts by folklore ensembles from all over the country are given here.

Souvenirs and craft articles can be found in the little shops next to Chernomorets Restaurant and close to the Manastirska Izba.

More information can be obtained at the tourist bureaux in Chernomorets Restaurant (tel. 6-13-01) and Roubin Hotel (tel. 6-10-20).

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Snowdon or Helvellyn

To some such city, then, we may look in the future. A city where our noble river will flow so bright and clear that our young people can swim in it with pleasure as they do at Paris. A city where we shall again see the blessed sun in a clear blue sky, and watch the steeples and the towers as they do at Paris shining aloft in the bright air. A city which at night will be radiant with the electric light, in the midst of which fountains, as at Rome, will pour forth fresh rivers from the hills — a river in our case of perennial water that has fallen from Snowdon or Helvellyn.

A city where all noxious refuse is absolutely unknown, where no deadly exhalations are pumped into our homes, where a child can drink a glass of water from the tap or the street fountain and sleep in its garret at home with entire impunity, a city where typhus and typhoid, smallpox, zymotic disease, shall be as rare as the plague, and as much a matter of history as the leprosy. A city where the dead shall no longer be a terror to the living, no longer despatched unremembered to some distant burial- place, but kept in our midst — at once a source of reverent memory and of beautiful adornment.

A city where preventable disease is a crime to be charged against some one, and an opprobrium to the district in which it breaks out, like a murder or a burglary. A city where no child shall go untaught because it has no suitable school at hand. A city where no man should go without books, pictures, music, society, art, exercise, or religion, because there were no free libraries at hand, or no museums open when he was at leisure after work, no galleries to look at on a Sunday, no concerts, no parks private tour istanbul, no play-grounds within reach, no free seats in a church which he cared to enter.

II. London in 1894

The Local Government Act of 1888 has undoubtedly added a new impulse to that transformation of London, which historic causes of European range had made neces-sary for more than a generation, and which had been stim-ulated anew by the Parliamentary Redistribution Act of 1885. With the political aspect of these Acts, and with the policy of the London County Council, we have no occasion to concern ourselves in these pages. But the effect of this great municipal reform on the evolution of London as a historic city is too momentous to be passed in silence.

In the first place, London, which a generation ago was an inorganic mass of Parishes variously controlled by obscure Vestries, has been showing in the last decade unexpected tendencies towards organic unity and to evolve an internal organisation. The organic unity has been adjourned, in spite of heroic efforts on many sides, by the natural rivalries between the new Council and the historic Corporation, by differences between the two Houses of Parliament, and by the protracted crisis in the political world. Of all these causes (temporary as true patriots hope) nothing will be said here. In the meantime the spontaneous organisation of London into an aggregate of cities has been one of the most striking of modern movements. It has been greatly stimulated by the two political reforms which created 650,000 voters for London, and divided it into numerous boroughs. These have become real civic organisms of a manageable size; and they have naturally developed a kind of local patriotism, such as was hardly possible to grow up in the vague welter of an unknown and unknowable ‘ Metropolis.’

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Mr. Loftie’s History of London

Till the appearance of Mr. Loftie’s History of London (2 vols. 1883), we had not a single scholarly history of our great city. But for more than two centuries there have been produced a long series of works on the topography and monuments of Paris. And we have now a splendid series of treatises issued by the Municipal Council, the Histoire Gfnirale de Paris, begun in 1865. When I was on the London County Council, I endeavoured to induce the Council to undertake a similar work for London; but I found that, with an annual expenditure of some two millions, the Municipality of London had no power to expend a penny on such an object.

With all this prodigious wealth of historic record beneath our feet as we tread over old Paris, how little do we think of any part of it, as we stroll about new Paris of to-day. We lounge along the boulevards, the quays and ‘places,’ with thoughts intent on galleries and gardens, theatres and shops, thinking as little of the past history of the ground we tread as a fly crawling over a picture by Raphael thinks of high art. Haussmann, and the galleries, the Boulevards, and the opera smother up the story of Paris, much as a fair with its booth, scaffoldings, and advertisements masks the old buildings round some mediaeval market-place. Ceci tuera cela, said Victor Hugo of the book and the Cathedral.

No ! it is not the book which has killed old Paris. It is Haussmann and his imitators, the architectural destroyers, restorers, and aesthetic Huns and Vandals. Not that we deny to Haussmannised Paris some delightful visions, many brilliant, some even beautiful effects. But to most foreign visitors, and perhaps to most modern Parisians, Haussmann has buried old Paris both actually and morally — hiding it behind a screen private guide turkey, disguising it with new imitation work, or dazzling the eye till it loses all sense of beauty in the old work.

Paris certainly imposes a strain on the imagination

The effort to recall old Paris when we stand in new Paris certainly imposes a strain on the imagination. When we stand on some bright morning in early summer in the Place de la Concorde whilst all is gaiety and life, children playing in the gardens, the fountains sparkling in the sun, and long vistas of white stone glistening in the light, with towers, spires, terraces, and bridges in long perspective, and the golden cross high over the dome of the Invalides, it is not easy to recall the aspect of the spot we stand on when it was soaked with the blood of the victims of the guillotine from King and Queen to Madame Roland and Charlotte Corday; we forget that every tower and terrace we look on has resounded to the roar of cannon and the shouts of battle, with fire and smoke, with all the forces of destruction and all the passions of hell — not once or twice but repeatedly for a century; nay, how the same scenes of carnage and of battle have raged through Revolution and Fronde, League and St. Bartholomew, and English wars and feudal faction fights back to the days of Counts of Paris, and Franks, Huns, Gauls, and Romans. And after all these storms, the city still smiles on us as a miracle of gaiety, brightness, industry, and culture, keeping some scar, or remnant, or sign of every tempest it has witnessed.

It has happened to us at times to stand on some beautiful coast on one of those lovely days which succeed a storm, when ripples dance along the blue and waveless sea, whilst the glassy water gently laps the pebbled beach, and yet but a few hours before we have seen that same coast lashed into foam, whilst wild billows swept into the abyss precious things and priceless lives of men. So I often think Paris looks in its brightness and calm a few short years after one of her convulsions; fulfilling her ancient motto —Jluctuat nec mergitur. Her bark rides upon every billow and does not sink. Fresh triumphs of industry and art and knowledge follow upon her wildest storm.

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Xenophon or even Plutarch

Seventy years ago, Greek (or Romaic as it was called) was a tongue only spoken by certain classes in certain places; and it was in no sense the language of Xenophon or even Plutarch. None but a few scholars were familiar with the term Hellenes, or with anything of Hellenic history or literature. The cultivated men of Greece have now placed the current Hellenic tongue much nearer to that of Plutarch than our English is like that of Chaucer; and news-papers, written in a language which Herodotus could easily follow, are circulated as far as Trieste and Constantinople. After two thousand years, a language, which is practically the Greek of literature, is again paramount from Corfu to Crete, from Larissa to Cerigo, from the Ionian islands to the Sporades.

The ancient names, the ancient architecture, the ancient taste for reading, are revived. The effect is that of an illusion. One’s guide is Sophocles, and the cab-driver is Themistocles; one drives along the f0So? ‘Ep/xov, and at every street corner one sees a name familiar to us in Thucydides and Aristophanes, and many an absurd compound, such as?, or tramway. Of course much of all this is artificial, and irresistibly comic, like the solemn revival of Olympian Games daily ephesus tours. But there is enough below the surface to be counted as one of the most curious examples of the subjective filiation of ideas to be met with in modern times. And it is a truly pathetic illustration of the imperishable fascination exerted over all after ages, by the genius of ancient Hellas.

Hellenic blood

The revival is the more interesting, since few competent observers believe in the survival of Hellenic blood. It is needless here to touch on the obstinate dispute as to how much of the blood of the Hellenes runs in the veins of the modern Greek people. In certain islands, in parts of Peloponnesus, in certain mountain districts, it may do so to a qualified extent. In some parts of the mainland, it is perhaps almost wholly extinct, and Attica is one of the districts where the immortal fluid is the thinnest of all. When we consider how greatly Athens, its ports, mines, and territories, was even in ancient times, peopled with alien blood; how that, from Christian times until the present generation, the population of Athens had sunk to that of a village; when we read Gibbon’s scathing picture of what Athens was a hundred years ago, or even Byron’s prose account of it eighty years ago; when we learn that sixty years ago, when it became a capital, it had only 300 houses, and a mixed population — it is physically certain that the 130,000 inhabitants of Athens and the Piraeus must be mainly an immigrant people.

The fact that the recrudescence of the old Attic salt, even in its peculiarities and foibles, must be due to some intellectual filiation of ideals and habits, and not at all to race inheritance, makes the sight of the re-Hellenization of Hellas the more interesting as a study. If we read Byron’s melancholy picture of Athens and the Athenians, whilst we roam in the bright and ambitious city of King George to-day, we may note one of the most singular transformations that modern history can show us. Where the poet found only a few abject slaves, we may now see one of the most busy political towns in Europe. To see pure democracy, as described by Aristophanes, we should go, not to New York, Paris, or East London, but to Athens; and there watch Demos in his native cradle, under the sky of Athene,, and in full view of Propylaea and Pnyx, listening with passionate keenness to his favourite orator, who, in the language of Pericles or Cleon, is extolling the future of the Hellenic idea.

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ROME REVISITED

The citizen of the future will live in a City, through which silver streams will flow, in which the air will be spotless of soot, when water will bubble forth in fountains and reservoirs at every corner, where gardens, promenades, open squares, flowers, green lawns, porticos, and noble monuments will abound; the air and water as fresh as at Bern, with gardens, statues as plentiful as they are in Paris, and more beautiful in art. At Rome, the citizen was reminded at every turn of his country’s history by some monument, shrine, bust, or statue. There is but one city of the modern world — the French capital, where any attempt is made to develop this noble instrument of city life.

Museums, statues, galleries, colleges, schools, and public halls will no longer be concentrated in overgrown capitals; they will be universal in every moderate town. No town would be worth living in, if it does not offer a free library, a good art-gallery, lecture and music halls, baths, and gymnasia — free to all and within reach of all. To use all these, we shall need a day of rest in the week, as well as a day of worship on Sunday. Every citizen will be free of all the resources needed to cultivate his body, his mind, his heart: — his enjoyment of life, health, skill, and grace, his sense of beauty, his desire for society, his thirst for knowledge. If he does not use these resources, the fault will be his.

These things are not to be had by Acts of Parliament, nor by multiplying Inspectors, nor perhaps by any single machinery whatever. Ideals are realised slowly, by long efforts, after many failures and constant mistakes. To reach ideals we have to reach a higher social morality, an enlarged conception of human life, a more humane type of religious duty coastal bulgaria holidays.

ROME REVISITED

He who revisits Rome to-day in these busy times of King Umberto, having known the Eternal City of the last generation in the torpid reign of Pio Nono, cannot stifle the poignant sense of having lost one of the most rare visions that this earth had ever to present. The Colosseum, it is true, the Forum, the Vatican, and St. Peter’s are there still; the antiquarians make constant new discoveries — fresh sites, statues, palaces, tombs, and museums are year by year revealed to the eager tourist; and many a cloister and chapel, once hermetically closed, is now a public show. But the light and poetry have gone out of Rome for ever. Vast historic convents are cold and silent as the grave, and the Papal city is like a mediaeval town under interdict. French boulevards are being driven through the embattled strongholds of Colonnas and Orsinis, and omnibus and tram-car roll through the Forum of Trajan, and by the Golden House of Nero. The yellow Tiber now peacefully flows between granite quays, but the mouldering palaces and the festooned arches that Piranesi loved have been improved away.

One who is neither codino, ultramontane, nor pessimist may still utter one groan of regret for the halo that once enveloped Rome. We may know that it was inevitable, that it was the price of a nation’s life, and yet feel the sorrow which is due to the passing away of some majestic thing that the world can never see again. It is now twenty years since the late Professor Freeman, then visiting Rome for the first time, wrote as his forecast that if Rome, as the capital of Italy, should grow and flourish, a great part of its unique charm would be lost, and the havoc to be wrought in its antiquities would be frightful. The havoc is wrought; the charm is gone, in spite of startling discoveries and whole museums full of new antiquities. It had to be.

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Old intellectual system was discredited

This suggests a fourfold division: the school of thought whereby the old intellectual system was discredited; that by which the old political system was destroyed; those who laboured to construct a new intellectual and moral basis of society; and those who sought to construct a new social and political system. These schools and teachers, writers and politicians, cannot be rigidly separated from each other. Each overlaps the other, and most of them combine the characteristics of all in more or less degree. The most pugnacious of the critics did something in the way of reconstructing the intellectual basis.

The most constructive spirits of the new world did much both directly and indirectly to destroy the old. Critics of the orthodox faith were really destroying the throne and the ancient rule, even when they least designed it. Orthodox supporters of radical reforms rung the knell of the mediaeval faith as much as that of the mediaeval society. The spiritual and temporal organisation of human life had grown up together; and in death it was not divided guided tours istanbul.

Revolution at hand

All through the eighteenth century the intellectual movement was gathering vitality and volume. From the opening years of the epoch the genius of Leibnitz saw the inevitable effect the movement must have upon the old society; and, in his memorable prophecy of the Revolution at hand (1704), he warned the chiefs of that society to prepare for the storm. For three generations France seemed to live only in thought. Action descended to the vilest and most petty level which her history had ever reached. From the death of Colbert, in 1683, until the ministry of Turgot, in 1774, France seemed to have lost the race of great statesmen, and to be delivered over to the intriguer and the sycophant. Well may the historian say that in passing from the politicians of the reign of Louis xv. to the thinkers of the same epoch, we seem to be passing from the world of the pigmies to that of the Titans. Into the world of ideas France flung herself with passion and with hope.

The wonderful accumulation of scientific discoveries which followed the achievements of Newton reacted powerfully on religious thought, and even on practical policy. Mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, began to assume the outlined proportion of coherent sciences; and some vague sense of their connection and real unity filled the mind of all.

Out of the physical sciences there emerged a dim conception of a crowning human science, which it was the grand achievement of the eighteenth century to found. History ceased to be a branch of literature; it began to have practical uses for mankind of to-day; and slowly it was recognised as the momentous life-story of man, the autobiography of the human race. Europe no longer absorbed the interest of cultivated thought. The unity of the planet, the community of all who dwell on it, gave a new colour to the whole range of thought; and as the old dogmas of the supernatural Church began to lose their hold on the mind, the new-born enthusiasm of humanity began to fill all hearts.