WHERE IS DOBRICH?

Аt first glance Dobrich might disappoint. The town is in the heart of Dobrudzha, in a region that's one of the first where the Proto-Bulgars settled at the end of the 7th century. Nothing of note has remained from these early times; after the Pecheneg inroads in the 11th century, this part of Dobrudzha remained depopulated for centuries. The precursor of Dobrich appeared in the 16th century, in Ottoman times. Its name was Hadjioglu Pazardzhik. For a couple of decades the settlement expanded thanks to its location on important merchant routes, and was home to thousands of people – Turks and Bulgarian settlers from far and wide.

In 1851 a big fair was started in the town, attracting merchants from across the region. In the 1860s a telegraph connection with Varna was opened, a post office, a hospital and a town park.

One of the first things that the people of Hadjioglu Pazardzhik did after 1878 was to change its name – Dobrich was introduced in 1882 to commemorate the medieval Bulgarian ruler Dobrotitsa, who governed the so-called Dobrudzha despotship in the 14th century. The whole region was named after him.

The first years of the 20th century brought trauma. Dobrich was among the towns that Romania gained in 1913 as a result of the Second Balkan War. Liberating the town and the entire region was a priority for Bulgaria during the First World War, and on 5 to 7 September 1916 Bulgarian troops assisted by Ottoman and German allies succeeded in taking back Dobrich from united Romanian and Russian forces. What has gone down in history as the  Dobrich Epic is poorly known among today's Bulgarians. Under Communism, it was scratched off history textbooks because it did not match the dominant narrative according to which Russians were liberators and eternal friends while Ottomans were oppressors and everlasting enemies.

Copy of a copy of a copy: The first known evidence of a clocktower in Dobrich dates back to 1762. In the following decades, it fell into disrepair and was restored – or rebuilt – several times. Its demolition by the Communist authorities in 1965 was followed by yet another restoration, 20 years later. Its clockwork was made by a Bulgarian artisan who used as a model the original mechanisms of the clocktowers in Elena, Dryanovo and Tryavna

Against this background one of the sites of interest in modern Dobrich is the largest military cemetery in Bulgaria, which dates back to the First World War. It keeps the remains of more than 3,000 soldiers from seven nationalities (Bulgarians, Russians, Romanians, Germans, Turks, Serbs and Jews). The cemetery was created immediately after the fighting of September 1916 on the site that used to host the Dobrich Fair.

When Communism arrived, Dobrich changed its name again. In 1949 maps were redrawn to include Tolbuhin, the Soviet general who led the Red Army into Bulgaria, instigating the 9 September 1944 Communist coup.

Half a century previously Dobrich had started to change quickly. New elegant buildings in the European fashion rose beside old mosques and traditional-style houses. The Romanian administration started building large-scale Baroque buildings to house various administrative services – and thanks to this period of construction a moment came when Dobrich became known as Little Bucharest.

The Bulgaria Hotel in Dobrich was a part of the Communist government's plan to equip every bigger city with a major representative hotel 

Yet nothing has remained from the Little Bucharest today.

When the communists came to power, they started a number of large-scale urban development projects – such as building a sports centre, a lake in the town park, and tarmacking the cobblestone streets. In the early 1960s the first secretary of the district committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party decided that Tolbuhin was to sever its links with its "bourgeois" past once and for all. An additional reason was that the old downtown streets were ill-suited for holding rallies and marches the Communists were so fond of. The functionary's enthusiasm proved infectious, and soon the entire local Communist Party structure was overwhelmed by a desire to change the town's appearance. A leading Party functionary went as far as to tell newly admitted members: "Comrades, be patriots! Tolbuhin must acquire an European face! We are about to start knocking down and then building – all the way to the last bridge."

Demolition started in 1963 – and did not stop until nearly all old buildings in town were knocked down, including the central square and the 18th-century clock tower, the town's emblem. Demolishing the tower was the only moment when residents assembled in something of a protest – hundreds of people came together to witness as the old building was being razed to the ground. Many wept.

This roadside statue, also made under Communism, represents the fertility of the Dobrudzha region, where Dobrich is located

But the Party top were satisfied with the Dobrich initiative, and decorated the originators of this series of demolitions with state posts, including ministerial. Elsewhere across the country, Party functionaries took note and also started demolishing the central areas of their towns' old quarters.

The old was replaced by wide, rally-friendly squares paved with slippery marble slabs, Brutalist administrative buildings and prefabricated housing estates.

There are few buildings today in Dobrich that have survived the demolition spree of the 1960s and the 1970s. Among them are, for example, the 19th-century-built St George Church, the St Trinity Church from the early 20th century, and the synagogue. The latter is nothing remarkable on the outside, and has been used as a choir rehearsal hall since the 1950s.

Standing at five metres tall, the statues of Asparuh's soldiers symbolise the unity of Bulgarians

But in the 1970s the town administration sensed that the new Dobrich somehow should demonstrate some historical connection with the past. And not just any past but the one that is a connection with the Bulgarians. This is how the idea of an idealised Old Dobrich was born – it was a Dobrich from the Revival Period, before the "malignant" influence of European bourgeoisie, without any trace of the Ottomans. In 1973 the town centre saw the start of the construction of the so-called Old Dobrich ethnographic complex. It consists of several Bulgarian houses in traditional style that are home to traditional craft shops. The Clock Tower was re-erected nearby in 1985, 20 years after the destruction of the original.

During the Communist period, another city symbol appeared: a massive monument of Khan Asparuh, the founder of Bulgaria, and his warriors. It was unveiled in 1981 as part of the nation-wide celebrations of Bulgaria's 1300th anniversary.

Dobrich military cemetery is the resting place of over 3,000 soldiers

Tolbuhin restored its name Dobrich in 1990. It is now of the better well-off Bulgarian towns as it is in the centre of this country's largest and most fertile farming areas. Apart from the remnants of Communism which Dobrich has a-plenty, it offers a wonderful, well-maintained park and a downthrown area lined with restaurants and cafés. And, importantly, the Black Sea is just a stone's throw away.