Seasoned ancient mariners caught in a storm along the west Black Sea coast would become weary when they saw a light, indicating the nearby presence of terra firma. This did not always mean that there was a safe haven nearby. Sometimes, people living on the shore would set fires along treacherous cliffs to lure hapless ships to their demise. Then they would rob the wreck.
In the spring of 335 BC, Alexander III, the new king of Macedon, was climbing a hill in Thrace. It was not an ordinary hill, but a rocky stronghold of fortifications, houses and towers, protecting something famed across the ancient world: the Thracian sanctuary of Dionysus. There, the god's will was revealed when wine was poured onto the flames of a sacred altar – one that had never been known to fail in its predictions.
Мen dressed in early 20th century military uniforms, patriotic songs and speeches, lots of banners and grilled meat stalls: the people who flock to a pristine meadow, overshadowed by a sombre stone monument in the Strandzha, in the third weekend of August, are here for a purpose.
Their annual gathering, at Petrova Niva, or Peter's Field, at a picturesque bend of the Veleka River, marks a heroic and traumatic event in Bulgarian history, the St Elijah-Transfiguration Uprising.
A small, neat bag full with dried lavender: the souvenir is ubiquitous in Mediterranean countries. It should be in the portfolio of Bulgarian souvenirs, too, along with vials of rose water. For over a decade now, this country has been the world's leader in production of fine lavender.
Тhe Black Sea is a geographical curiosity. Until recently (in geological terms), it was a big lake locked between Europe and Asia, gorging on the waters of scores of rivers. About 6,500 to 7,500 years ago, it filled to the brim, broke through what would become the Dardanelles Straights and connected to the Mediterranean. As its water levels fluctuated up and down, wind blew and rain poured, the cliffs on the new shoreline were relentlessly eaten, beaten and broken. In some places, this neverending process exposed to the elements ancient rocks that had lain buried for aeons.
Small villages and clusters of old, abandoned houses define the Stara Planina mountains around Troyan. Gumoshtnik, whose name is hard to pronounce even for Bulgarians, is one of them. A quiet place, its streets are largely empty and its population is only a fraction of what it was a century ago. The churchyard looks like churchyards across Bulgaria: two monuments to fallen soldiers, an old school and a locked church.
The path down to the grotto drops steeply through oak and hornbeam. By the time you reach the ravine floor the sky has almost disappeared. The light here is greenish and perpetual, unchanged whether it is morning or afternoon, July or October. Water drips somewhere ahead. The air smells of wet stone and something older – soil, perhaps, or time itself.
When the names of the churches were forgotten, the villagers gave them new ones. The Letters. God's Gully. The Buried Church. One they called simply The Church, a name so stripped of detail it somehow contains everything that had been lost. Centuries of monastic life, a scriptorium full of manuscripts, royal burials, eight hundred monks – all of it reduced, in the end, to a name that was really just a gesture toward something irreplaceable and gone.
Мanufacturing building bricks and art hardly ever meet. But as you pass under the red clay arches leading to an assemblage of strange red and black creatures, deformed men and children, and labyrinths of bricks and broken moulds, you will find your disbelief suspended.
The premises are inconspicuous. You are in Cherven Bryag, a quiet industrial town of about 10,000 still reeling from the closure of its old industries, including a tank parts factory and the railway to Oryahovo on the Danube.
Picture this: barefoot men and women in traditional dress, dancing over glowing embers, their faces blank and inward-looking, while a drum and a bagpipe repeat a simple, hypnotic melody that seems to have no beginning and no end. The crowd around them is silent. The night sky above is thick with stars. The embers are very much alive.