Abecedarium Anomalous: the story behind photo A

Nessebur, Bulgaria 1986: arched antiquities 5th through 17th centuries—some readers find “A” shapes in the arches.

While all borders were closed, requiring a headache of visa forms and long border-crossing waits, I traveled with my spouse Stuart, son Jason, my sister and her spouse in their Volkswagen camper with tent. We five drove through Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, then-Czechoslovakia, and Poland. Most nights we stayed in campgrounds. Often the campers thought we were either English [hearing us speak] or German [reading the license plates]—no Bulgarians thought Americans would sleep in their campgrounds!

Nessebur dates to the Greek colonization of 500 B.C. and is joined to the mainland by a causeway jutting into the Black Sea. A photographer’s delight: narrow cobble-stone streets winding through hilly terrain—old churches with red brick arch trim—crumbling remains alongside streets of houses in national revival period architecture, upper stories larger than lower.

In Bulgaria we visited the capital city Sofia: excavated Roman remains, old churches resplendent with richly decorative interiors and glittering religious icons, the National Archeological Museum dating to prehistoric times, National Art Gallery housing outstanding art from 1800s to contemporary, the Dimitrov Mausoleum where he lay enbalmed since his 1949 death.

We explored other sites throughout Bulgaria: Thracian tomb dating to 3rd–4th century B.C. at Kazanluk, Thracians the first Bulgarians—Pliska remains from the 7oos, first capital of Bulgaria as a unified state—Preslav 10th-century remains, second capital of Bulgaria, under archeological restoration—the colossal Horseman of Madara, carved by an unknown 8th-century artist on a sandstone cliff face, relief sculpture of a horse carrying a man with lance killing a lion underfoot and a dog running behind.

We drove through the Valley of Roses, marveled at the variety of agriculture, stopped at a lavender processing plant where we were given a heady sample of pungent lavender oil. Along the road we saw billboard signs of a peace dove, globe, and the word “peace” in several languages—also watering places that were usually fountains, one in the Valley of Roses shaped like a rosebud in stone.

We visited Etara, near Gabrovo, an architectural and ethnographic open-air museum of structures dating to the national revival period when Bulgarians rebelled against 500 years of Turkish rule in 1876—one hundred years following the American revolution.

Throughout the country we were impressed by the archeological museums and preserved remains of ancient Bulgaria juxtaposed with massive monuments to the heroes of the 1876 revolution: statuary of heroic proportions, kings and commoners and historic figures.