To renew our year's visa in the Ukraine, missionaries are sent to Sofia, Bulgaria. We left Tuesday morning (August 17), flying by Austrian Airlines to Vienna and then to Sofia. Our airplane is in the center back and we took the bus (front right) there. When we landed I felt like we had returned to the Wasatch front with a wide, relatively dry valley and mountains on the horizon. The altitude is only 1,800 ft but we noticed the air was lighter, drier. I oriented myself as if I were in Utah with higher mountains on the east. When we were leaving early Thursday morning and the sun was coming up in the "west" I noticed my error!
Missionaries from Sofia picked us up at the airport. We stopped at the mission office/mission president's residence/church house. This building was formerly an embassy building.
We walked to a restaurant for dinner and then were taken to our small but cozy hotel.
The missionaries took our passports and visa paperwork. They took care of getting the visas processed on Wednesday while we had that day for sightseeing. We took a bus tour of the city on a double-decker bus which was very enjoyable.
Central to the city is the St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. It was built between 1904 and 1912.
Close by is the National Assembly, the country's parliament building and square. The road in that area is paved with golden bricks that were a gift.
This monument commemorates Alexander II of Russia who helped Bulgaria throw off the rule of the Ottoman Turks in 1878. Bulgaria was a monarchy until after WW I when it was ruled by Communists but it was not a part of the USSR. After 1990 multi-party elections were allowed and Bulgaria transitioned to democracy and a free-market economy.
These are buildings we drove by on the tour that I won't attempt to identify.
This church, St. Sofia, is one of the oldest, having been built on bases that date from the 4th century. It was completed in the 6th century and has been repaired or reconstructed several times. Underneath are archeological excavations of tombs dating from the 2nd century BC to the 2nd century AD!
The statute in the middle of the road (where work is being done on the subway) used to be one of Lenin, but is now a female Sofia.
This building is the National Palace of Culture, a large structure for conventions, exhibitions, shows, etc. We were told it had as much steel in it as the Eiffel Tower. Obviously McDonald's has a big presence in Bulgaria like it does in Ukraine. But they do have Burger King, KFC, and Subway in Sofia.
After the bus tour we walked past the Sofia University (of St Clement of Ohrid)
and the national library with a statue to Cyril and Methodius, brothers and missionaries from Thessalonika, Greece, who were sent to Bugaria, created an alphabet to write the slavic language and then began translated the Bible into Old Church Slavonic. The Cyrillic alphabet descendants are still used in writing Russian, Ukrainian, and Bulgarian
We enjoyed walking back to our hotel along clean tree-lined streets. For dinner we walked around the corner from our hotel to this little restaurant to enjoy the local cuisine.
In the cool of the evening, we passed the fence of the military academy, made of rifle barrels!
We arrived at the Serdika Mal to enjoy gelato. Serdica is the name given Sofia in historical accounts of Roman military campaigns in 59 BC. This mall has stores for every brand name you can think of. Bulgaria is part of the European Union, though the economy hasn't been strong enough to join them financially with the Euro. Their coinage is based on the leva which was exchanging at 1.34:1US$ when we were there.
