European Van Trip 2020-2021

So...
These guards guarding the presidents day to day office have their own guards to prevent people touching them. They are extremely still.

After the president had arrived and driven in, we were able to walk through the arch to see the St George Rotunda, which is not only the oldest intact building in Sofia, but one of the oldest ones in the world. All you can see is original and preserved, not rebuilt in any way, even the roof! You can still go in today.

The Russian Church holds the remains of the pope who laid the first stone of the building, who promised after death to take the wishes of all to god, so people write their wishes to him still now and believe all your wishes will come true there.

Lastly the cathedral, a thanks to the Russians for something, it took 30 years to build, the gold is real gold, and the heaviest of the bells weighs 12 tonnes on its own!!

Shame we didn't get to hear them ring.

Last 2 things we learned that were interesting, the Bulgarians invented their alphabet (not the 'Russian' alphabet as most believe) and its now used by many countries including Russia, Ukraine, Macedonia, Serbia, Kazakhstan etc etc. They are VERY proud of this and hate people asking 'why they use the Russian alphabet'

And the most interesting...
In WW2, they were of course allies with Germany, and were under great pressure to send all their Jewish citizens to the concentration camps.
Due to Bulgaria not having an antisemitic population, there was huge outcry at this and many protest all over the country, particularly Sofia and Plovdiv.
The King knew he had to listen to the Bulgarian people but also didn't want to upset the Germans, so used the excuse of the typical Bulgarian late and unorganised-ness, by coming up with excuse after excuse and wasting time...
'the road out is broken, we need the Jews for 3 more months - times are hard - it's war times - things are taking longer than usual' etc etc 😄
Until eventually they lost the war, and were the only European German allies who managed to save every single Jew! (over 500,000 lives)Weiterlesen