Some impressions of Sofia

Many places in the world brag about being a crossroad between cultures and civilizations. In the case of Sofia is absolutely true. In the centre, just on a few square kilometres, there are Bulgarian Orthodox cathedrals, A Russian Orthodox Church, a catholic one, a mosque and a synagogue. In less than a century, the country passed from Turkish domination to independence with some Russian influence, to be part of the communist block, and can you see traces of all of this in question of meters.

  
 My favourite building is the old headquarters of the Workers Party. It is a big white, impressive building in a neoclassical style (nominally socialist). I like to approach to the building walking from home and see the statue of Serdika in front of it. Until 1991 it had a red star on the top of the building, that people thought was made of rubies. Now there is a Bulgarian flag instead. The star is currently in the socialist art museum and is not so valuable. Is only made of red colour glass.

  Sofia is an open city, where you never feel trapped, like happens in many country capitals. It is not too big and is full of wide spaces. There is plenty of parks in the city and boulevards. And behind the buildings you can always see the mountains. One of my favourites views of Sofia is, during clear days, Vitosha Mountain seen from the boulevard of the same name, appearing behind NDK Palace of Culture.

 About the parks there are two that I specially like: Borisovna Gradina and Ivan Vazov Theater Park. Borisovna is really big, until the point you can get lost in it, and has some magic in it. The other is the perfect to sit and admire the fountain and the beautiful building of the Theatre and others surrounding. That’s way there is always people chilling and drinking beer I guess.

 One historical character that is omnipresent in Sofia is Vasil Levski, the great martyr of independence. There is a football stadium, and there is an avenue. There is a monument and there is a statue in a park. You can see his picture in many public buildings, in books in the libraries, even in graffities in the walls. You can even see his personal belongings in the History Museum. If glory exists if what Vasil Levski achieved.

 The public transport is very good. You have a well connected net with the combination of trams, trolleys and metro. Even if the trams and trolleys are in many cases very old they work pretty well. In most stops you have electronic boards announcing how minutes are left until the next bus or tram arrives. The transports are rarely crowded, even at the time everybody is going out of work. The subway is very modern, it has only about ten years and is still being extended to new quarters, one good point about being in the EU, I suppose.

  Life in Sofia is calmed, very calmed for a capital, not to confuse with boring. There is not much traffic, even if people from other parts of Bulgaria say is horrific. People walk slowly in the streets and there is not too much noise, so you never feel stressed because of the ambience. For now the city is not full of tourists, there are, but not the point they start to bother you. May be that change in years to come, I hope not.

 Of course not everything is perfect in the city. There is lot of streets where the pavement is awful and needs an urgent repairing. Many buildings are in need of being fixed, at least on the outside. There are also hundreds of beggars and mad people walking around, but no more than, for example, in Madrid, the capital of my country. It is clear for me that Sofia could be much beautiful than it is now, but my general impression is that is improving little by little.