I finally had to bow to the inevitable. The temperature was going to be 2 or 3 degrees hotter than yesterday and
I had felt in considerable mortal jeopardy out on the road between towns yesterday. I took a taxi between Ruse
and Silistra instead of risking my life. Who says that it's too late to grow up?
I'd had a difficult night punctuated by my fingers and arms cramping up and nightmares of riding a bike off a
cliff. By the time the sun rose in all its merciless glory, I was resigned to needing an easier day. While I was
eating the miserable breakfast in the Hotel Grand Riga, the very lovely receptionist arranged for a local taxi
company to take me to Silistra for about €80. The best €80 I've ever spent.
Stefan the life saver
As a result, this post is going to be cycling free but I did get to spend some time exploring Ruse
and then later Silistra nut I have to say that neither place should be on your
must-see-before-I-die-bucket-list.
Bloody hell, this is ugly.
On the morning of October 26th 1975, the residents of Ruse were woken by the sound of bulldozers
destroying the main church in the city centre. The church was razed to the ground in short order and three years
later on the 100th anniversary of the Liberation of Bulgaria (from whom? Who cares?) this monument was unveiled. The
bones of some historical Bulgarian nationalists were re-interred in the monument. I quote a website about the
opening ceremony
Todor Zhivkov, First Secretary of the [Bulgarian] Communist Party and Head of
State, personally attended the opening of the Pantheon, but because of his disappointment with its
appearance, he did not deliver his intended speech or present the designers with the expected state
awards. Instead, he asked whether something should be changed in the appearance of the building to make
it harmonize with Ruse's older architecture. “What is that Turkish bath?!” Zhivkov is said to have
exclaimed. To this day, the people of Ruse have mixed feelings about the huge building, with its golden
dome and strange appearance.
The town planners added the cross at a later stage but, to be honest, I suspect that the people of Ruse don't
actually have “mixed feelings” at all. I tried to get in but a bloke who looked a lot like Peter Pettigrew in the Harry Potter films wouldn't let me in. The cost was 1 LEV and
despite
offering him a €10 note he wasn't swayed. Good to see that bribery has no place in modern Bulgaria.
The rest of Ruse was tired and dusty and very Slavic. Everybody in Bulgaria looks very Bulgarian,
although none as much as this bloke. Moustaches are big in Bulgaria in both senses of the word.
I trudged around Ruse looking at the remnants of neo-classical architecture and the brutalist
communist concrete surrounding them. It was 10:30 and already 40 degrees. I had made a good decision to take the
taxi.
How good a decision it was only became clear as Stefan whizzed out onto Route 21. A single lane highway with a
120 kph speed limit with no bike lane or hard shoulder. This was the route I would have taken — indeed the only
route that I could have taken — and even in the taxi it was utterly terrifying, The road wound its way up and
down rolling hills and on every uphill section, I imagined myself grinding up the hill at 10 kph in the 42
degree
heat as lorries, vans, cars and taxis sped past me with millimetres to spare.
The other thing that quickly became apparent was that there were no Bulgarian equivalents of small run-down
villages with ProfiLocos every 10 km. I would have had to cycle 138 km in 40+ temperatures on this road without
any opportunity to buy liquids. I almost kissed Stefan when I realised this…but I didn't. I just gave him
a
huge tip with a little manly tear of gratitude in my eye.
We arrived at the Hotel Drustar in Silistra about 1pm. On paper, this is the best hotel I'm staying in until I
get to the Marmorosch in Bucharest. It's a
five star hotel, listed as one of Bulgaria's 100 best
hotels and I have a suite. This should be the
Cheval Blanc Maldives but on the Danube. Sadly, in reality, it's a faded rundown
family-run place built in the 1960s and lightly renovated to bring it up to a 1970s standard. However, I
should point out that it's about one fortieth the price of the Cheval Blanc Maldives per night so maybe I
shouldn't complain too much.
Fancy a dip in our pool sir?
There was nothing to do in the hotel.
No sir, we don't have a restaurant or bar until 5pm
in the evening. I was forced out on the streets of Silistra.
Silistra is a little microcosm of the entire history of the Balkans. In AD 12, the Romans founded a fort on the
foundations of an earlier Thracian settlement and kept its name Durostorum. Over the next few centuries it got
larger and then, like everywhere else in the Balkans, the usual mayhem ensued. The Christians took over and
killed everybody,
the Bulgars took over and killed everybody, the Christians took it back, the Bulgars took it over again and
named it Drastar (which is presumably where the name of the Hotel Drustar comes from). By this point we've only
got to about 1,000 AD so I'll spare you the rest of the history up until modern times but trust me, a lot of
people died. By the 20th century there was a barney going on between Romania and Bulgaria about Silistra. At
some convention in 1913, the Great Powers awarded Silistra to Romania. With the “storm clouds of war
gathering”, this wasn't to last — what a surprise — and Bulgaria took advantage of the rest of the world being
distracted by The Great War to take it back in 1916. The Treaty of Neuilly returned it to Romania in 1919 until
the Axis-power-sponsored Treaty of Craiova in 1940 returned it to Bulgaria which was confirmed in the post-war
Paris Treaties.
I realise that the previous paragraph was pretty dense and confusing. I present it as just
one example
of the complex history of literally everywhere in this region. You try reading and understanding
the history of the region when you're completely buggered after riding 150km in an oven.
It's not easy.
When the glorious Bulgarian Communist Party took over in 1944, Silistra was an area ripe for
that sweet, sweet central planning so beloved of communists. There was a
significant population increase over the
coming decades and at its peak in the 1980s Silistra had a population of
over 70,000 all of them working in the docks, agriculture and heavy
industry while living in endless crumbling communist apartment blocks.
The population is now less than 30,000 as the industries succumbed to the
chill winds of capitalism and inhabitants migrated to Sofia or abroad.
I had a whole afternoon to explore Silistra. What delights awaited me?
It's a brutalist communist monument…with a
tank!!
I wandered through the baking streets — giving thanks to the
gods of cycling that I had made the right decision — searching out the
three Silistra museums. The first, the “local history museum” was locked up derelict
and had a very strong “meth factory” vibe to it and so it was on to the Archeology Museum.
A lot less “crack house”.
As I wandered into the reception, a couple of blokes who were playing football on the other
side of the street came running over shouting at me which is
always a slightly sphincter-clenching moment in places like this. However, it
turned out they were the curators of the museum and, for the equivalent of 40p,
they turned on the lighting and let me in.
I know that everybody is waiting for the snarky asides about crap displays and underwhelming artifacts
but…surprise...this museum was utterly transfixing. Probably
the best display of artifacts ranging from the Palaeolithic to the Romans I have
ever seen. Here is a very small selection of the photographs I took.
Just stuck in some house
Massive display of Palaeolithic axe heads
Everything documented and there to touch if you
want
These Roman bronze figurines from 300AD were
exquisite.
From the bits of brass they have found in a tomb
they have recreated a Roman chariot
As I went in, I was silently rehearsing my snarky lines for the blog post but I was blown
away. The curator showed me round and explained
some of the artifacts to me in amusingly incomprehensible
English — there were a lot of English signs on the exhibits so I got the gist. Because I was such an
appreciative visitor or maybe because I was the only visitor,
he took me round the back to the locked area which contained the silver and golden
artifacts. It was forbidden to take photographs but they
had gold coins from the time of Alexander the Great
through the the early Christian period and some
utterly exquisite Roman gold rings and earrings. I am honestly
not going over the top when I say it was the most
detailed and complete display of pre-Roman,
Roman and post-Roman finds I have ever seen. The British Museum pales by comparison.
This, I guess, should not be surprising. In the UK we get excited because somebody discovers a broken Roman pot
somewhere near Chelmsford. This area around Silistra was heavily occupied by the Romans for centuries and the
incredible fertility of the land means that people have lived here for 50,000 years. Wherever you dig, there are
archeological treasures.
Next stop was the Ethnographic museum which I eventually
found at the end of a dog-shit strewn side alley.
Not promising
A bit more promising
Little asid here:
Being in Bulgaria is being back in cyrillic land. It's very very hard not to think of yourself as some
sort of Jim Prideaux on a mission for “C” in the old Soviet Union. You start to get your eye in for
cyrillic and once you've worked out that Г
is“g” (like gamma) and П
is
“p” (like “pi”) and И
is
“e” (like a backwards N which is mad) and Ф
is
“f” (like “phi”) you can start to work out the signs. Also, you
feel a bit like a cool British spy.
Sad I know.
Like the Archeological museum, it was manned (sorry “personned”) by an enthusiast. A twinkly old lady and I
communicated via Google Translate which resulted in a special discount on
the entry due to me being over 55 and, for
approximately 40p again, I was in. She explained — thank you
Google Translate — that the displays were on
two floors and if I wished “to rub myself on the displays” this was permitted.
The exhibits weren't quite as special as the archeological museum but what they lacked in wow-factor
value, they gained because they were all there to rub myself on.
Bagpipes,
bread and cloth. Just pick them up. I didn't rub myself on them.
On so many levels this was a bonkers place. Real artifacts from the 13th century behind
a little bit of rope with little or no organisation and amusing mis-translations into English. But I loved it.
A sewing machine, a lathe
and some sort of metal
thing that makes buttons.
Once again, I wouldn't cancel your holiday to Washington DC to see the Smithsonian Air and
Space Museum — the best museum in the world ever — in order to go to Silistra but visiting this
sort of museum one of the reasons for doing these sorts of bike trips. You get stuck in somewhere that you'll never
ever visit without cycling through it and discover little gems like this and the previous museum.
Apart from this, the rest of Silistra has a very strong East Kilbride town centre vibe.
Just missing a Greggs.
My “five star” hotel opened the restaurant and bar at 5pm and I ate very mediocre food in a surreal
atmosphere. The main course had a suspicious “Maiden's Delight” feel to it and
I'm sure that there's a great
Ph.D thesis to be written entitled “Phallic Symbols in Balkan Cuisine”.
I was the only person eating here
The food was mediocre although thank god, it wasn't another Pizza Diavola but the view from
the terrace is out of this world. The wine was acceptable and
astonishingly cheap which was probably more
important than the food to be honest.
Definitely a “wow” moment.
For those of you following these posts to read tales of cycling derring do and buckling swash on a
bike, I apologise for wimping out today and having to fill the post with pictures of Roman coins and Cumbernauld
level architecture. However, quoting Julius Caesar.
No one is so brave that he his not disturbed by something unexpected.
I didn't expect four days in a row in 40 degrees plus temperature.
Tomorrow is the last day. From here to the Black Sea is 133 km. I cross back into Romania
soon after starting and I've
checked the route and there are ProfiLocos every 20km. The weather is forecast to be a couple of degrees cooler
than it's been over the past few days. However, rather foolishly, it appears that I have constructed the whole
Vienna to
the Black Sea route so that the last day is the “Queen Stage” — the stage with the most climbing in it. There
are eight quite hard climbs tomorrow but it's short. I can do this. Next
post from the shores of the Black Sea
and this time it'll have some cycling in it.
Smart move Ewan, and as it transpired an interesting museums day. All the best for today.
ReplyDelete