The Flying Saucer Chronicles (Part 2)

Not sure why, but in these pages I always seem to end up writing about taxi rides.

Perhaps there's something blogworthy about the experience of arriving in a new place and immediately jumping into a car owned by a 'native'. I mean, I've had plenty of taxi rides that were wholly uneventful, but also plenty that weren't ... and for whatever reason, I often feel the urge to tell you about them.

And so ... here's another one.

At the railway station in Kazanlak I grabbed a taxi, because I frankly had no clue where my hotel was. On the way there, I saw an amazing thing. It wasn't the thing, but it was enough to put my heart firmly in my throat.

My friendly, chatty taxi driver had told me that on a clear day, you could actually glimpse Buzludzha from Kazanlak's town centre. Obviously that was a cue for me to start scanning the peaks which delimit the town's horizons ... but before I'd even finished the visual scan, the driver shot down my hopes. "You haven't chosen a very clear day to arrive", he told me.

One thing I could make out, though, was the Shipka monument. This huge marble obelisk commemorates the Russian/Bulgarian victory over the Ottomans that I mentioned previously, and it stands a few peaks away from Buzludzha at a slightly higher elevation. That in itself was kind of thrilling; while researching Buzludzha I'd seen loads of pics of the Shipka monument on the internet, and so actually looking out the window of a taxi and seeing the real thing hovering there in the sky gave me a little shiver.

This was going to be an amazing 24 hours.

Well, maybe.

When I told my taxi driver about my destination, he offered to drive me to Buzludzha and back for 40 Lev (about 20 Euros) the following day. However, that wouldn't include going inside. Given the monument's advanced state of structural disrepair, it was essential that there be someone else there with me if/when I broke in. If I fell through a floor or something dislodged from the ornate ceilings and landed on me, I wanted someone else around to call for help – though exactly how to do that in this part of the world I really had no idea. Plus, it was just an experience that I wanted to share, 'cause it seemed like fun.

So while the 20 Euro taxi ride was a better plan than any I'd had up to that point, I figured I should keep looking. I'd keep my taxi driver in mind as a last resort, though. He could at least get me up the mountain to see the monument from the outside.

I think it was around 7:30pm when I arrived at the hotel, which was separated from one of the nice parts of town by a spooky alleyway. The road surface had deteriorated to the point of non-existence, so it was one of those times in former Communist countries where you can have an 'off-road experience' in an urban environment.

"Bonus!", I thought :-)

After a quick wash, a check of the wi-fi connection (working!) and a few minutes of just contemplating life on my balcony, I headed outside and negotiated the spooky alleyway. I was thinking I'd find a corner shop, buy something simple to eat, and have a 'night in' catching up on emails, Manor entries etc. I also figured that now I was here, it might be worth doing one more search for people in Kazanlak who could join me for a trek to the saucer the following day.

Unfortunately there were no corner shops to be found. But there were a couple of 'ethno-restaurant complexes' (a new term for me) which looked and smelled very inviting.

I thought "Alright then ... let's do the ethno-restaurant thing, whatever that might entail." I had my laptop, so I could search for fellow expeditioners while enjoying the ethno-meal. Who knows? I might even find a mad local there who wanted to break into a decrepit national monument with me.

As I was approaching one of these complexes – a hotel, bar and restaurant in one, and probably a spa and casino as well – I heard English being spoken in the street. It was coming from two guys who were unloading some things from the boot of a car.

They looked slightly unconventional, so I approached them, thinking there was just a slight chance that they were on a similar mission to my own.

Of course, that would've been too good to be true. But they weren't entirely 'mission free' either.

In fact, one of these guys, a Serb called Miloje, was a professional painter of orthodox icons. His very talkative companion, Larry, was a photographer and a devout member of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Michigan, USA. Some time back, Miloje had been commissioned to decorate Detroit's Serb Orthodox cathedral, while Larry had been commissioned to photograph Miloje's work there. This had sparked a fruitful partnership, and now Miloje was helping Larry achieve one of his dreams: namely, a monastery tour of the Balkans.

I had dinner with these guys in the ethno-restaurant, and it turned out to be one of those dinners that last till midnight. It was clear that we were from very different worlds, with very different world views, but that we had a lot to talk about nonetheless.

They were headed to the town of Veliko Turnovo, a stunning jewel set into a gorge on the opposite side of the Shipka Pass from Kazanlak. (I visited V. Turnovo in 2011. You can read my rant about it here, and I recommend you do.) There's a monastery in the town that was on their 'must see' list, so that was the goal for tomorrow. In other words, they were going my way!

Well, not quite ... but almost.

At the end of the night, just before braving Spooky Alley in the darkness, I put a proposal to them. No doubt you can guess what it was.

Miloje and Larry guessed too. I mean, it wasn't  hard; they'd already heard my "Buzludzha is absolutely the most interesting place EVER!" rant, and they knew this was my reason for being in Kazanlak.

I got as far as "Look, I want to propose something to you both, but it's completely ok to say 'no' if you want to", and they filled in the rest. And most crucially, they didn't say "No".

In fact, they said the other thing – the thing I wanted to hear.

I walked back to the hotel feeling hyper-alive, barely able to restrain myself from doing a Happy Dance in Spooky Alley. In the space of a dinner (which was ethno-excellent, btw), I'd gone from "No plan whatsoever" to "I'm definitely going". If I was a devout man like Larry, I probably would've concluded (as he did) that there was a higher power at work in bringing us all to Kazanlak. But I'm not ... so I thanked the Gods of Chance ;-)

After a somewhat sleepless night, I met them at the ethno-complex, and just after 8am we drove out of town and pulled onto the Shipka Highway. We were looking for a sign that said "Кран" (Kran), which was the last town we had to pass before our turnoff.

IN THEM THERE HILLS ...

Road to Buzludzha, Bulgaria, 10.07.14

Right next to the Kran exit we slowed down for a photo op, and just for a second, I caught a glimpse of Buzludzha in silhouette on the mountaintop. It was a genuine pulse-quickening moment. Then we stopped, and I got out of the car to take a pic. But the monument had disappeared. I scanned the peaks (an activity which I guess Bulgarian people must do a lot), and couldn't see it anywhere.

Still managed a few reasonably nice pics, though :-)

After that, the next landmark would be a statue of Dimitar Blagoev, a.k.a. Mr. Socialist Hero from the previous post who organised the fateful Meeting on The Mountain back in 1891.

Of course, statues come in all dimensions, from fuckoff Rio de Janeiro-sized to the kind that carry an "-ette" prefix indicating their teeny-tinyness. We didn't know where Comrade Blagoev would fit on that scale, but since this was a Communist-built statue, I figured it would probably be large and imposing ... and hence easy to spot. Which, thankfully, it was. In fact, standing as he was on the edge of a field, 12ft high with a hefty white column next to him, the dignified founder of Bulgarian Socialism couldn't have been more obvious if he'd been twirling a feather boa and singing 'Hey, Big Spender!', accompanied by a troupe of 72 dancing marmots and a Mariachi band in 12" pink latex platform shoes.

(I clearly haven't slept enough.)

SENTINEL

Road to Buzludzha, Bulgaria, 10.07.14

We turned off the highway and started making our way along a road which quickly got super-steep and windy. Along the way we came across a small team of construction guys pulling up a section of roadway that looked no more pitted and worn than any other part, and an elderly bearded man in a brilliant blue tracksuit, out for what must have been an Odyssey-sized morning walk. I think we also passed one car. Apart from that, we saw no-one else for the 20-ish minutes we spent climbing the mountainside.

Suddenly, we forded a crest (don't you wish you got to say that more often?), rounded a bend, and there it was: the thing I'd been obsessing about for months. It sat there, somewhat indistinct and blueish-looking in the morning haze, surveying the plains below like an alien visitor trying to size up the world it had just inadvertently landed on.

It was fucking magnificent.

From this angle I got a good look at the huge, elongated star set into the tower behind the main building. The star used to glow red at night, like a beacon, and apparently it was visible in Kazanlak and other towns in the region. In the 1980s, there was a rumour that its surface was made of solid ruby. According to one story, some time after the fall of Communism a bunch of guys came up here with Kalashnikovs (what else?) to find out whether the rumour was true. They shot at the star, and parts of its surface shattered and fell to the ground. When the pieces were gathered up and analysed, it turned out that the material these guys had shot out of Buzludzha was nothing more than red glass.

I don't know if that story is true. But in any case, there it was right in front of me: the 'ruby star'.

Cool with a capital everything.

We drove a little further and came to the main gate, beyond which you have to go on foot. The road doesn't end here, but rather than go right up to the monument, it snakes off down the other side of the pass. Getting any closer to Buzludzha therefore means hiking up a steep, precipitous ridge littered about with exposed rock. It's beautiful, but not entirely inviting to the casual country rambler.

Precipitous or not, at this point I was bouncing around like a kid, taking photos (most of which didn't turn out) and going "Wow!" a lot. But I sensed that Larry and Miloje weren't entirely sharing my enthusiasm. They'd told me they had a schedule to keep; after seeing their monastery in Veliko Turnovo, they'd been invited to stay with a friend in Niş (Serbia) that evening, which meant they had quite a lot of driving to do.

So I put the question to them: were we going up there, or not?

SAUCER IN THE HAZE

Buzludzha, Bulgaria, 10.07.14

There was no direct response, but from what was said, the feeling seemed to be "We'd quite like to, but given our other commitments we just don't think we can spare the time". I thought: what could I do? Could I really just walk away from this?

I tried some gentle encouragement, and let some "Well, we've made it this far – why not go the rest of the way?"-type sentiments hang in the air for a while, hoping one of my companions might pick them up and run with them. But I also knew that it would be horribly inappropriate (and almost certainly futile) to get pushy with these guys. They'd been extremely good to me by bringing me this far, given that hulking great communist UFOs were my thing, not theirs. So I accepted the decision ... though it took me a couple of minutes more to actually make my feet move away from Buzludzha, now that it was SO, SO CLOSE.

And that was how I very nearly achieved a 'traveller's dream'.

We wound down the other side of the Shipka Pass, which offered some breathtaking scenery (as Bulgaria will tend to do), emerging in the township of Grabovo where we were presented with another, albeit rather smaller, weird socialist monument to admire. Then it was on to Veliko Turnovo.

INCONGRUOUS SOVIET STATUARY

Grabovo, Bulgaria, 10.07.14

This, btw, was another benefit of travelling with Miloje and Larry. Rather than go back to Kazanlak, I got to go in their direction for a bit, which meant bonus statues and also checking out V. Turnovo in summer. I'd previously been there in winter, so it was wearing a different coat this time to when I saw it last.

Also, I've raved so much about the town since my visit in 2011 that I've actually wondered a few times if I wasn't exaggerating its beauty a little bit. But ten minutes in Veliko Turnovo was enough to allay those concerns; I hadn't exaggerated at all. It's still one of the most beautiful human settlements I've seen in Europe – or anywhere, for that matter.

(Btw, the town is actually a candidate for 'European Cultural Capital' in 2019. I'm just throwing that in as a way of saying I'm not the only one who's noticed its general fabulousness.)

The day ended with drinks and excellent conversation in Sofija with my friend Irena, who kindly offered me her sofa for the night. It had been a spectacular day all round; leaving Veliko Turnovo by bus had taken me through more of the Stara Planina, and I'd had plenty of time to contemplate my growing love for this country as I stared through the window at mist-shrouded peaks in the middle distance.

As you can imagine, though, the whole "Coming so close and not quite getting there" feeling just refused to leave me alone. And it persisted for the next couple of days.

Luckily, Sofija offers plenty of diversions, some of which I'll talk about about in the next rant. But even while enjoying those, there was this feeling of ...

... er, what was it exactly?

Hmmm. Not disappointment, exactly. It was more like a growing sense of grim determination; a "This isn't over, dammit!" kind of sentiment. Which explains why this rant has an epilogue.


EPILOGUE

So, err, let's see ... how to ep this logue in suitable fashion?

Basically, what I want to say is this: me and Buzludzha are not done. Not by a long way. There will be a 'Flying Saucer Chronicles Part 3', because on or around August 16th I'm going back. And this time, I'm going inside.

I've found a couple of crazy folks in Sofija (including Irena) who are are keen to make the journey up to Kazanlak, and then ascend to the monument and break in. There's also an Irish guy called David who's interested, and a few others from various places may join us as well.

The thing is, at this stage I'm thinking "The more, the merrier". We'll spend one night in Kazanlak before attempting the Buzludzha assault, which will make a weekend of it ... and an evening in one of those ethno-restaurants in international company could be one to remember :-)

For those reasons, I'm going to end this entry in a way that I've never done before: with an invitation. If you're free from August 15th-17th, and you're not too far away (something of which only you can be the judge), then I want to hear from you.

Having been there once, I can make almost all the arrangements – you only need to get yourself to Sofija, and everything else will be sorted. Plus, it's Bulgaria, so it will be affordable ... even if you're an English teacher ;-)

So write to me, and let's ascend to the mothership together!

See you :-)

FOR THE NEXT PART OF THIS MINI-SAGA, CLICK HERE