I
suggest we go to see Shipka’ where the Russian Church is pretty + and may even find English Ronnie with his cars as suggested by Kazan at the Kia garage.
We travelled thru' Kazanlac to reach this ( tho'
I felt we must by pass Kazanlac at first.) A good very thin YM helped us to turn round in the right
direction, and I had now realised our road, after Shipka, went on to Gabrovo and Veliko Turnovo.
Indeed we find the church, very
pretty and with silver adornments to spire and other high artifacts. It is
possible to spy it in the hills for a few miles as u approach the town. This then is a memorial to the war of approx 1880 where Russia and Bulgaria fought to
free Bulgaria from the Turkish ‘occupation’ -- there is a Crypt beneath the
church which has details and graves of various ‘worthies’ of the conflict time on display. U are asked to pay for any pics taken also and we did this by buying from the crypt display cabinets
of memorabilia/ trinkets. It was strange
to be examining items in the displays
and to look up and notice the rather stern soviet looking woman in her office
behind - waiting to collect your
money.
Outside of the church were
the usual stalls but there was no great pressure to buy and a chance to
practice Bulgarian. We also took pics around the church. Then we headed down
from it’s high situation to see if we could find ‘Ronnie’ .
Instead we found an
English 4x4 and a house/ family; they had moved to to live in BG some 7 years ago from UK London.
i talked to a young lady through a basement window and Archie came running out and
told me how they, he and his brother, had just begun home schooling and the
school at Shipka had beaten them sometimes. I said sometimes they may have
needed the discipline. Archie also
corrected me that he had no sister,for the girl I talked to at first turned out
to be Dylan, his long hair had misled me!
So Archie would have invited
us in and but Mum said they were almost
ready to go shopping, so instead we drove on looking for ‘Ronnie” but did not find him –
Now we were back on the
Kazanlack road, and we stopped at a restaurant with one of those natural water
springs taken to a tap, and here people regularly pulled in to fill their water
bottles with the clear water. All this way side natural water is perfectly
free.
My wife ate her sanis
in the car, saying why waste money when you could grow your own - and I , to avoid the starvation and weakness
of the Monks went to the restaurant. Here for just 4.40 Leva I had a big swine
burger and kartofs and a lettuce leaf and was happy to have an almost full
tummy at last!
We are now in Kazanlak and my wife and navigator, finds the market. “Sprit” I shout and go to the end stall with its
hardware + elec items. I Point to paving
slabs and do, after about 20m trying and using pics of 300mm slabs on bit of
tissue from restaurant, at least get the Bulgarian word for ‘Slab’. It is ‘Plozka’
Next we proceed to where I know there
is an old wood yard. Amazingly this as now gone upmarket and is sawing wood to
specification. But first I go to shop nextdoor to this selling sand cement etc. I
and the man there get on OK considering I have only little Bulgarian and he v. little
English. But the technicalities of mortar and concrete are not easy to define
this way. However, in 5 minutes his son who speaks English,
arrives on the scene and we make real progress.
Mortar is available ready mixed and we also buy a bag of cement to bring
up the strength of the mix as necessary. On the bag are essential words which
are difficult to find such as sand cement and telling of mix ratios etc.. Dorrette sits in the car and complains re the
heat. ‘Hurry up' she chides. With the biz
owner and his son I say ‘women are like this the world over – I told her to get out and walk in the cool---'
