Buzludzha sunrise

It was freezing cold! I spent about two minutes without gloves setting my camera and then could not feel my fingers. I seriously thought I might be on my way to loose my fingers but could not admit it. Gusts of wind were blowing us away. At 1441 m a.s.l. the wind was really cold and was it really worth it?

We got up at 5.30 a.m. to see the rising sun over the Central Balkan mountain National Park at Buzludzha peak. The name itself comes from turkish and means “icy”. What a cheerful name. A place where neither of our small group has ever been and I can see why.

We all wanted to start a long awaited adventure and here we are. We spend some time in the car before daring to come out and “look around”. Finally we did that and half of the group went quickly back to the car but the other half had hope. Hope that the light will come through. Faint signs were there so decided to give it 5 min and didn’t regret it. Initially the sky was totally dark and then it opened up and stayed lit up for a while giving us enough time to change position for a few different view points.

Buzludzha is a historical peak in the Central Balkan Mountains where the final battle between Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire has taken place in 1868. The Buzludzha Monument on the peak was built by the Bulgarian communist regime to commemorate the events in 1891 when the socialists led by Dimitar Blagoev assembled secretly in the area to form an organised socialist movement with the founding of the Bulgarian Social Democratic Party, a fore-runner of the Bulgarian Communist Party. The Monument was opened in 1981 but is no longer maintained by the Bulgarian government.

Here are a few words about the monument that Timothy Allen has posted on his blog post “Forget your past”. It is fascinating what impression this monument leaves with foreigners.

And here are some of my images, so I will leave up to you to decide if all this was worth it. I think it was! What do you think?

sunrise over Buzludzha

Buzludzha monument

Buzludzha monument

Buzludzha monument

Buzludzha monument

view from Buzludzha

the lonely walker