The Monastery of the Transfiguration

A Peaceful Welcome

For a moment, I forgot I was at a monastery. If young women in short skirts and long hair had appeared, singing and dancing, I would have believed it was some kind of celebration. But instead, a kind monk in a long robe came forward and greeted me with a handshake.

“Come and rest,” he said.

We went into a quiet, shady balcony that overlooked the hills below. On one side, there was a wide, dry plain. It was cool, with a light breeze, and we watched eagles soaring in the wind Bulgarian Coast.

A Walk Around the Monastery

I took a walk around the monastery. The monks were proud of the vines that grew next to their rooms, and they were especially proud of the wine they made from them. The church was small and white, with frescoes of saints. The saints were probably good people, but their bodies in the pictures were a little strange.

The refectory, where the monks ate, was a long, low room. They ate vegetables in silence, while one monk read aloud a religious text. My host, the kind monk, had pictures of dead friends on the wall in his room. These were photos of people after they had passed away, posed on tables with their relatives standing around them—much like wedding photos, but sadder.

Over the Shipka Pass

The Battle of 1877

In the Shipka Pass, in the first Balkan mountain range, the fiercest fighting took place between the Turks and the Russians in 1877. The pass is a narrow road through black rocks, surrounded by wild and wooded land. If you look closely, you can still find old, overgrown trenches where soldiers once fired at each other. On the slopes of the mountains, there are mounds of earth, like giant molehills—these are the graves of soldiers.

There is one cemetery in the area, but it is in poor condition. The wall around it is broken, and many of the crosses are crooked or fallen. The graves are covered with tall grass, and no flowers grow there. People cried when the officers were buried, but now they are forgotten.