Sunday at the Office--Again.



It’s Sunday so that means it is time to check Beaver (ouch) and Duck (whew) scores, and update the blog. I’ve started with a picture of the area around Rhozhenski manastir (Rozhen Monastery). These rock formations around the monastery remind us of the badlands in South Dakota. They may have served as some deterrent against enemies, but from the history books it appears that the Turks had their way with most of the towns around here.

We have hired a taxi driver to take us on a number of our upcoming trips to the Sofia airport, and he agreed to take us to Melnik and Rhozen this weekend. Melnik is south of Blagoevgrad and the drive took us through Sandanski, the birthplace of Spartacus. Melnik just seems to appear out of nowhere, nestled between sandstone cones and scree slopes.

Once a town of 20,000 people in 1880, it is now a village of about 250. The draw here is for the red wine that they store in cellars that seem to be holes in the hills. The reputation of the wine is legendary (we heard about it in Russia) and we read that Winston Churchill ordered wine from here for his son’s wedding.


There are some ruins of medieval churches here (e.g., St. Barbara—Sevta Barbara) and a couple of older churches that still function. We walked up a short way to visit Sveti Nicholai Chudotvorets (St. Nicholas the Wonder-worker) and found several people sleeping on benches at the sides of the church.

We heard music off in the distance but found that when we reached the bottom of the hill we just missed some traditional dances by students from surrounding countries.

Not far from Melnik is Rhozenski Monastir (Rhozen comes from the root word “roden” which means “born” and the monastery is dedicated to the “Mother of God’s Nativity.”). The foundation dates back to the 12th century, but the current structures are of course much more recent.




We were not allowed to take photos inside the monastery (unlike Rila) but we did snap one through the entry door and one from the “bakery” upstairs. The bakery oven and walls are constructed of mud- and straw- bricks. The Church of the Birth of the Holy Virgin is small and has the usual frescos outside depicting Judgment Day. People are shown climbing a ladder to heaven with some being torn off and tossed into a mouth of a red serpent.





The local priest was working in the church and we watched him fill the water bottles of those who entered. The courtyard around the inside of the monastery has the thickest grape vine we’ve every seen.


We went for another long walk up in the hills today. It is so hazy in the mornings that the pictures just don’t show up clearly. I’ve put a couple here—one of the soccer (sorry, football) stadium. I sure hope to see a game.



As we walked up we passed a woman and said hello (dobar den). We walked on for another 15 minutes and saw she was ahead of us again. She turned around and waved, waiting for us at the local spring at the top of the hill. She tried to explain to us the shortcut, and we just smiled and shook our heads (remembering for once that no means yes).





This next week will be our week 2 of class. I took a little survey. My students are from 7 different countries and speak 18 languages among them. We are off to Plovdiv on Thursday (second largest city in Bulgaria). We will be using regular transportation, so wish us well.