In all honesty, I probably haven’t given Sofia a fair
chance. But then, the lady hasn’t
exactly shown her good side, either.
It has rained ever since we arrived and it is so cold that Connie has
taken to wearing gloves!
Sofia was never as lovely as Prague. She wasn’t as exotic as Istanbul nor did she have the
culture of Vienna. It was pretty
much of a backwater during the Ottoman occupation and didn’t become the capital
of Bulgaria until independence in 1876.
The city was heavily bombed by the Allies in WW II then struggled under
half a century of communism. Today
she looks as unkempt as an old whore without makeup. Potholed streets, broken sidewalks and
peeling paint add to the general despair of Soviet influence.
Of course there are places to go and things to see in Sofia, like the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral and the Russian Church, but
they are not of the quality I expect from a European capital. One bright spot was the Museum of
Foreign Art. The collection
includes several Rodin statues, a couple of Renoirs, and some interesting work by artists unknown to me. One piece that
impressed me most was “The Great Wave,” one of thousands of prints from a single woodblock by the
Japanese artist Hokusai. Another print in the British Museum was the subject of “The History of the World in
100 Objects” from BBC Four. It was
instrumental in igniting the West’s interest in things Japanese in the 19th
Century. Another surprise, also
one of the “100 Objects,” was a so-called “Bennin Bronze” from Nigeria. It was cast from bronze bracelets
traded by Portuguese slavers. When
it eventually made its way back to Europe it caused a sensation because of the
skill in recasting it.
