Photographs by Asen Irinchev. All rights reserved.

Rila is Bulgaria’s tallest Mountain and a very special place. It is also one of the largest and most significant protected areas in Europe.

http://www.rilanationalpark.org/en/index.phtml

It is probably the place in the world where I feel the strongest connection to the landscape. (And yes I did come here and kissed and hugged some trees. No matter how jaded you are you would have done the same if you felt this place)

It is home and in a weird way the heart of the Bulgarian culture is grounded here and you can almost feel it beating with the mystical rumor of a civilization gone through centuries of glory, success, trials and hardship. I had an interesting experience here, what brought me and draws me to this place is also what eventually made me feel alienated. Interestingly, I needed that sense of home, and after eight years of being away it was so important to feel the connection to this landscape. But I had an unsettling experience in meeting a very proud nationalistic Bulgarian attitude during a gathering here. I realized that as much as being Bulgarian is what had given me the roots and ground to grow, I have become a lot more of a universal child cherishing the air, water and sun that do not have an identified nationality or specific land of origin. My being feels paranoiaclly trapped living in the construct of one nationality and world view. On one hand I cherish my heritage, on the other hand I refuse to have my future be dictated by it.

But back to the mountain. Asen and I stayed in Borovetz, the oldest Bulgarian ski resort. It is quiet and beautiful in the summer and lucly has not undergone huge development like most places of this kind. I had a lovely Bulgarian dinner, I have been so happy to eat tomato feta cheese cucumber and roasted pepper salad, tarator and other fresh vegie and yogurt dishes. I could eat this food every day of my life. And the best thing of it all in Rila they have sheep’s yougurt, my favorite. I was gunhole on waking up early and filming, but the fresh mountain air and the paradise like peace melted my desire into a longer sleep and much needed rest.

Asen and I wondered though town and filmed the green ski trails. We took the lift , filming from the lift is quite great and I hope the footage turns out. It was like sweeming above a sea of GREEN. And we squeezed in a little hike.

At the top of the lift there was an interesting site. A commercial, in case you needed a plastic card up there.

Photographs by Asen Irinchev.

During our Vitosha filming trip we visited the Boyana Church, which is a cultural and national treasure.

Frescos in this Church are known to be cutting edge for the time when they were created and are regarded as major influence in the styles that later appear in Europe.

” The frescoes are genuine masterpieces with a flawless technique, psychological depth, complexity and realism. Boyana is the only and the most impressive wholly preserved monument of the Turnovo School of Painting from the 13th century.

According to many leading experts, the world famous frescoes in the Boyana Church played an important role in the development of mediaeval Bulgarian and European painting.”
http://www.boyanachurch.org/historyen.html

To preserve the fresco the visitor’s are not allowed to go inside the church. The tourist groups can only see it from the outside.

To my surprise the courtyard had beutifully preserved old pines, which I have never seen in Vitosha before. (They look like the trees you see on the West Coast of Canada where I live now) It was not just the church that stood as a treasure from the past, but the trees around it brought a grounding magical sense to the whole place.

Photographs by Asen Irinchev.

Vitosha is the closest mountain to the capital of Bulgaria, Sofia. “With its highest peak – Cherni Vrah (2290 m.) it occupies the fourth place among the Bulgarian mountains.” http://www.park-vitosha.org/main.php?act=html&file=info/1.html

This is where I fell in love with mountains. When I was growing up we would go hiking there and my first powerful nature experiences got formed in Vitosha. It is probably not a surprise that this was one of the first places where I went to film for Green Dream.

The weather in Bulgaria had been so hot that I was insistent on getting up and filming early. We needed to get as much shots before the light got too bright. My friend Asen Irinchev, who was my inseparable partner in crime during our high school years in the technical photography school, had agreed to be my driver and also the stills photographer ( this is how I ended up with a massive amount of photos of myself filming. I am used being invisible, as the person that points the camera but not the subject of the photographs).

Asen didn’t really know what he was getting into when he first agreed but he stoically got up at 5:30 am to be able to get to my house at 7:30 and hit the road to the mountain.

We headed for Vitosha, a place that we had roamed together more then 12 years ago. To our surprise this was the only day when it rained, since I have been here. So used to the stuffing heat I hadn’t even though that rain could happen or I could get cold. Add the altitude, and I was soon shivering and searching for any clothes that can help my frozen bones.

Asen had some huge pants that I borrowed and we were back in shape.  These are called Morenite (the moraines)

The Bulgarian landscape is so reach with material for my film.

Garbage chaotically spills out and the contrast between the beauty of nature and the unruly human refuse is often seen.

Vitosha, has been a park for a long time, but development seems to be pushing against the boundary. The little villages in the foothills have been turning from a places of small scale agriculture in family houses into big villas and condo like developments. There is construction everywhere. This is the trend that I will see all over what I remember as the beautiful small settlements in Bulgaria’s nature paradises- Rila Mountain, Pirin Mountain and the Black Sea.

By midday the sun was shinning again and we were thankful for the rain because at ‘magic hour’ we got to film a beautiful veiw of Sofia from the Mountain.

Yogurt comes from Bulgaria. We drink lot of airian, a watered down yogurt drink, especially on hot summer days.

And the days here have been very hot. From 29-39 C.

Biliana and I are drinking airian on one of these hot days.

Here are some of my first impressions and observations from being back home.

A slide show of some of the things that I noticed during my trip.

A stop motion animation and my thoughts before the trip to Bulgaria.