Wanderings: Shipka Pass

March 11, 2018

There were three changes (4 trains) to go from Svishtov to Gabrovo, at the foot of Shipka Pass. The first train descended from a modest summit into Levski, affording nice views of the snow covered central Balkan Mountains.

To ensure I was on the correct platform for my next train, I asked a woman whether the destination was Varna? The woman said "da, da" but shook her head as if to say no. I was a bit concerned until I remembered that Bulgarian head gestures are backwards. Shaking the head means yes, nodding means no.

I settled into a compartment in which the window was stuck open, letting in the warm late-winter air. A woman from the next compartment came and tried to speak to me in Bulgarian. She was quite insistent and with pantomime asked if I were getting off at Gorna Orjahovitsa (I was), and said she needed help getting all of her bags off the train, but she was fretting that the closest door to her compartment was stuck, and if the platform were on the left side of the train, she would need to go to the other end of the carriage, or perhaps walk through to the next carriage to get her bags off (1). As I carried her bag through the station, I determined by its weight that the bag must contain lead bars.

As we ascended the Balkan Mountains up the Yantra River valley, I enjoyed an unimpeded view by lowering the window from the top and enjoying the fresh air, like some others I could see down the train. A tap in my shoulder from the conductor roused me; perhaps she was scolding me? No, she held up two fingers, signalling 2 minutes to my stop. Upon arrival at Tsareda Livada, she pointed at the connecting train to Gabrovo.

At the top of Shipka Pass, there is a large Monument commemorating the battles between the Bulgarian/Russian (2) (3) and Ottoman forces at the pass in 1877-1878. The Bulgarian/Russian forces controlled the area north of the Balkan Mountains, except for the besieged Ottoman stronghold at Pleven. Three times from August to December, the Ottomans attempted to force the pass to relieve Pleven. While the Ottomans boasted superior numbers, the Russian/Bulgarian forces controlled the high ground, and repulsed the attacks. When Pleven fell in December, 1877, the combined Bulgarian/Russian forces, augmented with their comrades from Pleven, took the offensive at Shipka Pass. In less than two months, the Russian forces were on the outskirts of Constantiople (Istanbul) and the independence of Bulgaria (along with that of Romania, Serbia and Montenegro) was recognized by the Treaty of San Stefano on March 3, 1878. March 3 is still celebrated as the National Holiday/Liberation Day in Bulgaria (4).

(1) Yes, you can pantomime all this, although it did take some time. My responses were "da" about getting off at the same stop and "da," I would help her.

(2) The Bulgarian forces were officially volunteers, as Bulgaria was still part of the Ottoman Empire at the time.

(3) During World War 2, Bulgaria was allied with Nazi Germany, but resisted German pressure to declare war on the Soviet Union in gratitude for the Russian assistance 65 years earlier in securing Bulgarian independence (a).

(a) This refusal to declare war on the Soviet Union did not prevent the Red Army from invading Bulgaria as they swept across Eastern Europe towards the end of the war. In the post-war era, the Soviets installed Georgi Dimitrov as leader of the soon-to-be-proclaimed People's Republic of Bulgaria. Todor Zhivkov consolidated power after Dimitrov's death and ruled Bulgaria with an Iron Fist as a reliable ally of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1989.

(4) There were a large number of commemorative wreaths still at the monument left over from the commemorations 8 day before my visit..