Sofia, Bulgaria to Nis, Serbia, Friday June 13th

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Keith raced off to the bus station very early to consult the ‘man who knows everything’, only to find that he wasn’t there again. Others told him that the only option to get from Sofia to Sarajevo was to take the afternoon bus to Nis (Neesh) in Serbia then an overnight bus to Sarajevo. We decided to go to Nis then hope that there is an alternative to the overnight bus.

That left us with the morning to look around so we packed, had breakfast with a delightful French couple, drank our ration of one half cup of coffee, were refused a second but allowed a ration of one cup of tea, and headed off.

The Russian church, St Nicholas the Miracle Maker, in the Russian Patriarchy had been built in 1914 because a Russian diplomatic agent considered the Bulgarian church to be schismatic, didn’t want to attend its services and wanted to worship in his own way. He must have had influence in high and wealthy circles because the church has a golden dome and spire tops, is very ornate, has icons throughout and is set in gardens on a very prestigious central site. Inside it is fairly small for the promise the exterior gives and has very low lighting.

It started to rain so luckily we were beside the museum of choice for the day – the Natural History Museum. If ever there was a museum that needed multiple visits it is this one. Every exhibition is mammoth, well set out and of a standard that would be useful to researchers as well as to ordinary people like us. The ground floor is devoted to geology, with examples classified in types, such as crystals, and in other rooms by the way they were formed. All the way up the stairs there are enclosures of live reptiles, sadly sitting in limited environments with only the green iguana showing enough animation to be watching the humans avidly. The reptiles were representative of many regions, with pig-nosed and long necked turtles and eastern bearded dragons being from Australia. Most unhappy of all, a young crocodile lay at the end of a small enclosure. At the other end, a rectangular glass pond with high sides and two centimetres of water in it had been placed, probably years ago when the poor creature was small enough to move around in it.

Every floor from the first on was like visiting the best and most complete zoo in which the animals did not hide from the visitors. Of course, all of them being stuffed took a certain amount of naturalism out of things, and did not allow observation of behaviour and habitat needs, but certainly would have saved on the food bills. First we strode through prehistoric beasts and fossils, and then followed birds of every kind, forest creatures, water creatures, animals in national groups including two platypuses that looked as if someone had sat on them, insects, spiders, jungle creatures, desert creatures, one homo sapiens skeleton beside a pongo pygmaeus one with long arms and a big skull – the list and the exhibits were exhaustive and exhausting. Ideally, you would visit one floor at a time, returning a month later. We loved it and wished that we could be like the other grandparents there, with Frey with us and moving around at a pace to match his enthusiasm.

The enormous Alexander Patriarchal Cathedral was built in honour of Tsar Alexander II, whose army liberated Bulgaria from Ottoman rule, and in honour of all the soldiers who participated in those battles. Started in 1882, it is so spectacular inside and out that it’s no surprise that it was not finished until 1912. It also had low lighting, presumably to protect the paintings. With green, black and brown marble on its lower walls, it had a picture on its dome of God as the old man that children of our vintage imagined him to be. The colours were all dark and subdued, with the people depicted full size and in natural poses. Only baby Jesus was in the old stylistic icon form, painted as a midget adult held by Mary.

A short walk took us past the perpetual flame and memorial to we knew not who, and to Saint Sofia church. It is a fairly small and unprepossessing building with Roman style brickwork which looks like tiles on their sides, with some mortar-like substance in between. Just as we arrived, so did a bride for her wedding. The church was full of chairs, placed to provide an aisle, and seating for the guests, all of whom were craning their necks for the grand entrance. The bride was dressed in a thin strapped gown with a tulle underskirt, all in ice pink. Her short veil had trails of flowers tucked into it, matching her very pale pink and green bouquet. The effect was very pretty but naturally, after a quick glimpse of the building, we didn’t stay.

Outside a beggar woman was being chased away. We have seen quite a few beggars in Sofia, and some in Plovdiv.

We returned to our hostel to pick up our packs and then strode to the bus station, where we had a bit of a wait, but also some lunch and typing time. We had wanted to be sure that we could get a ticket for the bus.

We got on the bus and two other passengers indicated that we could sit anywhere even though our tickets had numbers. The bus was not full but, except for us and three other pairs, everyone else was sitting alone. Keith went to put our coats and one bag up in the luggage rack but it was already virtually full. We thought nothing of it and just moved things along a bit to make some space. The bus driver counted us at leaving time and then went off to do something. He returned and we finally moved off quite late, with apparently nothing happening to suggest a reason for why it was suddenly the time to go. The man beside us and Keith promptly fell asleep. I watched the Sofia suburbs flash by and was amazed to see a large gipsy encampment beside a river, with caravans and horses and a gentle slope covered with rubbish leading down to the water. We stopped to pick up a man who woke the man beside us and collected some money from him. We had paid for our luggage to be loaded so we presumed that the new man, who had stored plastic packets of toilet paper in the luggage rack, was some sort of conductor. Remember that we do not know a word of Bulgarian and are only just becoming familiar with the public transport norms here – anything seemed possible to us.

We drove up to the Bulgarian/Serbian border and handed in our passports to the conductor. They were duly stamped and handed out again by the passenger sitting in front of us. Next we reached the duty free shop, where many of the passengers bought more cigarettes than they are allowed and set about secreting them on their persons, all over the bus and in packaging that they had brought along especially for the purpose. The cigarettes were removed from their cartons, which were shoved into black plastic bags and raced off to the rubbish bins. A box for a frypan type device was filled, several body belts were filled and put on under a sleeveless jacket, the full luggage rack was rearranged – the bus was a hive of activity. On came the customs police to search the bus. They asked about one blanket in a plastic wrapper that the man beside us said was his. It was stored about six seats away, which would have seemed suspicious to me, but perhaps not to the police, who may have thought that this busload of passengers just had no idea about putting their shopping in bags under the bus and so the packing arrangement was reasonable. The police got off the bus and there was a frantic repacking of the cigarettes, with those under the seats, the head rest cloths and in the folds of the curtains being hastily placed under items in the luggage rack and in different people’s seats and clothes. Sweating profusely, the five main players were consulting each other and had not quite completed the swaps when the police were back. They searched again, and called two people off the bus to talk to them about items under the bus in the luggage compartment. More sweating, a request to us to help hide cigarettes which we refused, the quick shoving of some into socks and a plastic bag held on a lap and the police were back. This time they dismantled part of the floor at the back of the bus and looked into a trapdoor compartment there. Finally, after nearly two hours, we were allowed through into Serbia. We speculated on how much it could possibly be worth to sell the cigarettes – would it be enough for five people to risk discovery and fines or worse. And what about the literally hundreds of items such as hats, shoes, hosing, clothing, antennae, blankets which were now being retrieved as we drove along and fitted into large plastic bags, the ones it would have been sensible to have them in all along? The five were generally in a high mood having succeeded, but pretty tired from all the stress. Were all those items a decoy or providers of hiding spaces that made looking thoroughly very difficult? We had no idea.

Most of these bags are stuffed with cigarettes but they were not detected by Serbian customs officers.

It was amazing that we were able to look out the window at all, we were so interested in the behaviour and our speculations about it. Luckily we did because the scenery was spectacular, with high, rocky mountains, and forests which would be wonderful to explore. As we moved into the outskirts of Nis, the cigarette gang got off the bus at various stops and were met by people who loaded all the goods into cars.

A man who was also on the bus helped us at the bus station and with changing some money. He then walked us to our hostel, interpreted for us, and accompanied us back to the bus station so that we could buy our tickets ready for the six o’clock bus in the morning. He said that it never takes that long to cross the border and that the police must have been suspicious about something but couldn’t find anything. Apparently the drug route to Western Europe goes through Istanbul, Sofia and Serbia. He thought that the strange assortment of items may have been ones that also have customs import embargos and that they were probably hidden, rather than just stored on the rack. Certainly more came out than we had been aware of. We discussed the obstacles to Serbia becoming a member of the European Union, with a major one being issues over war criminals who are still at large in Serbia. He was a delight to be with and so helpful.

A quick walk to the castle in the rain was very brief, since it was also too dark to see more than gardens, young people meeting each other and the silhouette of a mosque. We bought some food and chatted to the nice man running the hostel about his camping trips to the nearby mountains before retiring for the night.

Street scene, Sofia

Babushka dolls at a street stall