Yesterday, on our way back to Sofia from Tarnovo, we stopped at an ethnic “museum” (I don’t recall its name) where they have several original 200-year-old houses on display as well as prehistoric skeletons and relics and a couple of good restaurants. Oh, and lots of feral cats.
The museum consists of several dwellings interspersed with regular houses, though all are about 200 years old. Here’s a non-museum house. What a lovely place to live! (It’s in the mountains.)
Making honey and wax was a major industry in the town. This old honey-extraction and wax press is still used occasionally for demonstrations. After the honey was spooned from the combs, the wax was boiled in water and then the concoction poured through several meshes of rice straw (to extract dirt) and then pressed, with the hot wax solidifying in the cold water below. The refined wax was sold for candles and other purposes; in its final form it took the form of gray-brown sheets, about half a centimeter thick.
Here’s the interior of a “rich man’s house”: a merchant who traveled through Europe trading leather and wool for other goods (olive oil and so on). There were three floors, with the animals below. This is the original room and loom on which rugs were woven. The loom was connected to a cradle on the left so that the baby could be gently rocked during weaving:
The museum building had a bunch of skulls. This guy got badly whacked on the head, but, as you see, the bone healed after the whack. He survived the injury! I’m not sure how old this skull is, but it demonstrates the violence of our ancestors that Steve Pinker mentions in The Better Angels of our Nature.
This dude didn’t make it–there’s no healing of the horrific wounds in the skull. That must represent a few blows with a blunt axe.
Stray cats abound in the region: most are wary, though they’re in pretty good shape as people do feed them. This kitten was tame and let me hold it. I have a bazillion pictures of The Street Cats of Bulgaria which I’ll inflict on you later.
After observing our head-bashed ancestors, we were all hungry, and repaired to a restaurant in the village which happened to house a mother cat and her two gorgeous kittens (below). I wonder if the tabby kitten has the Munchkin short-leg gene.
They were hungry (I fed them, of course), and I wanted to take the tabby home with me.
Before lunch we had a Bulgarian drink: a spearmint liqueur that we mixed with Sprite and ice. Very refreshing. Mother Cat was friendly, too, and I had her purring in my lap. Noms, cats, and drinks: what could be better?
One of the lunch dishes we shared was a luscious pork stew with vegetables:
We also had three other dishes: a casserole with eggs, peppers, and sausage (top right), a yogurt-and-zucchini dish (below it), and a stewed rabbit with mushrooms in a delicious sauce (bottom). It was all served with freshly made flatbread. And, of course, I couldn’t resist feeding the three cats (who were ravenous) copious amounts of rabbit.
The quality (and quantity!) of Bulgarian food is superb. I have not had a single bad meal or dish in the five days I’ve been here.
Here is Vassy taking photos of the village; I wanted to show you her famous “Zombie Rabbit” purse, emblazoned with an evil rabbit and the words “So dark. . . so cute.” (She has a matching wallet.) When I read those words, Lubo, remembering our lunch, added, “And so delicious.”
Lubo, the main organizer of the Ratio conference, enjoying a rakia (the local hard liquor) before dinner two nights ago. (I haven’t shown that one yet.) This is plum rakia, the equivalent of slivovitz. I had one too, as it’s the national drink—and, when well made, it’s very good. It comes in various flavors, with grape most common, but also apple, apriciot, plum, and other fruit distillations.
