This is a rare pretty sight from the muddy winter Sofia. A boat in Lake Ariana.
The city planners of the past were fascinated by lakes and rivers, which are naturally missing here. So they built fountains and lakes, and even attempted to build a river, a story for another post.
The architects wanted the lake to function as an ice rink in the winter. However, this didn’t work well even in the late 19th century, when the weather was colder. After some injuries and a few lengthy renovations, the lake is now emptied for the winter months to prevent any ice from naturally occurring.
The text at the very top, after being censored, means “I will ruffle your hair”. I really wonder about the thought processes that produced this copy. Perhaps it meant something else and got redacted. The redacted part must’ve been offensive.
I spent more time reading this month than I normally do. Had a vacation during the first week of January and had some good luck with book finds.
Many of the books I read were written by Alexandra Marinina – a Russian crime/thriller author. Her novels are taking place in Moscow from the early 1990s. These years were turbulent and Russia had some resemblance of freedom, with people acting like communism never happened. It had similarities with the early 90s from my own country, although quickly diverging as the series progresses. The 4 books I read were great. Not Michael Connelly great but I liked them and will get back to the series later.
Best Books
The Dungeon Crawler Carl – this was the overall clear winner as it was engaging, fun, and the print was superb. The book had a hole in the cover, who does that?
Hugh Howey’s rushed ending of the Silo series comes third.
Alex Kosh’s Medium on Call is the final highlight for the month. Alex Kosh needs to find a way to translate his work. I have no idea how he manages to provide translations in Bulgarian but not in English. The quality of his work deserves thousands or tens of thousands of ratings on Goodreads, not 8.
I was lucky and didn’t read any bad books this month. There’s one DNF but I won’t mention it because I may be able to complete it in February. All 9 of the covers above were at least 4/5.
I had a chaotic walk this morning, here’s a bit of Sofia and my path for the day.
Skyscrapers
I walked past 3 of the tallest buildings in Sofia. The first photo shows Capital Fort (147 meters) and Sky Fort (202 meters, with parts of it disappearing into the clouds). The second shows the Millennium Center’s tower 2 and 3 (~112 meters). By height, these rank as the city’s first, second, and third tallest buildings. The final photo is one of the tallest socialist buildings, which looks like a dwarf next to the Millennium Center, despite standing at 70 meters.
What the first 3 buildings have in common, apart from being tall, is that they all got stuck and remained unfinished for a long time. Capital Fort and the Millennium Center were eventually covered in glass and put into operation, but Sky Fort still lacks windows on its top four floors, which may take years to resolve.
Cake
The goal of my walk was to get a birthday cake from Vila Rosiche. Somehow, they’ve survived the gentrification and the enshittification of the city center brought on by the ever-growing number of tourists, and they’re still baking excellent cakes. Dropping a casual recommendation, as for whatever random reason, people find this blog on Google, searching for local experiences.
Looking for well-kept secrets in Sofia? Have a cake in Vila Rosiche. They have a small and well-hidden garden, which makes them fine for tourists as well.
Cat
This little fellow wanted to explore the internals of my car. Thankfully, she eventually came out for some pets and let me take a photo.
Veselin.blog 