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Part 8: From Albena through Slatni Pjassazi to Varna

4th of May 2004•11:21 hours When the train leaves Varna, I don't just see the well-known Eastern-European housing-blocks, which I meanwhile can see the charm of. But there are also real slums and they are not small at all. No cosy dacha's along the water for the summertime, but permanent inhabited expired small wooden huts surrounds by waste and detritus. In spite of the beautiful marsh nature of this sea bay, the environmental polution is dominating the landscape. Everywhere you can see large factories, levellings, floating foam on the rivers and dirt along banks and verges. Bulgaria is a country of contrasts.

Yesterday, coming from the picturesque Baltchik, I passed Albena, a newly created paradise of well-looking hotels with outside swimming pools amids flower fields, parks and bunches. The outside world of gypsies and robbers was kept out by means of a gate with a pass system at the entrance. Therefor it missed all charm and I had seen enough of it within half an hour. Fortunately a minibus left pretty soon. Slatni Pjassazi (golden sands) with its old hotels and beautiful bunches is created over a longer period in a more organic way, that's why it looks more messy and varied. The result is that here, between the touristic pearls a lot of suffering, ugliness and poverty needs to be passed. For this reason, most of the tourists whom I spotted not even take the effort to explore the city by foot, but step into a taxi as soon as possible to bridge the distance between resort and restaurant. I rather go walking to look around and ignore the many taxi drivers who beg for taking a ride. After I have arrived in Varna I watched the orthodox cathedral with its golden cupola. Many vagrants, but also other folks try to attract the attention, want to change money or offer their goods for sale.

A nice man with beard asks me if I already have a place to sleep. He shows me the complete city center but none of his family members with a spare room is at home, all the single old ladies are doing shopping and usually they don't have a cellular phone. The fourth attempt then nevertheless succeeds, the place is not close to the sea but near the city centre and the bed is not too bad after all, more comforable than the ones before. I leave my backpack behind and do not want to lose time before exploring the city, it is already late in the afternoon, I stay here only one night and the city is large. Most of the museums are already closed, so I only make a visit to the archaeological museum. In the centre there are many little bars and green small squares where people are standing on the street to talk with each other. On many squares there are fontains and sources, most of them with warm water. Between the centre and the seaside is a large elongated park where it is almost more crowded then in the centre. Along the beach one is still very busy with building up beach clubs, the stones buildings with restaurants seem to be from a another era. Nobody is laying on the beach, apparently one still finds it too cold.