Volunteering abroad also means taking part in the rites and customs of a country that is unknown to us. And sometimes things just happen!
Sarah, Mark, Ivan and I decided to hire a car and drive to Plovdiv on 5 September to spend the night. After our statutory five hours’ work, we were off to discover another city, and not just any city, since it is Bulgaria’s second largest city in terms of population, and was also the European Capital of Culture in 2019.
After a few hours there, we were lucky enough to stumble across a free concert by a Belgian artist in the central square, to celebrate the city’s five years as Capital of Culture.
The next day, as we decided to wander around the historic quarter, we came across the ancient theatre and, seeing us hesitate, the person in charge of selling tickets announced that, for that day, entry was free to all the city’s cultural sites.
Following this announcement, I couldn’t wait to find out why we’d picked THE right day to visit the city. In fact, it was the 136th anniversary of the unification of Bulgaria and the day of the city of Plovdiv.
What does this mean?
Shortly after Bulgaria’s liberation from the Ottoman Empire, the country remained divided between the north and the county of Sofia, constituting the Principality of Bulgaria, and the territories south of the Stara Planina (or Balkan Mountains), which became an autonomous province within the Ottoman Empire under the name of Eastern Rumelia.
On the night of 6 September 1885, the Unification Forces took control of Plovdiv and unified the northern and southern territories.
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