The journey begins at the edge of the sea, in the hollow of a bay. But the small river that flows into it is a border where, on each bank, Bulgarians and Turks are playing whoever has the biggest: two huge flags are floating, too martial for the peaceful landscape, the fishing boats and the handful of swimmers on the beach. As a reminder that this border was that of the populations displaced by the Balkan wars (1912-1913), then prevented by the iron curtain of the Soviet bloc, and that it is now closed to illegal migrants watched by the police. In Rezovo, a pyramidal stele marks in Cyrillic and Latin characters “the most south-eastern point of the continental European Union. »
The short road trip, 340 kilometers, will take us along the Bulgarian Black Sea coast to the other border, with Romania. And for anyone expecting a coast devoured by ungraceful seaside resorts, built during the time of communism and then that of the oligarchs and mafia, this starting point is a pleasant surprise.
The rocky coast is preserved, the beaches of Silistar or Sinemorets extend between the sea and the mouths of small rivers, hidden behind the woods protected by a nature reserve. In mid-September, you can swim there in peace in a milder sea, because it is less salty than the Mediterranean.
The countryside is just behind, cows, horses and geese in the fields, unadorned villages, even Varvara, the favorite of artists from Sofia whom we come across under the trellis of Startzi Razboïnitzi, a restaurant appreciated for its local cuisine and its fig ice cream.
From the Thracians to the Ottomans
All around, the natural park of Strandja, named after the local mountain range, unfolds its forest of elms, beeches and hornbeams, shades of green that tint the Ropotamo river on which we sail in the furtive company of herons, martins- fishermen or egrets. The slender silhouette of a doe spins between the trees.
Later, on the megalithic site of Beglik Tash, while Katia Kaloyanova, the young French-speaking woman who accompanies us, gives meaning to the rocks and dolmens which the Thracians had made a sanctuary between the 13the and the IVe century before our era, a young deer approaches, calm, in the clearing. Maybe “the sacred specimen, the one with golden antlers which, since the Bronze Age, soars towards the sun of the new season”about which the Bulgarian writer Kapka Kassabova writes in Edge (Marchialy, 2020), a beautiful story about the mysteries of this land where the springs are sacred and where men walk on fire.
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