Gastro tour “The secrets of Saffron and the Eastern Rhodopes”

On the way to the saffron fields in the Eastern Rhodopes, we stop in Haskovo to see the tallest statue of the Holy Mother of God in the world. With its impressive 32.8 m in height, the monument is entered in the Guinness Book of Records, section “Religion”. We head to the farm of one of the largest producers of saffron in the Eastern Rhodopes, which will welcome us in the purple world of its field. The winter crocus, from which the most expensive spice in the world is extracted, is at the center of his business. We will drink a cup of saffron tea, we will try honey with saffron, and the hosts will show us other products in which they put saffron.

We will have lunch with Rhodope dishes and try the famous Merlot from Stambolovo – a wine with a deep ruby ​​red color with shades of tile, a rich bouquet, a combination of aromas of fruit, vanilla, oak, leather, and leaves. We continue the tour with a walk to Tatul – a prehistoric cult site, whose territory is located one of the most puzzling megalithic monuments in Bulgaria – a sarcophagus in the shape of a truncated pyramid, which has no analog in Bulgaria and around the world. This is the best-preserved temple complex carved into a monolithic short rock. In the 80’s it was hypothesized that the hill near the village of Tatul served as a sanctuary dedicated to Orpheus.

The last site on the first day is the Mosque of the Seven Girls in the village of Podkova – one of those miraculous places that gather people of different religions. The mosque is one of the oldest Muslim temples in Bulgaria – from 1428. According to legend, seven maidens lived here, engaged to seven young soldiers. The boys were called up for service in the sultan’s army, and the girls remained to wait for them. Time passed, and the weight in the hearts of the girls became greater and greater. One day they were told that their fiancés had been killed in battle. Broken by grief, the girls vowed never to marry. They decided to sell their dowries, and with the money, they built a mosque for one night in memory of their fiancés and love for them. When it was completed, the seven girls disappeared, and people say that they became angels who ascended to heaven with their loved ones.

After breakfast, we head to the monastery complex “St. John the Forerunner” in Kardzhali, which was once the spiritual center of one of the great medieval dioceses – Ahridos. It was founded in the VI-VII century. five masonry tombs. One of the tombs in the church was hermetically sealed. After careful opening, the relics of a high Christian clergyman from the end of the 11th and the beginning of the 12th century were discovered. In the tomb are also found completely preserved epitrachelion (church clothes), woven with gold and with unusual decoration, as well as in a cloth cross sewn church relics. Only in 4 places in the world there are preserved such finds.

We also go to the Assumption Monastery of the Priest Boyan Saraev. In the spring of 2000, he received a dream in which the Mother of God instructed him to build a monastery, as this place is sacred and Christians from all over Bulgaria will come to worship. She also tells him that the water from the spring will cure all kinds of physical and mental suffering. Thus, the father and his presbyter Krassimira began hard work. Gradually, the monastery acquired its present appearance, thanks to the love, diligence, and donations of many laypeople.

We have lunch with fresh fish from the Kardzhali dam and head to the most impressive megalithic ensemble in the Balkans – Perperikon. It is a huge rock massif in the eastern Rhodopes, which is believed to have originated about 8000 years ago. The stone monument rises 15 kilometers from Kardzhali, near the Perpereshka River, from which ancient people are said to have mined gold. Large-scale excavations led by archaeologist Prof. Nikolai Ovcharov reveal the Palace, the Acropolis, and other interesting places hitherto unknown to society. It got to the point that CNN covered Perperikon as an event in its reports. Prof. Ovcharov believes that this is the sanctuary dedicated to the god Dionysus, which is mentioned many times in ancient Greek written sources. The great heyday took place in the XVIII-XII century BC. This is the period of development of the first European civilization, in the face of the Cretan-Mycenaean culture.

During the Late Bronze Age, Perperikon became a spectacular sanctuary. According to legend, two fateful prophecies were made from the altar of Perperikon. The first predetermined the great conquests and glory of Alexander the Great, and the second, made several centuries later, foreshadowed the rule of the first Roman emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Octavian Augustus. Our tour ends with the natural phenomenon of Stone Mushrooms near the village of Beli Plast. It is a set of rock formations in the shape of real mushrooms and over 2.5 meters in size. Depending on what time of day it is and where you look at them from, their shades change from pink and greenish to dazzling white.

According to science, stone mushrooms are actually volcanic formations that formed about 20 million years ago. At that time the place was the bottom of the sea. After its withdrawal, the mushrooms were shaped by the wind and the sun. Each color shade or patterned vein in them is composed of a different mineral. Interestingly, the composition of the stone figures contains the mineral zeolite, which is believed to have strong purifying properties. Locals say that if you put such a stone in the water in the evening, in the morning it will be “rejuvenated”, it will become healing and will be able to save you from a long list of diseases.