From ancient Roman ruins to eerie catacombs, Bulgaria’s capital of Sofia and Plovdiv—its second largest city—are brimming with subterranean wonders. Places where what lies beneath is equally fascinating as that above.
By Raul Dias
The uniformed lady seated in front of me seems genuinely happy to see me. Her easy, generous smile far from the perfunctory, bordering-on-fake ones proffered by most immigration officers I’ve encountered thus far. She tells me that mine is the first Indian passport she’s about to stamp into Bulgaria in all her four years working at the Sofia International Airport.
“Don’t waste your money visiting any of Sofia’s museums!” she advises me almost conspiratorially, without offering any further explanation to bolster up her suggestion. “Also, don’t take a taxi into town. Your hotel is right next to Serdica, so take the direct train to the Serdika II metro station,” she adds, after casting a glance at my immigration disembarkation form and pointing me in the direction of the startlingly modern and spotlessly clean Sofia Airport metro station.
The city beneath the city
Almost as soon as I alight from the train a half hour later, I get the gravitas of the immigration officer’s seemingly innocuous (if a bit odd!) twin suggestions. Buried deep within the depths of downtown Sofia, the Serdika II metro station is truly one of the best places to start peeling back the Bulgarian capital’s onion-like layers.
One of the first things I notice about the huge, cavernous station is the acute lack of any form of commercial advertisement with nary a billboard or standee in sight. In their place are glass cabinets. The kind one would find in museums. Filled with everything from Neolithic pots and Roman urns, to even a few decapitated and chipped capitals that probably sat atop grand Doric columns once.
It is much later in the day, after checking into my hotel and getting down to some considerable research, do I realise the sway Sofia held in the ancient Roman world when it was known as Ulpia Serdica (also spelled as Serdika). Not only was it a much-coveted city after the Roman’s conquered it from the Greeks in the year 29BC, but is it said that Constantine the Great sought to transform it into the ‘Rome of the Balkans’.
Evidence of the erstwhile grandeur of Serdica is apparent not just inside the train station, but also outside its turnstiles. Quite like the underpinnings of the 14th century Bastille fortress that peek out of the Bastille Métro in Paris, the remnants of the ancient Roman city were uncovered in the 1970s with the discovery of the Western Gate of Serdica and are on display to the public, under a huge, reinforced plexiglass dome.
The next day, as I take a free walking tour around Sofia, I am told that the restoration of the Serdica ruins started in 2011 and is still very much a work in progress, as I can see. In total, the complex covers an area of approximately 9,000 square metres, and once had as many as eight streets—including the grand Decumanus Maximus main road of the Roman city. Today, all that’s remaining of downtown Serdica that have been unearthed thus far, are the ruins of an early Christian basilica, a few mineral springs and early examples of a water and sewage system—all said to date back from the 1st to the 6th century AD.
Crypts, bones and catacombs
Giving the city its modern day, official name, I find myself at the rather somber-looking St. Sofia Church that sits in the shadow of the colossal Neo-Byzantine Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in the city’s historic center. The latter with its gilded central dome topped with a golden crucifix is so elaborate that I could even see it from the window of my plane’s seat a day earlier, as we prepared to land into Sofia.
Built in the 6th century during the time of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, St. Sofia rests not just on the foundations of four older Christian temples from the 4th century, but also on something that ties it in with ancient Serdica. With its location being a little outside the fortified gates of Serdica, it was the site of the of the city’s great necropolis.
Descending into its labyrinthine innards way below street level, I am greeted with sensations that threaten to awaken my latent claustrophobia. The catacombs here are an elaborate maze dotted with rough hewn niches laden with bones, several intricately carved masonry tombs and crypts—some still ensconcing stone sarcophagi. A series of vivid, well-preserved mosaics murals and frescos lit by dim, blue bulbs lend the catacombs an eerier cachet.
Where Plovdiv meets Philippopolis
As Bulgaria’s second largest city, its economic hub and the current European Capital of Culture for 2019, Plovdiv in the south of the country is next on my subterranean quest list. Ever the thrifty traveller, I once again join in a free walking tour almost immediately after getting into Plovdiv’s compact city center, post a two-and-a-half-hour bus journey from Sofia’s Central Bus Station.
My guide Igor lets me know that the city was earlier named Philippopolis, after Philip II of Macedon—the father of Alexander the Great—conquered it in the 4th century BC from the Thracians. But it was the Romans that left the most indelible mark on it when Philippopolis was incorporated into the Roman Empire by Emperor Claudius in 46BC.
And it was the grand Roman stadium that was at the very center of it all, being one of the rare stadia to be built inside the walls of a fortified city. Constructed at the beginning of the 2nd century AD during the reign of Emperor Hadrian, the stadium could accommodate 30,000 spectators all at once, cheering on everything from chariot races to talent contests for criers and buglers.
Today, all that remains of the stadium is the excavated northern curved part that lies under the modern day Dzhumaya Square, surrounded by lively cafes and bars. It is believed that the larger portion of the stadium, including its quintet of arched gates still lies beneath the buildings along the main street, parts of which can even be seen in the basement of the local H&M!
Paying homage to a city that was built on the crest of seven syenite hills, I end my day trip to Plovdiv with an Aperol Spritz sundowner at the hillside Roman Theatre. Built by Emperor Domitian in the 1st century AD, for millennia it lay buried under the backyard of a local resident. Painstakingly restored in the 1970s, the theatre—with its soaring Ionic marble colonnade and triangular pediments—still stays true to its original purpose to this very day as a popular venue for staging plays and concerts, I’m told.
Unfortunately for me today, I’ll just have to make do with the sun’s disappearing act, as it gradually dissolves into the craggy horizon…
(A shorter, differently edited version of this article appeared in the 21st September 2019 issue of the Mint Lounge newspaper, India on page 16 https://www.livemint.com/mint-lounge/features/what-lies-beneath-sofia-1568978786033.html)
By Raul Dias
The uniformed lady seated in front of me seems genuinely happy to see me. Her easy, generous smile far from the perfunctory, bordering-on-fake ones proffered by most immigration officers I’ve encountered thus far. She tells me that mine is the first Indian passport she’s about to stamp into Bulgaria in all her four years working at the Sofia International Airport.
“Don’t waste your money visiting any of Sofia’s museums!” she advises me almost conspiratorially, without offering any further explanation to bolster up her suggestion. “Also, don’t take a taxi into town. Your hotel is right next to Serdica, so take the direct train to the Serdika II metro station,” she adds, after casting a glance at my immigration disembarkation form and pointing me in the direction of the startlingly modern and spotlessly clean Sofia Airport metro station.
The city beneath the city
Almost as soon as I alight from the train a half hour later, I get the gravitas of the immigration officer’s seemingly innocuous (if a bit odd!) twin suggestions. Buried deep within the depths of downtown Sofia, the Serdika II metro station is truly one of the best places to start peeling back the Bulgarian capital’s onion-like layers.
One of the first things I notice about the huge, cavernous station is the acute lack of any form of commercial advertisement with nary a billboard or standee in sight. In their place are glass cabinets. The kind one would find in museums. Filled with everything from Neolithic pots and Roman urns, to even a few decapitated and chipped capitals that probably sat atop grand Doric columns once.
It is much later in the day, after checking into my hotel and getting down to some considerable research, do I realise the sway Sofia held in the ancient Roman world when it was known as Ulpia Serdica (also spelled as Serdika). Not only was it a much-coveted city after the Roman’s conquered it from the Greeks in the year 29BC, but is it said that Constantine the Great sought to transform it into the ‘Rome of the Balkans’.
Evidence of the erstwhile grandeur of Serdica is apparent not just inside the train station, but also outside its turnstiles. Quite like the underpinnings of the 14th century Bastille fortress that peek out of the Bastille Métro in Paris, the remnants of the ancient Roman city were uncovered in the 1970s with the discovery of the Western Gate of Serdica and are on display to the public, under a huge, reinforced plexiglass dome.
The next day, as I take a free walking tour around Sofia, I am told that the restoration of the Serdica ruins started in 2011 and is still very much a work in progress, as I can see. In total, the complex covers an area of approximately 9,000 square metres, and once had as many as eight streets—including the grand Decumanus Maximus main road of the Roman city. Today, all that’s remaining of downtown Serdica that have been unearthed thus far, are the ruins of an early Christian basilica, a few mineral springs and early examples of a water and sewage system—all said to date back from the 1st to the 6th century AD.
Crypts, bones and catacombs
Giving the city its modern day, official name, I find myself at the rather somber-looking St. Sofia Church that sits in the shadow of the colossal Neo-Byzantine Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in the city’s historic center. The latter with its gilded central dome topped with a golden crucifix is so elaborate that I could even see it from the window of my plane’s seat a day earlier, as we prepared to land into Sofia.
Built in the 6th century during the time of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, St. Sofia rests not just on the foundations of four older Christian temples from the 4th century, but also on something that ties it in with ancient Serdica. With its location being a little outside the fortified gates of Serdica, it was the site of the of the city’s great necropolis.
Descending into its labyrinthine innards way below street level, I am greeted with sensations that threaten to awaken my latent claustrophobia. The catacombs here are an elaborate maze dotted with rough hewn niches laden with bones, several intricately carved masonry tombs and crypts—some still ensconcing stone sarcophagi. A series of vivid, well-preserved mosaics murals and frescos lit by dim, blue bulbs lend the catacombs an eerier cachet.
Where Plovdiv meets Philippopolis
As Bulgaria’s second largest city, its economic hub and the current European Capital of Culture for 2019, Plovdiv in the south of the country is next on my subterranean quest list. Ever the thrifty traveller, I once again join in a free walking tour almost immediately after getting into Plovdiv’s compact city center, post a two-and-a-half-hour bus journey from Sofia’s Central Bus Station.
My guide Igor lets me know that the city was earlier named Philippopolis, after Philip II of Macedon—the father of Alexander the Great—conquered it in the 4th century BC from the Thracians. But it was the Romans that left the most indelible mark on it when Philippopolis was incorporated into the Roman Empire by Emperor Claudius in 46BC.
And it was the grand Roman stadium that was at the very center of it all, being one of the rare stadia to be built inside the walls of a fortified city. Constructed at the beginning of the 2nd century AD during the reign of Emperor Hadrian, the stadium could accommodate 30,000 spectators all at once, cheering on everything from chariot races to talent contests for criers and buglers.
Today, all that remains of the stadium is the excavated northern curved part that lies under the modern day Dzhumaya Square, surrounded by lively cafes and bars. It is believed that the larger portion of the stadium, including its quintet of arched gates still lies beneath the buildings along the main street, parts of which can even be seen in the basement of the local H&M!
Paying homage to a city that was built on the crest of seven syenite hills, I end my day trip to Plovdiv with an Aperol Spritz sundowner at the hillside Roman Theatre. Built by Emperor Domitian in the 1st century AD, for millennia it lay buried under the backyard of a local resident. Painstakingly restored in the 1970s, the theatre—with its soaring Ionic marble colonnade and triangular pediments—still stays true to its original purpose to this very day as a popular venue for staging plays and concerts, I’m told.
Unfortunately for me today, I’ll just have to make do with the sun’s disappearing act, as it gradually dissolves into the craggy horizon…
(A shorter, differently edited version of this article appeared in the 21st September 2019 issue of the Mint Lounge newspaper, India on page 16 https://www.livemint.com/mint-lounge/features/what-lies-beneath-sofia-1568978786033.html)
