Moskovska Street, Christine Milner, Sofia

2006-04-21T19:11:00Z

My street is special. It has many beautiful buildings from the beginning of the 20th century, though not all of them are in good condition. There are churches, various monuments, a park and many parked cars. There is a recently installed portable loo too. I live in Moskovska St. in the centre of town.

People say that this is a sacred place because the St. Sophia Church was built here and before that the necropolis of the Roman town of Serdica. I really do believe that this place has positive energy and I feel at ease in my flat which overlooks Vitosha Mountain, St. Sophia Church and the Alexander Nevski Cathedral, both beautifully lit up at night. Every Sunday the bells of Alexander Nevski wake us at 8 a.m. When I am a little sad I only need to look out through my window to lift my mood.

From here I love watching the parades on national holidays and the weddings at the weekend. With all of this taking place right under my window, I feel I am part of the life of both the city and the country as a whole. At Easter we join the crowd in front of Alexander Nevski cathedral for mass with candles in hand.

Life in Moskovska St. is changing at a fast pace. In our entrance there is always at least one flat undergoing a renovation at any one moment and the old owners are gradually selling their flats because they can't afford to live in the centre of town any more. I don't know their stories but I think that most of them must have held quite high positions under socialism, and now they can't even pay their bills. The ones who are still here meet to chat on the park benches across the road, just as I imagine they did in the old days.

The municipality looks after us, perhaps because its home is also on Moskovska St. Rubbish is collected twice a day and there are people sweeping the street all the time. The park is clean and well tended. Sometimes there are small things that the municipality does which annoy me -- they close the street when a foreign delegation is visiting or place gunmen on top of our building when the presidents of the U.S. and Russia are here. On such occasions the police come up to our door and check my ID card because I am a foreigner and they probably consider me a threat.
Perhaps the only serious problem for us is that the cars parked on the street downstairs are often broken into. So we park our car in front of the municipality after 7 p.m., when its allowed, and have even made friends with the police that stand guard there.

*Christine Milner is British and has lived in Bulgaria for 15 years. She is the publisher of the Sofia Echo and the Sofia Inside&Out

To see Christine'ss picture's click here

Моята улица: Moskovska Street, Christine Milner, Sofia

Moskovska Street, Christine Milner, Sofia