📷 Pavelsko, Bulgaria | 09-10-2020

Hello, dear Hivers!

In this post, I want to share with you some pictures of Pavelsko, a village in the Rhodope Mountains, that I visited during the weekend:

---

So, during the weekend I went to the village of Pavelsko where I met some of my old friends from my students' life and we stayed at one of our friends' house:

On Saturday the weather was really perfect (+6 degrees Celsius during the day, which is extremely warm for this time of the year) and we had a walk in the village:

In this village, the population used to be over 1000 people but nowadays it is just about 400-500 people and it is almost empty. Because of the drop in population, there are many abandoned houses there (and, actually, this is a very common situation throughout the country).

However, I did like the village! And it was really fun to walk in the streets there:

While having the stroll I did enjoy the old-style houses which are built of stones and wood:

This is a very old house, probably, built 100 or 200 years ago:

Although it seems that the house is abandoned I find it super cool, because it reminds me of the houses in the 18 or in the 19 century in my country.

Also, I have noticed that some of the properties have such kind of small buildings made of wood and stones:

But, we came to the conclusion that a long time ago people used these buildings as storages for different instruments, or hay.

Now let me show you some other houses that were built in the middle of the 20th century (during the Communism) and have a Communist-era architectural style:

During our stroll, we went to one hill and I took a picture of the village from the hill:

In the picture, you can see the tower of the church, and in the background the fog over the hills of the mountains.

From the hill, we decided to go to the church so we had to walk through the center of the village:

There is a small creek flowing through the village:

In the center, next to the creek there is a small clinic (or, actually, a rehabilitation house):

There is also some kind of school for small kids:

This is a typical Communist-era residential building with some small stores on the first floor:

When I saw this building it brought me back 50-70 years ago. That was a super cool feeling.

And the yellow-color building is the town (village) hall:

From the main square of the village, I took a picture of the lyceum (community center) located on one of the hills:

It seems that part of the building is actually a school:

Ok, from the center of the village we continued to walk in the streets:

And we got to the church:

This is the tower of the church:

On the wall, there was a stone-plate with the name of Ktitor Marko Ivanov, a revivalist from the early 19th century:

In the area of the church, there were many very old stone-made houses:

Unfortunately, nowadays many of them seem to be completely abandoned.

And the only thing that reminds you that once there was life in these buildings is another memorial plate on the wall with the name of one of the teachers in the village back then:

This house (also, in the area of the church) is a typical house from the 19th century:

Luckily, either someone lives there or someone maintains it because it doesn't seem to be abandoned:

After visiting the area of the church, we decided to go back:

On the way back, I took a picture of some other interesting houses. For example, this one is a new one but is built in the old style:

One more picture of the super interesting to me small buildings made by stone and wood that almost every third or fourth house/property has:

A picture of a house built in 1948 (the very beginning of the Comunist-era):

So, these houses have their own architectural style.

And my last picture! A small family-run shop (built in the Communist-era) that offers coffee and tea as well:

However, it is temporarily closed due to the pandemic.

---

I really enjoyed my stay with my friends in this small village in the Rhodope mountains.

Although, the village is almost empty nowadays (many of the houses are abandoned) because of the decline of the population in the country I think that this village will be able to recover sooner or later.

First of all, it is not far away (just 20-30 km) from the ski resort Pamporovo which is a very nice resort and many foreign tourists visit it during the winter. The village is just 2-3 km off the main road leading to the ski resort.

Moreover, the village is just 35-40 km away from Plovdiv, the second biggest city in Bulgaria. Once again it is very close to the main road leading from Plovdiv to the ski resort of Pamporovo. In addition, there is an airport not far away from this area (probably 30 km away). The airport is located next to the city of Plovdiv and it is an airport serving some low-cost companies flying across Europe.

That's why I think that this village (and the others in the area) has bright potential!

---

Fellow Hivers, I hope you enjoy my post about the village of Pavelsko!