Wanna know a cool secret that I learned today? 129 years ago, behind the white brick wall to the left and past the corner of the building with the air conditioner, once was a small park, the private garden of the house of Stefan Stambolov, “Bulgarian politician, journalist, revolutionary, and poet who served as Prime Minister and regent, considered one of the most important and popular ‘Founders of Modern Bulgaria.'” He was assassinated in 1895. Shortly after, his wife sold the property.
The stately house of Stambolov was demolished. Urban development in the young capital of Bulgaria and residential buildings gradually ate up and completely surrounded the garden, dividing it in 4 uneven parts delimited by tall brick walls that only the neighbourhood kids could navigate during the endless summer vacations. Today, the bulk of the old property is a quiet, inaccessible place, away from the noise of the outside world. Nothing’s left from the old garden. Well, almost nothing.
There’s a dried up, forgotten, old stone fountain in one of the 4 inner yards, under the big, big trees that grew taller than the buildings. You could get to it through a scary, completely dark corridor in the basement of one of the buildings…That is, if you have the 4 keys unlocking the doors that would block your way. Or, if you are 12, you could jump over the brick wall and sit by it for a while, forgetting about school and the summer heat, not even suspecting who had once stood by it.
Pic description: Basically, the view from the balcony window of my kitchen. I can’t show you what’s behind the brick wall, because I am not a kid anymore. But when I was, I sometimes wondered who had built the antient thing behind it.