A Walk to Alexander Nevsky Cathedral

Alexander Nevsky Memorial Cathedral Church in Snow

So. let’s first check the landmark photo. I’ve started with an easy one. Anyone who knows anything about Bulgaria and Sofia in particular will know the Alexander Nevsky Memorial Cathedral Church.

Alexander Nevsky was born in 1220 and he was a grand Prince of Novgorod and Vladimir at the time. He was the fourth son of Prince Jaroslav and became famous for driving out foreign invaders.

He gave his name to the St Alexander Nevsky Cathedral or Memorial Church. This the largest orthodox building in Sofia. It’s built in the Neo-Byzantine style, and it’s one of the largest Eastern Orthodox cathedrals in the world and a great symbol of Sofia.

Some people say it’s not really a cathedral but a Memorial Church.

The foundation stone was laid in 1879 but it was mainly built between 1904 and 1912 to honour the Russian soldiers who died in the Russian Turkish wars of 1877-1878 when Bulgaria was finally liberated from Ottoman rule.

This fact largely explains the strong friendship which still exists between Bulgaria and today’s Russia.

The cathedral was designed by Alexander Pomerantsev with the help of many other architects and designers. The gold plated dome is 45m. high and the heaviest bell weighs 12 tons.

On the 12th of September 1924 the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral was proclaimed a monument of culture. There’s a museum of icons inside the cathedral crypt containing what is claimed to be the largest collection of Orthodox icons in Europe. Outside the cathedral there is a flee market, where you can buy handmade textiles and antiques. Sunday is the busiest day.

I live quite near the cathedral, although I can’t quite see it from my window so I’m going to take you on a short tour from my apartment in Sofia to the cathedral and its surroundings

Today, it’s cold, and the snow is falling hard.

This is the view from my study window. Unfortunately, the air is not clear enough to see the snow on top of Mount Vitosha across Tsarigradsko Chaussée.

And here we come to a couple of what I consider to be very Bulgarian aspects of life. Tsarigradsko Chaussée is one of the main streets of Sofia and all Bulgarians know there’s something strange about this, because Tsarigrad is another name for what is now Istanbul and what was Constantinople, and it’s rather unclear why such an important road should be named after the rulers of Turkey, who were called Tsars under the occupation.

Curiouser and curiouser. When I first lived here, this road was called Boulevard Lenin clearly honouring one of the great prophets of socialism.

When the new government came the name of the road was changed to Trakia Boulevard and indeed it does go to Trakia.

So nobody has told me why Tsarigradsko should be a good name today.

Even nearer home, I was hoping it wouldn’t snow today, because today is one of my snow clearing days.

I’ve never lived in a block of flats before coming to Bulgaria, so I don’t know what happens in other places, but here, one of the residents of the block is elected every year to look after such things as collecting common funds for cleaning the stairs and so on and they also make up a rota for snow clearing.

When I looked at the weather forecast feed on this site and saw that heavy snow was forecast my heart sank. Still, it’s my duty, and perhaps either today or tomorrow I shall pick up my shovel and go and clear the snow.

In my next post we’ll continue the tour to Alexander Nevsky Cathedral walking through what is now called Boris Gardens.

I'm John Rocha, Blog Master of Bulgarian Vistas.

I like to write from experience about living in Bulgaria, holidays in Bulgaria, Bulgarian food,

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