My Wednesday Walk to the Ethnographic Complex "Damascena" Part 1

Greetings everyone 🙂

I want to share with you a walk to a very favorite place of mine ❣️ The ethnographic complex "Damascena" is located immediately before entering the village of Skobelevo, which is located at the foot of the majestic Stara Planina (in еnglish "The Old Mauntain"), in the heart of the Rose Valley 🌹, in Central Bulgaria.

The complex is inspired by Bulgarian traditions and history, and in it, in principle, you can learn everything about the unique rose oil - "liquid gold", as it was once called,(because its price was as much as gold), about how mined it more than 300 years ago, and walking through the bio parks, full of free-roaming swans, the Cultural Center and The amphitheater, representing a giant basket full of roses.. the Household part with various antique objects and tools... to immerse you in that Great History that we had and which, unfortunately, "some" they very firmly insisted that it remain hidden not only from the world, but also from us Bulgarians..

I shared this walk in this amazing place for me with my very close friend from childhood, who had already been there, so I also had a guide 😉

This is the parking lot in front of the entrance to the complex, and when I got out of the car park, the sculptural composition "Orpheus on the cross" caught my attention, which shows how priests want to crucify Orpheus as they did with Jesus, at which the wild animals run away.

The plate depicting the crucified Orpheus turns out to be an exceptional artifact from 2000 BC

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Right next to this composition was a small roofless and windowless building, as if begun but unfinished, in which were depicted scenes from that part of our history connected with the 5th century Turkish Slavery.

And here we are already going to the entrance, as before we passed through the bridge that passes over the missing, dried-up Gabrovnica river.

And here she is..the beautiful Queen Berenice "Bearer of Victory" - the second wife of Seuthes III who takes the burden of power after her husband's death along with her two sons.

Тhe last great ruler of the Odrysian Kingdom - Seuthes III

Viewed from the side, this arch "speaks" so much...when I first looked up and saw it I thought it was some twisted version of the Statue of Liberty, but when I looked and read the symbols...I cried

"There are no eternal empires, there are peoples who keep their history forever!"

We continued to the rose distillery where there was a great mural depicting the process of making rose oil, the first laboratory..all the past related to the history of this exquisite flower, the Rose.
Usually here you can see live the process of extracting the rose oil, but this happens from May to June, and I came in October, but no problem, I promised myself to come again..

We went up the winding stairs and reached the bell tower, where there was a cool view 😊

There were so many coins, visitors left them for luck perhaps 🍀

On leaving the distillery, Bay Ganyo, Uncle Ganyo оr Ganyo Balkanski was "waiting" for us on the bench. A great sculpture that depicts the literary anti-hero of our famous writer Aleko Konstantinov. The creator of "Damascena" decided to include him in the characters of the complex maybe because he is the most famous seller of rose oil, although only in a book hahaha

Some of his very funny expressions are written, but they are difficult to translate into English, but I will try..Some of them are: "You had a lot of money - you gave it away!" or this one: "Since I am lying down, may I eat a pear?"

In front of Bay Ganyo stood the sculpture of its creator Aleko Konstantinov with his pipe. My girlfriend really wanted me to take her photo with this gentleman 😀

This is the end of the first part of my walk in the Damascena Ethnographic Complex, dear friends, I promise to share the rest with you. I hope you found it interesting 😊

This post is my entry this week for #wednesdaywalk - an initiative of @tattoodjay collaborating with #MakeMeSmile challenge hosted by @elizacheng.

Thanks for watching 😊