Approaching MELNIK on
the bus from Sandanski (served by frequent trains and buses from Sofia),
you catch glimpses of the wall of mountains which allowed the townsfolk
to thumb their noses at Byzantium during the eleventh century. The town
hides until the last moment, encircled by hard-edged crags, scree slopes
and rounded sandstone cones. With its whitewashed stone houses on timber
props festooned with flowers, its cobbled alleys and its narrow courtyards,
Melnik is stunning – but socially and economically it's fast becoming
a fossil. In 1880 Melnik had 20,000 inhabitants, 75 churches and a thriving
market on the Charshiya, the main street. The economy waned towards
the end of the last century, and the Balkan War of 1913 burned the town
to the ground and sundered its trade routes. Nowadays there are only
570 inhabitants and the town survives on wine making – the traditional
stand-by – and tourism.
Melnik's
backstreets invite aimless wandering and guarantee a succession of eye-catching
details. It's oldest ruin – known as the Bolyar (Byzantine) House
– is sited on the high ground immediately east of the centre, and
was clearly built with defence in mind. It was probably the residence
of Melnik's thirteenth-century overlord, Alexei Slav, who invited rich
Greeks to settle here. Southeast of the Bolyar House you'll see the
balustraded tower of the Church of Sveti Nikolai. Inside, a wooden bishop's
throne decorated with light-blue floral patterns offsets a fine iconostasis,
on which white-bearded St Nicholas himself is prominently featured.
The houses that belonged
to the town's Greek entrepreneurs, rebuilt during the National Revival,
are now Melnik's most impressive buildings, and none more so than the
old Kordopulov Mansion (Tues–Sun 9am–noon & 2–6pm)
situated on the outskirts of town. Follow the track up from the river
gully and you'll see the stone-walled house protruding from the hillside,
its windows surveying every approach. Above the ground floor, now a
mehana, the spacious rooms are intimate, the reception room a superb
fusion of Greek and Bulgarian crafts, with an intricate lattice-work
ceiling and a multitude of stained-glass windows. Another relic is the
Pashov house just below the main square, which contains the Town Museum
(same times). The creaking stairways and elegant rooms are more arresting
than most of the exhibits, though photos and engravings of old Melnik
manage to leap the language barrier.
THE NATURAL SCENERY of
Melnik is truly amazing. Impressive and austerely splendid, the Melnik
pyramids rank among the most remarkable natural phenomena in Bulgaria.
On the area of 17 sq. km (near Melnik, Rozhen i Kurlanovo) millennia-long
erosion has chiseled this unusual world. Depending on the strength of
your imagination, you could see in them obelisks, ancient towers, giant
mushrooms... etc. But the imagination of the Bulgarian master masons
of the National Revival period inspired probably by the fascinating
architectural style of the Melnik house.
THE
CHARM OF THE MELNIK HOUSE
Its characteristic features are related to the geographic factor. The
sheer screes and the limited terrain compelled people here to fight
for every square foot of land. That is why the Melnik houses seem perched
one above the other, so close as though they are whispering something
to each other. Again, to cope with the slope, people here built the
basement of stone at several levels where the thick wine matured. Above
is the storey, towering gracefully, projecting and supported by many
cantilevers. The white facades are framed with dark boards and the windows
are grouped several together in an elegant fashion. The interiors usually
exhibit ceilings of carved wood, chimney-pieces, decorative cupboards
of colour woods, murals and even stained glass. But apart from the generally
typical features, every house here has an individuality of its own,
its own history and life.
THE FEUDAL LORD'S or BYZANTINE
HOUSE precedes the architecture of the Bulgarian National Revival by
several centuries. In fact it is among the earliest civilian buildings
in the Balkans and is described in Bulgarian and foreign specialist
literature. As legend has it, the castle was built for Elena-Olena,
a royal relative. The child was sent here to find a cure for a serious
lung ailment.
The favourable air here helped and she recovered to marry the Russian
Prince Igor. Archaeologists have found in the building elements typical
of mediaeval Bulgarian construction and have listed it is a Bulgarian
feudal fortress, probably built in the 12th - 13th centuries. Today
only the Western and the Southern outer wall are preserved.
THE KORDOPOULOV HOUSE (1754)
is a veritable gem of Bulgarian architecture of the National Revival,
remarkably planned and executed. Its basement contains one of the largest
wine cellars in the town equipped with special canals and ventilation.
And above, the house receives the day's light from all four corners
of the world. Also there are decorative murals and stained Venetian
glass, exquisite carved ceilings and sumptuous Baroque decoration.
THE PASHA'S HOUSE was built
in 1815 on the orders of the richest Turkish bey in the Seres and Melnik
region, Ibrahim Bey. But it has reverberated to the steps of the Bulgarian
revolutionary Yane Sandansky (1872-1915) who in 1912 proclaimed freedom
to Melnik. The house is elegantly and impressively planned and executed
with oriels and triangular surfaces on the roof. The wood-carved suns
on the ceiling are the work of masters from the Debur school.
But
the master-piece of the Debur school is the small internal icon stand
in the church of the ROZHEN MONASTERY. The architecture of the monastery,
is very impressive. It is only 6 km from Melnik in an easterly direction
and has existed since the Second Bulgarian Kingdom in the Middle Ages.
The church in its yard, built in 1600, was renewed and painted in the
18th century. It contains a wealth of splendid stained glass, openwork
wood carvings and old icons. Part of them, together with the wood-carvings
from the icon stand were exhibited in the Charpentier gallery, Paris
and in the Huegel villa in the town of Essen.
