How far can childhood memories, love of nature, of authentic rural cooking and of the small joys of life take us? The answer: to the central Rhodopes and more specifically the small resort town of Chepelare. One woman from Poland turned everything people in her country know about Bulgaria inside out, instilling in them a love of the country such as it is: with its ancient towns and villages, with the curiosity and the open-heartedness of the local people, with their authentic lifestyle and at times, bizarre ways, but most of all with the beautiful Rhodope Mountain, the mountain of the mythical singer Orpheus.

Where Orpheus was born is the title of the book by Albena Grabowska, who is of Bulgarian descent and has an excellent command of the Bulgarian language. The book that has become a constant companion to thousands of people in Poland, wishing to learn more about the other face of Bulgaria. A face that is far from the Bulgarian Black sea resorts they know so well, from the overbuilt resorts, the grimy stalls, the packed night clubs. Her travelogue became an instant bestseller and local tour operators started organizing Rhodope routes, using it as a guidebook. But how can it be that more and more Polish tourists have been skipping the beaches and starting on the “trail of lost time” in Chepelare and its environs, Albena’s book in hand? The author herself readily admits she never expected such a resounding success. Albena is young, beautiful and the happy mother of three; she works as a neurologist, mostly with children with epilepsy. Born in Warsaw, her late father is Polish and her mother was born in Chepelare in the Rhodope Mountain. She has always lived in Poland, but has spent her summers at her grandmother Katya’s in Plovdiv or in Chepelare. And she says these have been the happiest times of her life. She never forgot these idyllic summers, the magic of the Rhodopes, the local cuisine, the sound of the local low-pitched bagpipes, her grandmother’s tales, the smile of her uncle Leko… “These elderly people in Chepelare have been passing away and with them – their idyllic world,” Albena says and adds that to begin with, she intended to put her own memories down on paper for her children. But later she took her manuscript to a publishing house and they decided to publish it. From that moment on, the book has been selling like hot cakes.

“And so it turned out there was an enormous amount of interest, that people in Poland love Bulgaria and adore spending their holidays there, and not just for a holiday by the sea,” Albena Grabowska says in her fluent Bulgarian. “People in Poland are interested in other parts of the country as well. That is why my book became such a bestseller. It is a collection of essays about Bulgaria, about its people, its history, its landmarks. It is all there in my Orpheus. Readers find out interesting things about the Bulgarian language, about how people in the Rhodopes live, about how they used to live once, what their problems are now, what makes them happy and what makes them said. The book also contains material about the history of Bulgaria and of the Rhodopes. At the end I give a number of typically Rhodope recipes.”

It seems love of Bulgaria is infectious. With her book, the doctor from Poland has brought out the curiosity and adventurous spirit in thousands of her compatriots. Local tour operators quickly caught onto the booming interest in this country and most of all in the region of Chepelare and started offering routes, following the descriptions in Albena Grabowska’s book. There have been tourists who demand to be taken to her grandmother’s house and see for themselves that such a magical place really does exist. Others contact the author in Facebook to tell her their own experiences during their travels across Bulgaria, admitting that they chose to go there after reading her book.

“In the 1960’s – 1980’s, many tourists from Poland spent their holidays in Bulgaria, mostly by the sea,” Albena remembers. “That was our window to the world, a destination that was a substitute for sultry Spain or the Canaries. Then, when the Berlin wall fell, we turned to these distant and exotic countries because people were now able to travel the world and had more money. But they are now returning to Bulgaria and want to get to know it better. They visit the Rhodopes and want to see the monasteries, the natural landmarks.”

Where Orpheus was born opened the floodgates of Albena’s creative potential because after its release, she followed it up with more books – for adults, for children… There will be a reprint of “her Orpheus”, as she herself calls it, this summer. This time, there will be more photographs and a special map of the tourist sites. So that more and more tourists from Poland may be able to follow in the footsteps of the legendary singer and poet and enjoy the magic of the mountain.

English version: Milena Daynova

Photos courtesy of Albena Grabowska