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Bulgaria - the City of Sofia

Bulgaria, Sofia, Bronze Lion by the Unknown Warrior Memorial.

Sofia today is a modern, cultural, aestheticlally pleasing city that is full of history.

Bulgaria is split into provinces, but Sofia is unique in that it has two provinces: Sofia Grad, which covers the city, and Sofia Oblast, which covers the surrounding areas.

Having a population of about 1.4 million, it follows that one in five of the people of Bulgaria live in the provinces of Sofia. The city lies at the foot of Mount Vitosha, and has been revered for many hundreds of years because of the local mineral springs.

Sofia is twinned with many cities throughout the world, notably with London in the United Kingdom. In the centre of the city a burial chamber has been unearthed, and stands as a permanent display to the areas' prehistory.

When the Romans invaded in about 29BC it was renamed Ulpia Serdica, and later became a municipality - a regional centre of administration. Over the next couple of hundred years the city grew as the usual buildings associated with Roman population were erected - these included an ampitheatre, public baths, and fortifications. The city became much revered by the emperor Constantine the Great.

Ruined by the Huns in 447AD, the Emperor Justinian of the Byzantines embarked on rebuilding, renaming the town Traditsa, and thus it remained under Byzantine control until the early 9th century.

As part of the First Bulgarian Empire it was later given the Slavic title of Sredets, and during that time was an important fortress. In 1376 the town was renamed Sofia after St Sophia, but for another two hundred years was also known as Sredets.

Sofia was invaded and captured by the Turks (Ottoman Empire) in 1382, and from then on the population would also include many of the Muslim faith. Ottoman architecture -including Mosques - became apparent in the town, but only a few of them have survived until the present day. Sofia was liberated from Ottoman rule by the Russians in the late 1870's, and the country became the principality of Bulgaria, and later (1908) the Kingdom of Bulgaria, which it remained until 1944.

After the Russians liberated Bulgaria from Ottoman rule in 1879, Sofia (known by the Thracians as Serdica - named after the Celtice tribe of Serdi) was made the capital city of Bulgaria.

Following WWII - during which time the city was bombed heavily by Allied aircraft - Sofia like the rest of the country fell under the control of the Soviet Union, and became the People's Republic of Bulgaria, continuing to be so until 1990, when it became a democracy.

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