SOFIA.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLV, Issue 3977, 9 July 1915, Page 3

SOFIA.

THE .BULGAKS’ CAPITAL CITY. CRADLE OF MOMENTOUS • DECISIONS. , Sofia, now the centre of momentous intrigue and negotiations on the part alike of Entente and Allies, has o i late taken the place of Belgrade as the 'Balkan source of international suspense. ’The Bulgar capital ’has become the fulcrum of the Balkans, about which peace and war are balanced with awful l nicety, and eveiy prediction from South-eastern Europe during the last few weeks has been based upon guesses as to what too statesmen of Sofia were planning. According to reports,, tho main elements in tho present Bulgarian attitude are tho hatred of this people for Greeks! and Serbians, which hatred has its roots in the far past, and their angor at what they call the G reca-Runianian-Serbian dismemberment of their country. There is, also, a fear of. Russia, the result of years of struggle to thwart Muscovite intrigues and to escape gradual absorption. Describing the capital of the Bulgarians tho National Geographical Society

Sofia is a.n -adequate expression of the Bulgurs. It is a solid, businesslike, modern, thrifty capital, with little of the picturesque and artistic in its composition, and nothing of romance or sentiment. It is a matter-of-fact .Western city paved with smooth-squared blocks ot asphalt, and its streets are lined with stone, and brick and stucco buildings ot solid, simple architecture. As m most American cities, these buildings were constructed for the display of wares to the host advantage, for obtaining the greatest possible office floor space or the largest number of living apartments, rather than for beauty or original effect. For the complexities of luxury, the Bulgarians have no time, nor have they learned to feel a need of them. HELD BACK BY MISRULE. Their capital-is a comparatively now city. Travellers who visited there before 1880 described it as a miserably poor place, “a concourse of red-tiled huts and of hovels of wood and plaster, of narrow, crooked, streets, and. of general' filth and depression.” This was the product of Turkish misadministration, which has nearly disappearod. the modern Sofia rising out of the Ottoman ruins. Sofia lias 105,000 population. It is a coinmanupoint upon tho shortest tracro route between Europe and Asia. Europe’s railway freigl t for the Near East and the goods of Asia Minor, Persia and Mesopotamia for the West pass through its valley. The city early became important as a trade centre and, probably, would have developed into one of the great cities of Europe had not periodical destruction, almost continual dangers of war, and centuries of misrule held it back.

The city lies in the midst of a broad X>lain, between the \ itosha Mountains and the main Balkan chain. At the end of almost every vista m the city one secs these distant hill masses, and this fringing of mountains is the only tiling that keeps modem Sofia from seeming entirely commonplace. Belgrade lies 20G miles north-west of Sofia, white Constantinople lies 3UO miles south-east. The valley of Sofia is an upland plateau, 1700 feet above sea level, and near the heart of the peninsula, which determines the climate as a sharply continental one. In August the mercury goes up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and in winter it falls to four and five degrees below zero. The changes in the weather aio often very sudden, though the climate is a healthy one.

SINCE THE TURKS WERE BANISHED. The rebuilding of Sofia began about 1880- It now has many creditable public buildings, electric lighting, ail electric, street railway and good sewer-age-and water systems. It possesses the largest theatre m South-eastern Europe. The Bulgarian National Theatre, with a competent coi'ps of actors aud singers, and offering the best in opera and drama, is a revelation of the strides that have been .made in the Balkans since the Turks were driven back a brief generation ago. The theatre is a handsome modern structure, planned with greater luxury of detail than, most buildings in Sofia, and it cost £BO,OOO. . Sofia has a public bathhouse which is one of the finest buildings of its kind in the world. It was built over a hot mineral spring, famed since the days of the Romans. This budding, m Byzantine stylb, including in its interior appointments all of the mast modern luxuries, cost the Bulgarians £120,000. Their capital city is one of the peculiar prides of the hard-working, longenduring, persistent Bulgarians. ft typifies to them the promise of a great Bulgarian future, and they also look upon it as an earnest of their right to „ rental place, among U.e civilised Nations of the West. Sofia has been in possession of the Bul-fears since its capture by these people under Krum ui 809 A.D.