I managed to get some people riled up in the last two day when I posted my <a href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/2011/01/25/video-sofia-the-history-of-europe/" target="_blank">less than shining review of a new youtube video</a> Sofia: the History of Europe. I had no idea I'd create such a stir among a few of my readers. But I did. Thirty plus comments later (and counting) the comment section of my blog post is now at least three times as long as my original post. And that's saying something, given the fact a 1/3 of my original post was a video.

It seems pretty clear that my slight to the video (and <em>not</em> the city) was misread and misinterpreted as a slight to the city, the history and the people.  Which if you're a long time reader of my blog you'd know is not my style. First because I actually really dig Sofia and more generally Bulgaria. I've dragged friends all over Bulgaria to go and check things out that I've wanted to see first hand--say the tombs in Kazanlak and the orthodox church in Batak.

And time and time, I've complained about language and rhetoric used in English language travel guides about Bulgaria. Guides that reduce the country to an interesting relic of communist past and today a sad, struggling post-communist wasteland with little of interest between Sofia and the Black Sea coast. I think this is reprehensible. Sure, parts of Sofia aren't outwardly as beautiful as Paris as the Paris of our dreams/memories but parts of Paris aren't that outwardly beautiful either.  My lonely planet guide (2005) is among the worst offenders and says things like "Kazanlak is a surprisingly interesting city and despite not being obviously attractive, it boasts plenty of history." I know that there's a new edition now but I don't have it.

In my mind, language and rhetoric like this unhelpful and and actually untrue. If you've been to Kazanlak, you'd see that the city is center charming and the tomb is exquisite. Thus language that is reductive like this doesn't help any one. It's one thing to say that there are block buildings on the edges of a city like Kazanlak and an incredible Thracian Tomb. But it's a whole other thing to couple a complement and a reductive insult in the same sentence. To couple an insult with a complement is counter productive it undoes and undercuts whatever complement you've just given.

So back to my original complaint: the video Sofia: The History of Europe. In this video, we see a careful building of the history of Sofia and an exploration of a variety of cultural sites here in Sofia.  This part of the video is about 25 minutes long.  Then in the last five minutes of the video the British host/narrator with a smile on his face tells us this: In less than an hour you can experience all the stages of [Sofia's] history.

A line that in my mind, undoes all of the hard (albeit slightly cheesy) work that the video has done up until this point.

In my mind, this line is problematic because it suggests that one can see and experience all of Sofia's history in an hour. If this is true (which I don't think it is--I've been to Boyana Church and the tour itself is at least 20 minutes long), what's a tourist supposed to do with the rest of their time in Sofia? And it begs this question: why visit a place if everything of importance can be seen in less than an hour?

This just seems like such a weird way to sell the city to tourists. And I can't help but wonder, why reduce this city to an hour? And why undercut the otherwise positive message about what a great city Sofia is?

The Sofia I love radiates out of Slaveikov Sq and the intersection of Graf Ignativ and Rakovski. It's a city with vibrant ideas, art, history and culture. Sofia is a city that seems to always be in the process of creating itself. There's nothing static about this city and that's why I would argue one needs much more than an hour to explore the cultural and historical sites of Sofia.

So there you have it, no name calling, no crying, no screaming.

This is a city that I like. One that I think often is glanced over for cheap skiing or glittering beaches.  And I think that we are responsible for this because the language and the rhetoric we use to to talk about this city, Sofia, is often reductive. I have probably been guilty of this myself at time and it's certainly easier to point out the faults of other people's language or rhetorical strategy than one's own.  But I'd like to end here, I think Sofia is a city wholly deserving of a visit but I also think that Sofia is an exciting and energetic place to live.

A place that I, for one, plan to continue living in, exploring and writing about.