Show 40 irla jp CO to P pig for sale in a sofia street I 1 ireba repa ed hv hy national at lonal geographic society wash agton D C service T LT atren ren the danube and the macedonian I 1 ac dolan mountains the trav D eler er rees hardly a single farm house yet bulgar means a man with a plow and four of every five bulgarians are farmers sofia founded by trajan just missed be coming constantinople since constan tine seriously considered it as his cap ital still a small town in 1880 it Is now a flourishing city of a quarter of a million inhabitants the progressive capital of a land of villages although since hoary antiquity ty tidal waves of humanity have swept south routh through the balkan passes or east cast and west along the route to by zant cantlum luin this crossroads cross roads country Is still far from the beaten path yet the orient express passes pisses through sofia every enery day and on the orient arrow it Is a days day s fl from paris whose styles it has begun to copy before daylight ou don the seventy league boots awaiting you at L le bourget airport of paris touch earth at strasbourg prague lenna budapest and belgrade and end the day in your sixth european capital despite the increase in numbers of city dwellers seeking to buy amuse ment in the open market scanning movie posters and photographs of sleek steel cabaret girls bulgaria Is an ag il i cultural land with peasant consert and thrift among the more or less formal thant agin ing pro clama eions 0 of f recent times surely one of the most arresting was bulgaria Bulgar las s our poverty Is our riches A land of homespun may be proof against not only spiritual but also economic depression were one to seek a symbol for economics and spiritual ty the bul but garlan woman plying her distaff as she leads meek eyed oxen through bucolic scenes worthy of a rose bon heur might well serve as a model but even the bulgarian maud miller has glanced to the baroff far oft town going ahead rapidly the rural bulgarians whose riches are poverty are aw awaking alSing to new desires bulgarians have long fostered schools literature music and the drama but progress now means something d efferent not a lifting up but a speeding up city styles and pleasures are stealing the spotlight pot light an old bulgarian proverb says aas ier ter to start the piper than to stop him ai aid d bulgaria has begun to tread a faster measure than ox team or buffalo have set or can follow one finds in bulgaria many grad bates of constantinople V oman s col lege and of robert college in istanbul there are alco 1 several excellent amer lean schools in bulgaria itself amer lean loan educators have approached the problems of bulgaria with sympathetic understanding the bos and girls schools of have been united to form a co educational american college but in deference to bulgarian conservatism an imaginary line cut ting the campus in two still separates the sexes in there is a more unusual school with a one year course designed for dirt faro farn ers who there learn to do by doln future mothers practice on real babl babies es before having babies of their own orn even enen in a land where vet yet schools and hospitals rival those for human beings there Is no other institution quite like the amer lean farm school which gains prestige from its an patronage tornow former capital at a time when defense was more than trade routes straddles a neck of land tun meled by the railway and rises above wild mid city gorges as does luxem bourg on the mount of eagles stands the city of today linked by a narrow isthmus with the hill of the tsars walled region of the former royal pal aces A colony of monasteries mccu pies another hilltop and the aristo brats a fourth varna becomes a summer resort varna on the black sea used to be i i grain port but when the boundary makers gave the rich granary of the dobruta to rumania the city lost its commercial importance when wheat s ii failed little drops of water and little grains of sand did their bit on the splendid sea front commodious bath houses and seaside villas were built and summer visitors now flock bock in from all over central europe to revel in sea and sun for a time the authorities tried to reserve the central section for married folks but they persisted in forgetting to bring their marriage licenses and mixed bathing Is now firmly dished on the wings are screened sections where men and women are iso and can dispense with suits lie in the hot rand and let old sol shoot health into them through every pore deprived of dobruta s bread varna decided to eat cake and vacationers loners in increasing numbers share and provide the fun hotels claim to offer bulgarian hungarian bohemian Bohe and german cooking but french habits are not yet understood in bulgaria one eats cats chocolate but drinks cocoa south of varna Is where byzantine emperors used to dis port themselves in the from the san Is many antique treasures have been rescued and there still exist im posing ruins of byzantine churches allita y service Is not obligatory in bulgaria though it Is expedient but in addition to the few days of temporary labor which male subjects are supposed to render to their country every eighteen year old does eight months of obligatory labor under what resembles military discipline lands are reclaimed roads and bridges built railways lep alred erod ing mountain sides reforested rampant P ant rivers tamed relief shelters con strutted ted and good citizenship learned by these organized laborers or tru kovaks their badge reads work for bulgaria this labor corps Is ona one of the most distinctive features s of modern bulgarian life protective tariff walls always alway s look lower from the inside and in bulgaria as a s elsewhere a heightened nationalism jealously guards its infant industries to its fine woolens the country has al ready added sugar cotton cloth silks flour baby carriages bicycles hides paper cigarettes rubber shoes i and even ev en automobile tires although h cereals tobacco eggs and chickens are among the principal exports bul barlas most distinctive product Is at tar of roses of which it produces produce a three fourths f of the world worlds s supply rose industry important jahangir the mogul emperor amused nur jahan by piping rose water through her garden at delhi and upon its surface she first discovered the bright pearls of attar later an old turk seeing the wild roses of bulgaria induced his compatriots to start the industry which won for the plain between the balkans and the middle mountain the name of the rose valley alley the rose as symbol of beauty innocence and modesty has Ins plied count less legends and songs ever since it was born with aphrodite from the sea foam or sprang from wound inflicted by the chaste but intolerant diana but one use perfume to prove innocence and a rose smells even sweeter under many strange names attar of roses Is used as a base and fixative rather than for its scent alone and the skilled perfumer determines whether this product of peasants shall suggest floppy brimmed hats and flowered chiffon or sleek silks and exotic earrings these unspoiled bulgarian peasants who never knew luxury depend on it for their dally daily bread and although they know no political economy it at af facts both their economies and their politics because of the competition between private and operative cooperative dis tillers rose oil has come to involve bankers and politicians as well as gar beners the old firms are not only finding a decreased sale but are also facing the competition of operative cooperative co distilleries opened under government protection and boom conditions the attar of roses produced by the operatives cooperatives Is deposited as collateral in the agricultural bank which al at though already holding a thousand pounds or so of attar must still ad vance funds on the new crop 6 4 0 |