Rival Reviews: Rila Monastery
It’s not an alpine hotel, it's a Bulgarian monastery I promise!
Alpine forests tower over the residential wing of Rila Monastery.
Bulgaria has always had rotten luck. Its location, sea coast and diverse terrain has made it prime real estate for conquests, invasions and subjugations of all kinds over the centuries, and it is only now emerging as a country all of its own. From the 6th to the 3rd century BCE Bulgaria was a battleground for Thracians, Persians, Celts and Macedonians all attempting to expand their territory and throw their weight around. Alexander the Great himself seized the land during his famous world tour (conquest) of 335 BC, and soon after the Roman Empire, the imperial big dogs on the block, took up where he left off in the 470’s BC.
Bulgaria was briefly established as an independent state in 681 BC, during which the cyrillic alphabet was created and the Bulgarians argued over who got to be in charge, but this respite was short-lived and in 1018 the Byzantine Empire was the next empire to make itself cosy. When the Byzantine vibe ended in 1185, Bulgaria was once again free! But not for long; in 1396 the Ottoman Empire seized the Bulgarian state and five centuries of the ‘Turkish Yoke’ began. This era was characterized by the loss of state and religious independence, as Bulgrians were enserved to the Turks. When the empire began to decline in the 19th century at the conclusion of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 (short war), Bulgaria was established as its own country with the right to choose its own ruler. One teeny problem however. Some time during the Ottoman conquest, all of the Bulgarian nobility had perished, fled or integrated almost 500 years hence. Where to turn?
To Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. A German prince, born in Vienna. In 1908 Ferdinand became 1st Tzar of modern Bulgaria, and it was under his rule that Bulgaria entered the First World War on the side of the Central Powers (German Empire, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire) in 1915. They lost, but you might know that. To save the Bulgarian monastery from this setback. Ferdinand abdicated in 1918 at the conclusion of the war, turning the throne over to his son Boris. Still smarting from the territorial losses as a consequence of WW1, Bulgaria once again threw their hat in with Germany (oof) in the Second World War, though their relationship was far from unwavering. Hitler was allegedly so furious with Boris for not complying to his ‘Final Solution’ that when the Tzar died in 1943 after a meeting with the Fuhrer it is still widely speculated that he was personally poisoned by the German dictator. Such minutiae mattered little to the Allies and the Soviets however, and the Red Army eventually occupied Sofia in 1944 and pointedly refused to leave. Bulgaria was now a Communist republic, the monarchy was abolished and the country was established into the Eastern Bloc. Democracy was only reinstated in 1989.
I only mention all of this because quite a lot of it affected a small but beautiful monastery in the Rila mountains.
Rila Monastery was founded by Sant Ivan of Rila, who is sometimes called John for some reason, during the rule of Tzar Peter, who reigned from 927 - 968 AD, making the site more than 1000 years old. Ivan/John was a hermit, and actually lived in a cave with no stuff in it higher in the Rila mountains, where he was revered as a saint, and apparently had the ability to summon animals to him like Snow White. The actual monastery was built therefore by his devoted students, who had come to study at his feet. Or maybe they just weren't as happy with the cave situation as he was.
Hrelja’s tower - still standing.
Almost immediately Rila Monastery became beloved to the Bulgarian state and every ruler gave a sizable donation to the site, a practice which continued even during the century of Byzantine rule. One of the most significant of these was by Protosebastos (Byzantine court title) Hrelja Dragovol, who ensured the site's protection by transforming it into a well-fortified monastery complex in the 14th century. Hrelja added residential buildings, a church and a fortified tower, which still stands today and we will get to explore later. The support from the Bulgarian tsars turned Rila into a landmark of spirituality and culture, and during the medieval period the monastery was rapidly developed. At this point Rila was at a climax, and rough years lay ahead.
The Ottoman’s raided the monastery, proving Hrelja Dragovol right about needing fortification, then they raided again, and again, and again. Despite this, for some reason the relics (alleged physical remains or personal items of a saint, or objects that have touched them) of Ivan/John were moved to the monastery in 1469, perhaps as a much-need morale boost. This was short-lived however, at the end of the 15th century the Ottomans finally succeeded and managed to raze (almost) the whole place to the ground.
Rila’s rebuildings effort was partially aided by the Russian Orthodox Church, presumably unwilling to see one of the most significant outposts of Orthodox Christianity destroyed. They donated money but also books and church accessories, something of a monastery start up kit. And Rila became a symbolic depository of Bulgarian culture and language during the many centuries of foreign rule, even harbouring rebels against the Turkish Yoke and establishing a school for monks where they could study the higher sciences - physics, chemistry and biology. The knowledge imparted by the head of the school, a monk called Neofit Rilski, was given to anyone who wished to learn.
In 1833 disaster struck again when the monastery was destroyed once more in a large fire, but it is from this that the monastery as we know it today now stands. Funded by wealthy Bulgarians across the country and under the guidance of Aleksei Rilets, who designed the eastern, northern, and western wings, and Joseph the Builder, not related to Bob, the monastery came back stronger than ever.
Rila’s main campus.
However an even bigger enemy lingered on the horizon - bureaucracy. After surviving the withdrawal of the Ottoman Empire and two World War losses, in 1961 the new soviet governance had the monastery nationalized and transformed into a museum and the monks dispersed to other, less interesting monasteries. This didn’t suppress the site's allure however, and in 1983 it was declared a UNESCO world heritage site and a living monument, and when communist rule finally withdrew in 1991 Rila once again became a functioning monastery. And here we arrive at the present; the centuries of endurance of the Bulgarian spirit impressed into the site of Rila and are open to all who deign to journey within its walls.
And we deign. Stopping by while on a brief city break in Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital, the monastery is about a two hours ride by tour bus into the Rila mountain range. The new style complex is a masterpiece of the Bulgarian National Revival style, characterised by buildings composed of stone on the main floor and an overhanging wooden upper floor. From the outside the irregular pentagon shaped building resembles a medieval fortress, four stories high and all small windows and an imposing stone facade. A short hop inside through the gateway however reveals a sight that reminds me of a Swiss alpine lodge inspired by a Byzantine temple. Maybe it's the red flowers in baskets and omnipresent wooden beams lining the walls and wooden balconies of the site's residential complex, set off by Byzantine vibes seen in the stone arches and inlaid patterns in the walls. The effect is very charming.
Vibrant barely covers it.
This complex contains, by some counts: 300 chambers, 4 chapels and a library holding 250 manuscripts and 9000 printed matters. Some rooms are available to book for the night but waiting lists are expectedly long. Otherwise the entire building is completely off limits apart from some very rudimentary loos and a couple of gift shops.
What really draws the eye across the flagstone courtyard is Rila’s church. Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary was built in the mid nineteenth century by master architect Pavel Ivanovich. The church is a five-domed, cross-dome construction - a type of early Christian or Byzantine church on a cruciform (cross) plan with a dome over the crossing and four barrel-vaults (arched roof) over the arms. The church’s portico is decorated with black and white horizontal stripes, possibly Mamluk (slaves of Turkic origins from the Eurasian Steppe) influenced, which became popular in the Ottoman Empire after the conquest of Egypt. However, it's what lays under their shelter that really holds attention. Inside, the church is literally covered head to toe in frescos, painted in the 1840’s by the Zograf brothers - a muralist and icon artist respectively. Orthodox art often observes a rigid standard of symbolic representation of sacred figures, but there is also adherence to Bulgarian revival folk art that really makes the murals pop. Vibrant is the word. I notice too that the murals are symbolically arranged with images of hell at lower levels, interactions between demons and humans at eye level, and the divine occupying the domes and arches above.
Inside is also attention-hogging; equally vibrant, lit by candle light emanating from glittering chandeliers and gilded to high heaven - quite literally. Photos are forbidden inside the church (not that that stops some people…) and priests are very watchful inside the space that this rule is adhered to, so if you enjoy people getting told off you will have a fun time watching it happen here.
Mekitsi - too good to wait.
However, after getting up horribly early, walking across an empty Sofia and travelling on a cramped bus for two hours, I’m not ashamed to say that our first thought was not sightseeing but food. And boy were we in luck. A few steps outside the monastery’s entrance sits a gem: the Monastry’s bakery, selling a simple selection of monastery bread, sheep’s yogurt and mekitsi - Bulgarian fried dough. Words cannot express. When served dusted with icing sugar this treat is unreal; we ate our delicious mekitsi and buffalo yogurt overlooking the river running around the monastery, and it seemed everyone else was doing the same (small note - the only other place to eat was a restaurant described by the tour guide as ‘not very good and quite slow’ if that has any bearing on your opinion).
There are also a few stalls dotted around the exterior of the monastery, selling tourist tat alongside wooden idols - nothing you will not find in the tourist shops in Sofia and Plovdiv. The shops inside the monastery are much more religion-orientated, eg, no shot glasses with a map of the country on them.
Time to explore the monastery. Just inside the archway entrance there is a nondescript door leading into the self-contained monastery museum. It contains some very fine examples of Bulgarian art, most significantly a wooden cross with an exquisite carving made by a monk named Rafail. Rafail’s wooden cross must have taken him a lot of time, because it’s carved from one whole piece of wood upon which he recreated 104 religious scenes and 650 miniature figures. Imagine messing that up halfway through. However I found this information online because unfortunately we did not go into the museum. It costs extra - not usually a problem, but Rila Monastery only takes cash and having not known this beforehand we were quite literally shortchanged. There are also no ATM’s. We content ourselves instead with exploring the interior courtyard and its buildings. The rest of the monastery is out of bounds for visitors as monks still use the monastery as a monastery. The cheek!
What passes for stairs in Hrelja’s Tower.
The oldest building still standing at Rila is of course Hrelja’s Tower, the medieval stone structure still dignified as it stands out among the newer additions to the monastic complex, and the belfry added in 1844 looks almost delicate in comparison. The set up is very disarming and it’s my favourite immediately. The tower was likely used as a place of protection, for the monks or their treasure, and as such is only accessible through a single entrance on the first floor. The ground floor is now a small gift shop selling mainly wooden images of saints - presumably their value does not require protection via stone fortification.
Cash money still being an issue, we could only pony up one entrance fee so I ascended the wooden steps to the first floor entrance alone. A sign translated into English stated that the single entrance was once only accessible via ladder, but to be honest the difference between that and the ‘steps’ that are there is little more than naming convention; you practically need grappling gear to ascend them. Having paid for my entrance halfway up the climb to a nice smiling lady, I entered a stone room completely empty save for a suit of armor hung on the wall, and a cross-section of the tower itself. It shows each of the five floors, with a chapel dedicated to the transfiguration of Christ right at the tippy top. It is dimly lit and there appears to be no way up. After poking my head into a couple of the niches in the walls, third time lucky and one niche reveal a set steps. Very steep, very scary. Each floor thereafter is empty too, decorated with badly saturated images of what I presume is the chapel. At last I reach level five. Up here there is more sunlight, the windows which had before been mere slits in the traditional medieval defensive style are now much enlarged. The view over the top of the monastery walls and the Rila mountains beyond is spectacular but what is in the room itself is even better.
14th century frescoes - look but don’t touch.
The Chapel of Transfiguration still contains original 14th century frescoes, and as such is not accessible, visitors must look through the glass doors set into each wall. Unlike the bright, intricate frescoes adorning the Church of the Nativity, the chapel’s walls are painted in shades of grey, brown and ochre from age. The details are still clearly visible however and it is shocking how much of the paintings survive. It is worth the near death experience of climbing the stairs, and dare I say better than the church. Having said that if you hate 14th century frescoes the whole tower is probably worth a miss.
After this however there’s not much left to see. Having no cash is a real drawback at Rila, where God does not take plastic.
Is the cafe in the kitchens or the stables?
Such questions don’t apply at a purpose-built monastery in the Rila Mountains of Bulgaria.
Can I take my kids?
Loads of people do, this is one of the most popular family days out in the whole of Bulgaria.
Can I take my dogs?
In all outside areas, yes. Nah in the church etc.
Walks?
The more athletically inclined may enjoy a walk from the monastery to the cave of St. Ivan/John Rilski, the actual, for real cave where the hermit lived. A sign just outside the monastery entrance indicates the 4km trail which will take you there - alternatively described as ‘beginner-level’ to ‘extremely steep and not suitable for children or old people’ depending on what site you visit to discover more. You can also see a small stone church built near the cave which was built in the 14th century. Through a narrow opening between the rock and the church, you can go into the cave, and according to the beliefs, only a righteous man can go through and be blessed. Women too these days.
Well, what did you think?
For those not devoutly religious, Rila Monastery is a breathtaking sight but not one likely to take up more than a couple of hours of your time. For the more casual visitor I definitely recommend taking a guided tour of the site with a group to learn the history and development of this cultural icon, then factor in some time to take in the museum and tower at your leisure (remember your cash!). You can bulk out the day with a trip up to the original hermit’s cave, or by combining a visit with that of another historically significant religious site, such as Boyana Church on the outskirts of Sofia. Trying a mekitsi is integral and I must stress that. If you take nothing else away from this review let that be known.