Adobe buildings from Stambolovo area

Just 30 - 50 kilometers south from my hometown of Haskovo, you will find a totally different life. The municipality of Stambolovo, located in the northern parts of the Eastern Rhodopi mountains, is a sparsely populated rural area with many artifacts from the past. 

For example, the adobe bricks, which remain as silent monuments of the ancient construction traditions. The technology of using adobe bricks is thousands of years old, and the archaeologists still discover well preserved ancient adobe buildings in Mesopotamia and Egypt. There are villages, where you can see the peasants use adobe buildings dating back several centuries. 

The adobe bricks are made of earth mixed with water and an organic material such as straw or dung. The soil composition typically contains sand, silt and clay. Straw has an important function: it binds the brick, in order to dry evenly, thereby preventing cracking due to uneven shrinkage rates through the brick.

Here, in Stambolovo area, there are people who still remember how to produce adobe. 

Rugs from Zagrazhden

I am participant in The Balkan Summer School on Religion and Public Life, which takes place in Plodviv and Zargzhden. 

It is part of an international academic initiative to gather together people with diverse religious background and to nudge them to explore their differences and coexistence. 

In Bulgaria BSSRPL is run by the Faculty of philosophy and history at Plovdiv university "Sv. Paisij Hilendarski." 

During our visit in Zagrazhden we did a lot of fieldwork. In one house we found great wool rugs. Here are some photos, with my co-student from BSSRPL - the beautiful Japanese Anna Goto.