The Capital

On the railway station of Sofia there may be displayed on the partitions an enormous map of the nations traversed by the Orient Line. On this map, which was compiled, I ought to fancy, about twenty years in the past, you will see that some rating of names, exhibiting the place of the principal cities of Bulgaria, however the capital, Sofia, isn’t amongst the quantity. The reason is that the current metropolis of the State was too insignificant a spot in these days to have its title recorded. I may by no means meet with any very passable clarification as to why this place was chosen above all others because the Capital of the nation. It’s not related to any of the historic traditions of the period, apocryphal or in any other case, when Bulgaria was an ideal and unbiased Empire. It stands on no appreciable river ; it’s not a robust navy place ; it’s not the seat of any nice commerce or trade; and on the interval of its choice it was not notably handy of entry. It had, undoubtedly, the damaging benefit of being surrounded by a purely Bulgarian inhabitants, with a really small admixture of the Mussulman component. It additionally lay upon the good navy high-road between Constantinople and the West Essentially the most possible clarification is, that on the interval when Bulgaria recovered her independence, Sofia, which was then a small city of some six thousand inhabitants, occurred to be one of many chief seats of the Turkish administration. Tirnovo, the traditional capital, was and is sort of inaccessible, owing to the absence of roads and railways, whereas Sofia was clearly on the route which the road from Vienna to Constantinople must observe. Rustschuk, which, because the abode of the previous Governors-Common, was the pure capital, was not thought of appropriate, owing to the truth that it lay within the centre of a district during which the Mussulman component was predominant. All the pieces at that interval needed to be achieved in a rush; there was no time to select and select; and because the Turkish Pashas, Cadis, and Bashi-Bazouks took their departure from Sofia, the Bulgarians discovered able to their hand the residences and workplaces which the Ottoman authorities had beforehand occupied.

What a proper resolution

Anyhow the selection of a capital, by no matter motives it might have been dictated, has not proved to be a foul one. The city stands on a rolling plain some two thousand ft above the ocean, encompassed in virtually each course by the ranges of the Balkan Mountains.