MONASTERIES
in the Iskur Gorge

NORTH of Sofia, the River Iskur has burrowed into the majestic Balkan Range for thousands of years before flowing into the Danube. The place where the river cuts into the Balkan massif (towering at up to 1,800 m above sea level), is known as the Iskur Gorge. This gorge is a genuine wonder of Nature. In the most breathtaking stretches, the river is literally squeezed beneath soaring crags. Strewn with boulders and scored by gullies, the gorge gradually becomes narrower and deeper, the road and railway competing for space above the river.

This scenic part of the country has offered people shelter for centuries. Their descendants now densely populate the area, and many Sofianites have country houses here. Far from the madding crowd, the place was ideal for hermits and monks, who founded a number of monasteries.

Leaving Sofia, the northbound river slips into a rolling countryside, but the road (No. 16) soon runs into a narrow gorge. The Iskur Gorge proper starts after the small picturesque town of Svoge (pop. 40,000), 40 km from Sofia, and ends 58 km after the town of Mezdra (pop. 15,000). The most impressive stretches are near Gara (Station) Lukatnik, where you will often see bunches of hikers and mountaineers crawling up the steep cliffs. 

There are seven monasteries in the Iskur Gorge today, but the sources show that there once were many more. The monasteries closest to Sofia are at Ilientsi and Kourilo, but all that survives from them are the late sixteenth-century churches with mediaeval frescoes. This also applies to the monastery at Iskrets (near Svoge), where there are parts of the monks' living quarters along with the church (with frescoes from the 17th and 19th centuries).

One of the best known monasteries is the Sedemte Prestola (Seven Altars), in a deep valley that intersects the mountain about 12 km from Gara Elisseyna, at the foot of a towering cliff with ruins of an ancient fortress which the locals call "Latin."

The monastery, restored in the early 19th century, includes a courtyard and living quarters. The oldest building is the church, apparently built in the 14th century and restored after the Turks burnt it down twice in the 18th and 19th centuries. The earliest records on the monastery date from 1511. The most remarkable thing about it is undoubtedly the church, the design of which is rare in the Bulgarian lands. In the form of a domed cross, it has a main altar and another six chapels between the arms of the cross and near the narthex - hence the name of the monastery (The Seven Altars). The frescoes are eighteenth-century, but there are also icons from the 17th and 18th century which suggest that the church was decorated by many painters from several schools.

Back on the road to Elisseyna and down the gorge, we drive on for another 17 km to the second most important monastery in the gorge, Cherepish. Huddled in a gully near the river, it is just under the main road. Several fortresses were built in this, the narrowest part of the gorge overhung by white limestone cliffs, even in ancient times. All that has been left of these ancient and, later mediaeval citadels are memories, but the monastery itself must have apparently been founded in their vicinity. Legend has it that this happened in 1390 - indeed, the present church is built on the foundations of a very old building. The Turkish invasion in the Balkans was fatal for this, as well as many other Bulgarian places of worship. The monastery was destroyed and eventually rebuilt, starting with the church erected in the late 16th or early 17th century by a monk from Mt Athos known as St Pimen. He painted the first icons and murals too. Later, the monastery was enlarged by a reception building for pilgrims, rooms for the hegumen and bishop, a school, belfry and other facilities. In its best years,  Cherepish had as many as 60 or 70 monks - today, just three live here. The monastery has been almost fully restored in its 18th-19th century form. The Cherepish has played an important role in Bulgarian history. It produced a renowned calligraphic school (surviving books and gospels from the 14th, 16th, 17th and 18th centuries are currently on view in various museums), as well as many works of art -icons, iconostases, church plate and vestments. In the years of the struggle for ecclesiastical and political independence (in the 19th century), revolutionary committees met and hid in the monastery from the Turks. Later, rooms for the Theological Seminary were built near Cherepish, which the Seminary occupied from 1921 to 1991. These rooms are now vacant, and their dark windows face the one-horse station where there are seldom any passengers.

Driving on to the town of Roman along road 16 to the east, we pass by ("under" would be more appropriate) another natural phenomenon: Ritlite (Cart Rails), three parallel ribs of fissured rock that look almost man-made. Just before Roman, we come to the Monastery of Sveti Iliya (St Elija), also known as Stroupets. Founded perhaps back in the 13th or 14th century, this monastery was destroyed by the Turks in the early 15th, and rebuilt in the 16th century. The small church from that period has some superb frescoes, genuine masterpieces of Bulgarian art in those times. The rest of the monastery dates from the first half of the 19th century and is in the typical National Revival (Bulgarian Renaissance) tradition, with wooden porches (chardak), columns and railing. Further east, just before the Balkan Range tapers off into the plain, we come to the Karloukovo Monastery. Built in the late 19th century on the site of an earlier monastery, the Karloukovo is not as old as the other monasteries in the gorge. Still, the fine frescoes in the church make it worth visiting. You can take the same road back to Sofia or, in Roman, take the turn for Yablanitsa and then drive back to the city mostly along the Hemus motorway. If you can spare the time, make a detour to the town of Botevgrad (pop. 30,000) - nice square and period clock tower - or even to the monastery near Etropole (18 km off the motorway)

Chavdar ANGELOV

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