Kalofer

Kalofer is a town of 3,500 people located near the highest part of the Balkan Mountain Range and Park, in the middle of the Rose Valley. Today it is a sleepy town, but at the end of the 19th century it had a population similar to that of Sofia (10,000) and was a center of education, culture, Bulgarian nationalism, and revival movements.

Kalofer’s main claim to fame is as the hometown of Hristo Botev, the national poet and hero. In the center of the town is a monumental statue of him, a reconstruction of the house where he lived, and a museum in his memory. Above the village rises the peak of Mount Botev, the highest in the Balkans. In addition, in the center of town you can find the Culture House, an information center of the Ministry of Tourism, a reconstruction of the first school in Bulgaria (opened in the 19th century), and several restaurants near the Tundzha River that crosses the town.

kalofer monument Bulgaria

kalofer butov house Bulgaria

In the upper part of the town you can see a large church from the end of the 19th century on one side of the Tundzha River, and the ancient women’s monastery surrounded by a fence on the other side. This is where women’s education began in Bulgaria. The teacher Botyo Petkov, who was the director of the school in the spirit of the Enlightenment—the first of its kind in the center of the village—decided to teach the women in the monastery as well, among them Anastasia Dimitrova, who later opened her own secular school for women. Indeed, beyond the monastery wall is a large garden with a 19th-century church inside. At the entrance to the church is a persimmon tree, which according to the nuns is the tree of knowledge from which Adam ate in the Garden of Eden.

The holiest object in the church is an icon of John of Damascus with three hands, and the story goes like this: John was a famous Christian theologian in the 8th century who led the opposition to iconoclasm (the smashing of icons) in the days of Emperor Leo III. As a result of pressure from the emperor on the ruler of Damascus, the latter ordered John to cease his activity. When he refused, he ordered John’s hand—used to paint the icons—to be cut off. John was not deterred. He prayed to Mary, and as a result, a miracle occurred and the severed hand returned to its place. Because of this, he painted an icon of Mary with three silver hands, the third hand being the miraculous hand of God that was restored to him and paints the icons through the painter. Later, this icon reached Mount Athos, and from there, different versions of it spread to various places in the Balkans. The third hand symbolizes the miracle of reattaching the severed hand to John’s body, and in a more general sense—the hand of God that intervenes in human affairs.

The theme of hands appears in many icons and monasteries throughout the Balkans. Many churches have paintings of saints with three hands. When you look at the human body, you see that there are three things that distinguish humans from apes and allowed the mind to grow and develop: one is the dimensions of the head and brain in relation to the body; the second is the fact that humans stand upright; and the third is the structure of the hand, whose sophistication allowed humans to create tools no animal could create. As a result of the sophisticated tool of the hand, its means of operation—the brain—also developed.

In addition to its many physical abilities, the hand also has mystical properties. A person’s destiny is said to appear in the palm of their hand, and it is no coincidence that Kabbalah and other mystical teachings engage in palm reading. The hand reveals the inner self and is the tool through which we can transmit or receive energies; it symbolizes God and His power. The icon paintings of the three hands and the importance of hands in the monasteries of the Balkans indicate that even in mystical Christianity, the hand is a key to understanding the spiritual and inner dimension of humanity. In the breakaway sects of the Bogomils, they used to baptize people by laying on of hands.

The town of Kalofer played an important role in the Bulgarian rebellion and the war of liberation from the Ottomans. During the war, it was burned by the Ottomans, but was later rebuilt. With the rise of Sofia and later of Plovdiv and other large cities, Kalofer lost its importance, and part of its population moved to the cities. The communists saw Botev as one of their own—a man who believed in brotherhood, patriotism, and equality. They established a plaza for processions and parades in the center of the town, while destroying the few old houses that had survived the Ottomans.

Kalofer is part of the Rose Valley and has rose fields around it. Paths and roads lead from the town to the nearby Balkan Mountain Park.

roses in kalofer Bulgaria