Somusing

About a month ago I went on a day trip with my friend Иван Чакаров (Ivan Chakarov) to the south-central Bulgarian city Кърджали (Kardzhali) , which is about a 95 km bus ride from Plovdiv and which lies about 60 km north of the border with Greece. I was on a quest to find another Bulgarian friend I knew from my mission in Germany who I'd lost contact with. (Keeping in touch with people who moved around in the pre-Internet era was not easy!) This friend had long lived in Kardzhali and said it was a beautiful place he planned to go back to. The chance we would find him 22 years later was small, but it was worth a try and was a good reason to go see a different part of Bulgaria in the Rhodope mountains. We came close to finding him. We found his old apartment and people who knew him, and he supposedly still lives in Kardzhali. But after much trying, we were not able to find him. The journey was interesting and mostly fun, and we got to see the river, city, suburbs, memorials, fores...

Here I happened to be walking by as evening began and the bells were ringing at the Church of the Holy Mother of God in Plovdiv, Bulgaria (църква Света Богородица, Пловдив, България):

Near the end of our stay in Prague I came across this interesting Hussite columbarium in the Vinohrady area of Prague . I wasn't familiar with the term columbarium, which is an indoor graveyard of sorts for cremated remains. The Hus' House (Vinohrady) Wikipedia page and Prague city website page about it have interesting history to read. First let's look at the outside: The plaque below reads: V květové revoluci 1945, kdy budova Čs. rozhlasu byla poškozena, vysílal pražský rozhlas z budovy zdejšího husova sboru ve dnech 7.-9. května zprávy o postupu spojeneckých armád, volání o pomoc bojující Praze. Památník znázorňuje génia povstání s plamenným mečem revoluce. Z vděčnosti Bohu a na věčnou paměť připomíná náboženská obec CČSH (Církev československá husitská) zde v Praze-Vinohradech. Which Google Translate plus some manual corrections gives as: In the May revolution of 1945, when the Czechoslovak Radio building had been damaged, Prague radio broad...