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Bulgaria's Europe Alley, EU's Southeastern Gate

Monday, Jun 07, 2010

Xinhua

The Europe alley, located in a small village called Rezovo on the border of Bulgaria and Turkey, some 500 km from the Bulgarian capital Sofia, is the southeasternmost point of the European Union (EU).

There is a street sign hanging there from the very first minute of 2007, when Bulgaria joined the EU. Dimo Mavrov, owner of the only house in this alley who made the sign, told Xinhua on Friday: "I wanted to mark somehow this date."

Europe is the first name of this street. Before 2007 it was only numbered, like all other streets of this small village -- even today they still have only numbers but no names.

The naming of this street in fact marked the biggest change of Rezovo. Until 1991 this village was the most southeastern point of the Warsaw Pact. The then enemies, Turkey and NATO, were close at hand, and only Rezovo's local residents and military personnel could enter the village.

The border area still starts 10 km north of Rezovo, and lying 3 km before the village are two lines of barbed fence, but nobody stops the tourists now -- Bulgaria joined NATO in 2004, and the strict entrance prohibition was repealed even earlier.

A concrete hole, dug in a high rock on the beach, is the southern end of the Europe alley. For several decades it was an emplacement where soldiers with Kalashnikov machine guns prepared to stop the NATO army. Now weeds grow in it.

Just below the emplacement is the most southeastern beach of the EU, only about 200 square meters in space. It is some 20 meters away from the point where Rezovska river flows into the Black Sea and separates Bulgaria from Turkey.

The river serves as the two countries' border for about 70 km, and at some points the width is just 2 to 3 meters. However, there is no bridge or checkpoint on it.

There is a telephone line connecting the two sides of the river, which can be used by the Bulgarian and Turkish border police in case of any incident.

Founded centuries ago, the village has some 60 houses now. The number of the local residents is just around 50, but in summer the village is overcrowded by tourists coming from the Bulgarian Black Sea resorts to see where the EU territory starts.

Therefore, in summer time there is no seat available without early reservation in the three local restaurants. The most southeastern of them, called "Friend club Daliana," is popular along the Bulgarian Black Sea coast with its specialty -- the fish soup.

Vassil Georgiev, owner and chef of the restaurant, told Xinhua that the secret of the great taste of his soup is that he puts at least 5 different types of fresh fish into it.

Georgiev personally catches the fish because he is a fisherman as well. Sometimes he catches several hundred kilos, which is more than enough for his restaurant and even sold to markets in the neighboring Bulgarian towns of Ahtopol and Tsarevo.

Source: novinite.om