The rocks

The rock massive in Belogradchik is considered as one of the most beautiful sights in Bulgaria. The rocky area is about 20 km long and 3 to 5 km wide. The red massive starts from the "hundred sheep" formation around the Belotinci village and goes to the Vedernik peak and the legendary Borich heights. The rock forms are in the western part of the Balkan Mountains, around the town of Belogradchik and the villages Borovica, Chiflik, Praujda and Belotinci. The fantasies of the locals gave different names of the shapes. They're named with names such as: pine stone (an unreachable rock with pines on its top), bee stone (a rock with bee hives in its cracks), eagle stone (some eagles nest on this rock), Adam and Eve, the sphinx, the bear, the eagle, the lion, the schoolgirl and the monks and the cuckoo (when there is wind - this rock pronounces such sound).

The rocks are built from Triassic sands and conglomerates with oval stone shapes with size varying from a nut to a fist. The sands are welded with clay or quartz. They're rich on hematite pigment, which makes their final red color. The lower Paleozoic layer began to form 2 billion years ago. In the Mesozoic era, large rivers took off gravel, sand and clay from the surrounding mountains. As the time passed those materials weld up with the metal oxide, the clay and the sand. About 140 million years ago, those places become a bottom of a Jurassic sea and a huge sedimentary layer was formed.

Later, when the Balkan Mountains were formed those rocks came out of the earth and the sediment layer was worn out. The badly welded places were washed up and that was how the different figures were formed.

The Magoura cave and the Rabisha Lake

Along with the unique rock massive, the Belogradchik region hides within an underground world which took thousands of years for creating - the caves.
The Magoura cave is 24 km Northwest from Belogradchik, near the Rabisha village. It is the largest cave in Bulgaria and a monument of the culture. It has tunnels, whose combined length reaches 2500m. The height of the halls is up to 18m. The cave halls are nature's phenomenon - especially the Hall of triumph, the throne room and the hall of the obelisk. The most tempting for the visitors is the hall with the sketches, where in 8-7th century B.C. the cavemen who lived there made drawings depicting their life - hunting scenes and love scenes with cult for the woman. Those drawings made with guano, are considered as state of the art for the cavemen in Eastern Europe.

The smaller caves (about 20 in the whole region) are also places of interest - their deep chasms and chanting halls often challenge the surrounding red rock panorama.

Texts by Marusia Todorova, historian
English translation: Elenko Elenkov