When we start up the road to Burgas again I have a definite and well-known feeling of starting for home, even though there are still two days and many new experiences before us. It has to do with leaving the sea. The road dances towards and away from the coast like a shy asphalt river excused from the laws of gravity impelling real rivers to finally yield their identity to the sea. Having stopped for coffee in Burgas, we continue further north along a sea-level road skirting a lagoon. Crossing it, water each side, we are rounding Burgas Bay to arrive in Pomorie. Like almost every town of any size we have gone through in the last few days it is a huge building site. Anywhere near the coast hotels of all shapes and sizes—mostly medium to large—are sprouting up in a boom that I suspect will have major unregulated ecological  consequences. It is very clear from the volume of new building why EVN has had to put a mobile transformer station into service — it was built in Austria, mounted on two trailers and shipped down the Danube.
Pomorie itself lies on a salt lagoon and has a long (and continuing) history of salt production. After visiting the small Salt Museum we stand outside watching the cormorants grooming themselves, perched on poles that look like they are the remains of an old jetty. The next event on the agenda is a short stop at the EVN base in the area.
|
|
As I walk by a lorry in the forecourt a crackly voice rings out in something resembling a question. Since there is no-one else around I open the cab door to find a babbling two-way radio. The teams in the field use them to communicate. M comes over and translates a couple of sentences. I switch on the recorder.
Some of the houses in the town date from the so-called National Revival period and are similar to the wooden houses we saw in Sozopol.  After this we leave the sea behind once and for all, heading almost due west for Karnobat and Sliven, though we turn north into the Balkan foothills before reaching the latter. We are on our way to Kotel, passing a number of disused factories at the side of the road and I make another little note to explore what the differences in factory work were in capitalist and communist Europe. |
