It is cloudy, there are puddles everywhere and though some of the other pubs around the artificial ponds are open there is a thin layer of low-lying depression in the air.

L notices a children’s playground with tubular metal climbing frames in various forms. She remarks that rocket designs seem to be omnipresent, echoing and underlining the strong influence of space travel and the cosmonauts as symbols of  technological progress and social achievement.

On the way back to the hotel we pass a monument to Vela Blagoeva, a woman partisan who gave her name to the town itself.