THE DIARY GAME SEASON 3: BETTER LIFE 8 APRIL 2021 - A Day in Roussenski Lom Natural Park - Bulgaria V

A fox with fur with an interesting / gray tint, comes out in front of me, and when he sees me, he returns to the thicket. Later, a hare (Lepus europaeus) in heavy jumps through the rich grass, retreats by bypassing beautiful specimens of candle (Verbascum sp). Regarding mammals, out of the 92 species present in Bulgaria, 68 species were reported from here. Remarkable is the presence of 25 species of bats (chiroptera), of which 20 occupy caves, including all 5 species of horseshoe bats (Rhinolophus sp) in Europe; in addition to these, there are porpoises (Spermophilus citellus), woodpeckers (Cricetus cricetus), otters (Lutra lutra), steppe ferrets (Mustela (Putorius) eversmanii) and spotted ferrets (Vormela peregusna). Large herbivores are represented by deer (Cervus elaphus), deer (Capreolus capreolus), wild boar (Sus scrofa), and among the carnivores we can mention the wild cat (Felis silvestris), the wolf (Canis lupus), the jackal (Canis aureus), as well as nelipsite… vulpile (Vulpes vulpes). Archaeological / cultural values. It seems incredible to see on a huge stone tower a door through which you go out on a suspended terrace… a man looking into the distance… On a close facet you can see on the face of the rock, tens of meters high, a wooden construction, part of the hermitage. Such 'windows' now abandoned appear quite frequently, showing us that in the past this area was an important area for hermit monks who lived through this special landscape. Throughout the rocky area, inside the limestone rock, people have remodeled natural caves, dug hermitages, inhabited the area over the last few millennia. There are prehistoric, then Thracian, Roman vestiges from the 1st century AD.

In the 12th-14th centuries the Bulgarians built a fortified city called Cherven, the traces of which can still be seen; was one of the most important economic-administrative, cultural-religious and military centers of medieval Bulgaria, during the Second Bulgarian Kingdom. The monks settled here between the 11th and 14th centuries, in the area there are about 250-300 cavities dug in the rock by them, of which about 40 cavities are on the territory of the park; it is assumed that the number of cavities (hermitages, niches, galleries, corridors with steps and rooms) could be approx. 600, some of them being destroyed naturally by collapses / collapses of the walls, but most of the missing ones fall prey to the Muslim times that followed. However, frescoes painted in the 12th-15th centuries have been very well preserved, being among the most representative artifacts of medieval Bulgarian art. Ivanovo Rock Monasteries is one of the 9 sites in Bulgaria, on the UNESCO World Heritage Natural and Cultural Sites list. The whole area of ​​the natural park is also an archeological reservation, protecting what is left of the fortified settlements, sanctuaries and tombs of some western civilizations.