Posts Tagged ‘cars’

Elder (Starets) Tadej Vitovishki explaining on the perpetual Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Lord’s prayer importance for daily Christian living

Wednesday, March 18th, 2015

Elder (Starets) Tadej Vitovishki explaining on the perpetual Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Lord's prayer importance for daily Christian living – http://s.www.pc-freak.net/url/323 Tateij Vitovnishki is among the few true spiritual enlightened people of our time who had achieved the gift of never ending prayer Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me the sinner. It is interesting that the Elder advises us to not worry about events in our life or what will happen as God will order averything in our life for our best. So the standard way of thinking we have that we need to work hard to buy apartments and cars and the never ending lust for money is something that will never give us rest or drive us closer to God, that's why the Elder says he doesn't worry about anything but just concentrates on prayer and believes God will provide him with everything needed. Amazing Elder, let him pray for us the sinners!

 

Trip to Shipka Peak,Sopot and 3rd of March Liberation of Bulgaria from Turkish Slavery 1878

Sunday, March 6th, 2016

Shipka_memorial_stone-of-Russian-Turkish-war-and-liberation-of-Bulgaria

Its 3rd of March for one more year, (Bulgaria Independence Day), the Liberation of Bulgaria from Turkish Slavery.
Eternal Glory be to all Bulgarians, Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Romanian, Finish, Serbian and Moldovans and All Russian army Soldiers (Eastern Orthodox Christians) who fall fighting for the liberty of  my homeland Bulgaria!

3rd of March is Biggest and perhaps brightest among all the feasts of new history of Bulgaria because on 3-rd of March 1878 San Stefano Treaty (peace contract) between Russian Empire and Ottoman Empire.
My homeland Bulgaria was enslaved under the yoke of Turkish Empire from 1393 (when it fall under Ottoman Slavery) to 1878 received independence and Bulgaria as a country was rebuild for 3rd time (The 3rd Bulgarian Kingdom) arised.

San Stefano's Treaty The treaty created the Principality of Bulgaria with a territory including current territory of Bulgaria plus the Macedonia region (nowadays country of Macedonia) which has historically been most of the time part of Bulgarian Empire and Bulgarian country which at  the time of signing the treaty was mainly populated with Bulgarians. Later the Berlin contract revisioned San-Stefano Treaty because the countries of power at the day didn't wanted such a big country at the heart of Europe.

3rd of March has a very special way of  celebration especially at the places where there was battles between the side of Russian Empire (Ukrainians, Moldovans, Belarusians, Finnish) with the help of  few hundred thousands of Bulgarians, Romanian, Serbians has fought and defeated heroically the Turkish Army – which at the time was better equipped and more numerous than the Russian / Bulgarian and other ally soldiers, but as the saying goes The Power is not in the Multitude but in God alone, so the almost 494 397 soldiers army of Turkish Empire was defeated by just collectively 312  thousands of Russian, Bulgarians and other Christian allies.
This year here in Bulgaria we celebrate 138 years since liberation of Bulgaria from Turkish Slavery, so for one more year, we enjoy freedom from the darkness of economic and religious Turkish slavery.

In the war most of the soldiers that took participation had been Eastern Orthodox Christians so it could be said the war was almost a war of Faiths – On one side All Eastern Orthodox believers and on other Muslims.
The Turkish-Russian war (1877-1878) is hence absolutely epochal and becomes a good history lesson to look back to especially with the latest exarcebation of relations between Russia and Turkey.

The war had been disadvantageous at a certain time and there was a high chances that the Eastern Orthodox armies could have been defeated if it wasn't the heroic win of the Battle for Shipka Peak where about 35000 well equipped Turkish soldiers were defeated by just 5500 mostly Bulgarians and some  Russians.

Shipka-Ottoman-Turkish-fighting-with-Bulgarian-and-Russian-armies-on-Shipka

The Bulgarian and Russian armies has been fortified themselves and has severely fought for 3 days while on Shipka peak with some old fashined battle guns and some old riffles (many of which self produced) and insufficiency of ammos.
The Bulgarians didn't have any food so kept hungry for 3 days while being under a siege of the Ottoman, when they run out of Ammos, the only way to fight was to catch stones and throw over the enemy, when the stones were over, they started picking up the dead bodies of other mates and through over Turkish enemy.

The Bulgarian poet, publicist and Romanist Ivan Vazov has written a glorious poem being inspired by the heroism called "Epic of the Forgotten / Opylchencite na Shipka"
which occured in July / August and September 1877.

Shipka_Bulgarian_turkish-slavery-liberation_memorial_stone
Some years ago I had the chance to visit the Shipka  Monastery and the Majestic Russian Church nearby Shipka  but not until this year I haven't been on the Shipka peak itself nearby the battles where a majestic central majestic monument was build as a memorial stone and few other little memorial stones were build by the Russian Tsarist Army.

Memorial_stone-Shipka-Alexander_II_emperor-of-Russia

Memorial Russian Stone build in honour of the fallen Russian, Moldovian, Belarusian and Ukrainian for the Liberty of the Brotherly slavonic nation.

The stone depicts the Byzantine Empire Eagle (coat of arms) adopted by Russian Empire after fall of Byzantium and a memorial note in honor of Russian Emperor Tsardom Alexander (Nikolaevich) II.

This year by God's grace I had a chance to visit also the central monument stone exactly on 3rd of March as a friend of mine Pavel with his wife Ivanka had already planned a Trip to Shipka for the feast and they didn't objected to join them and visit Shipka Peak.
The monument of Shipka started on 1922 and completed in 1930, the monument was first officially opened in 1934 on top of the entrance of Shipka monument is an enormous bronze Lion (which is a Symbol of Bulgaria and also a symbol of Juda the tribe from which the Saviour God-Man Jesus Christ descended by flesh bloodline. The 3 writtings on the monumentum Shipka, Stara Zagora, Sheinovo are written to commemorate the great battles for liberation that occured on that 3 places.  Traditionally each year since 1934, there is our Eastern Orthodox prayer (Moleben) for the fallen in the fights and great feasts gatherings with Bulgarian and other country officials and a lot of people from VMRO (a nationalist organization), Voini na Tangra (Tangra Warriors) and many mostly nationalists and patriots. It is curious fact that Putin visited Shipka on 3rd of March 2003.

 

We travelled from Sofia to Shipka quite early in the morning 5:45 morning in order to escape the traffic jams and drived to there about 250 km with a short break on an oil station.
Being there nearby the village we had to wait on a long queue with cars of other people going for the Shipka feast and after some 50 mins of jam, we finally parked because it was already impossible to continue because of the multitude of parked cars all around the road.
From there we had to walk about 8 kilometers climb up the mountain as Shipka peak is about 1326 metres high.
Normal way was in a asphalt car road, but as there was many cars going back and forth and the air there was quite dirty after about 2 km we catched alternative wild route through some mountain paths.

God had been good to us these day as even though it is still the end of Winter in Bulgaria and usually March is a cold month the day was Sunny and Warm and there was no rain at all, this was a big grace to us and all of the tens of thousands of people all around …

Being there we entered the monumentum which happens to also be a 4 staged museum with some beautiful monuments inside.

Shipka-Marble-Sarcophagus-with-bones-leftovers-of-Shipka-Heroes-thanks-to-which-Bulgaria-is-free

Sacrophagus with Bone Remains of Soldiers fallen for the Victory of Bulgarian-Russian Brotherly armies on Shipka

Then we had a walk back the road fallowing the 892 steps down from the monumentum to the asphalt road leading back to Shipka village.

Shipka_890-steps-down-the-peak-liberation-monumentum

Going down the stairs from Shipka there are plenty of Souvenirs being sold some Fast Food vans selling coffee, beer sausages and burgers so we took Karnache-ta with Bread (which is a kind of traditional famous Bulgarian hunter sausage) 🙂

Having a kind of dinner we travelled back and went to see the Majestic Russian Church built from 1882 and sanctified in 1902. The Church Crypt (containing also bones of the dead soldiers who left their bones for our freedom), the Church was build with donations from Russians and contains at the moment also a lot of Holy Relics of Eastern Orthodox saints and thus is a great destination for pilgrimage.

memorial-Russian-Church-of-soldiers-fallen-for-liberation-of-Bulgaria

We wanted to sleep in a hotel or a guest house in Shipka but because of the feast everything was already occupied so we travelled to nearby famous Bulgarian revolutionary city Sopot (which is famous for being a very central for the Bulgarian liberation movement of Vasil Levsky) and most importantly the birth place of the patriarch of Bulgarian literature and probably the best poetries, romanist and publicist of Bulgaria of all times Ivan Vazov.

We had called a gues house phone and found a accomodation place to stay for the night in one of the many Guest houses in Sopot and then we our dinner in some local pub called CHICHOVCI (Uncles), nearby Sopot center church which is in famous of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.
Here is time to say that perhaps the fact everything went smoothly with finding an accomodation so easily in so late time and having such a nice dinner nearby the Church was not a coincidence, because earlier on our road back from Shipka, my wife Svetlana was teaching Pavel the Church Troparion of Saint Peter and Paul, which is in honour of st. Paul the protector saint of Pavel.

The guest house accomodation (we got the number to seek for rooms) from a Ads in front of restaurant pub of CHICHOVCI in Sopot turned to be also quite cheap 12 lv (6 eur) per person. So 2 person room costed only 12 euro. We were accomodated straigh in the beatiful crest of the mountain nearby a pine forest.
This night I slept quite peaceful, probably because the air in a small town as Sopot is crystal clear as it is in most mountain parts of our heavinly country Bulgaria.

In the morning we had a quick meal and went for a coffee and tea as we have the custom to do here in Bulgaria mornings on free days in a small but cozy coffee place.

saint_Peter-and-Paul-Church-Sopot

From then on we took some food for a lunch Duners from nearby and went to see the St. Paul, St. Peter church.
The Church is from y. 1840 and is in its authentic form and had plenty of old 100+ years Eastern Orthodox icons and the Christ Grace inside is so heavy. The central icon of the Church in honour of Saint Paul and Peter is considered miraculous and has an all time unexplainable heavy scent.

saint-Peter-and-Paul-church-inside-interior-Sopot

Our next destination was the Museum birth house of Ivan Vazov author of the most famous Bulgarian novel after liberation "Pod Igoto / Under the Yoke", which illustrates very precisely the way of life of common Bulgarian before and throughout the efforts to organize inside bulgaria, liberation war and struggles of Bulgarian ordinary people because of the inhuman Ottoman Turkish enslavers.

Sopot-Ivan-Vazov-monument

As you see behind the monument in remembrance of Vazov, Sopot's mountains and nature just like Shipka's is amazingly beatiful.

Ivan-Vazov-birth-house-the-most-famous-Bulgarian-novelist

Vazov's house is a great place for anyone who wants to go back in time with 130 years back in time and see the way rich Bulgarians housed used to look like, what were people working, what was the common interior of a Bulgarian house for that time as well as many specifics about the glorious (intellectuals) family of Vazov, two of his brothers (Georgi Vazov and Vladimir Vazov), studied in Russian Empire and were succesful and famous Generals in Bulgarian army, where Boris Vazov was famous politician.
Nearby Sopot, there is a special lift for paraglinding and is a famous destination for paragliding very near I heard there is monastery Sveti Spas (Holy Saviour).

Unfortunately this time the time was short and we had to go back so we couldn't visit the monastery, but I'm determined to go there in Sopot / Shipka and nearby hopefully soon in some of coming next holidays – if God bless so.

2 Wonderful days in Belgrad Serbia / Belgrad a city you should see! – A trip to KaleMegdan, ZooPark War museum and Kaona monastery

Monday, July 7th, 2014

Flag_of_Serbia-days-in-Serbia-Beograd-must-see-place-zoopark-and-military-museum.svg

Me and my wife Svetlana, spend our weekend in Beograd (or BeoGreat! as it is also famous among English speaking). I was sceptical about Serbian, always thinking Serbians are living poorer and that we Bulgarians have better living standard. What I saw in Beograd convinced me Serbs lives at least half or 1 time better than us Bulgarians. Starting from Road Infrastructure and coming to the prices and ending with buildings, people live and mood and everything is just amazing!
serbian-tram-beograd-city-nice-infrastructure

serbian-tram-beograd-city-nice-infrastructure

Serbs as people have deeply impressed me, they are one of the best people, I've seen really. Serbs have respect for their Church, know how to enjoy their life much more than us. Also the culture in Serbs as they are more western oriented than us. The language is not so easy to understand as a I though, generally you can understand with a serbian as its slavonic similar language. The whole 2 way sleeping car train ticket from Bulgaria ( Sofia ) to Serbia ( Beograd ), costed us about 55 euro per person – which is a bit expensive because the real distance between Sofia and Serbia is only 400
km
, but as it is international ride it is a bit overcosted.

bdz_slipenwagen-sleeping-old-car-of-bulgarian-national-railways
bdz_slipenwagen-sleeping-old-car-of-bulgarian-national-railways

The sleeping car were inscribed with the words (Liegen Wagen – in German Sleeping Car) and were an old wagons left from communism – produced in Bulgaria.
Though the wagons were old the were clean and warm, the sleeping sheets were clean and generally it was confortable as we were only 2 people in compartment (this was so because not too many people travel from Beograd to Sofia and vice versa). Also the service in the train is on a high level, the woman who was accomodating us in the train was very affable. In train we were checked twice once by and once by Serbian border control and by Bulgarian border police and customs. On our way to Serbia the train come late with a delay about 2 hours we started from Sofia at 20:30 on 5th of July, Friday and we were supposed to be in Beograd in 05:00 Serbian time (which is 06:00 BG Time).
However the train arrived in Beograd just about 07:00 (Serbian time).
Belgrade_railway_station
Belgrade_railway_station

We had the great blessing to have a very warm and dry days which was quite nice (especially after the heavy floods that hit Serbia and Bulgaria less than a month ago. The central train station in Beograd is much smaller than Sofia's central station but it looks much beatiful as it is an old-fashioned building probably 100 years old. What striked me right after our arrival is the public transport trams, were very new and clean. Also the cars Serbs drive seem to be newer than Bulgarians, Serbians drive second hand bought cars from West Europe approximately produced in 2006, while the avarage cars we drive here in BG is from 2001 or 2000. There are few buildings in the city center which seemed abondoned and seemed like they need renovation but besides that everything looked quite well looking for a city that was bombed in 1998 – 1999. Later I learned from Galin bombing conducted by Americans was done only on few government and military buildings – and were done in a very "human" way – everything was clear earlier what will be bombed etc. etc.
serbia-belgrade-bomb-damage-building-in-beograde
Serbia-Belgrade-bomb-damage-building

Can you believe, there might be a "human way of bombing?", well according to Americans and UN, there could be! On our arrival merrital god-father Galint took us from train station and brought us to their living apartment located on str. Maršala Birjuzova, Beograd. Andrea (Galin's wife) and our merriage god-mother received us warm harted as always. We met also Andrea's mother Milenka (Serbian equivalent of Bulgarian name Milena) … Andrea's mother Milenka Perolo is owning a small an English to Serbian and Serbian to English translation angecy called "Perolo". Andrea and her mother are by linkage Croation, it is very interesting that genetically Croatiaons are very close to Bulgarians just like we Bulgarians are genetically close to Italians and even according to some researches Italian nation originated from Bulgarian. There is probably something true in that because it seems we can very easily interact with Croations … 23 days old cute baby girl Boryana
23 days old cute baby girl Boryana (which got baptized – becoming a young Orthodox Christian 🙂 )

Galin and Andrea are having only 23 days born baby called Boryana, its their 3rd child after Georgi and Konstantin. After having a good braekfast from fast food like Bulgarian famous Banica (from Pekara – a place where they sell fast food equivalents to Banica) and we bought Yogurt which is something like the Bulgarian Soar Milk (Kiselo Mlijako) with this difference that Serbian Yogurt is not so good for health as Bulgarian Yoghurt (Kiselo Mlijako). After the morning meal Galin brought us to the city center where we enjoyed a lot the Serbian language writtings in shops and buildings. The words are similar to Bulgarian. However cyrillic writting in Serbia is not so common as they tend to write a lot of their words in Latin letters being highly influenced by western culture. After the main city center street full of majestic buildings of significance to Serbian history, the national bank, the national museum, theatres etc. We came to KaleMegdan a very beautiful green park full of statues of Serbian revolutionaries, Kings and national heroes, very much in the spirit of Sofia's Borisova garden (gradina) – Sofia's central park. What striked me is the fortress situated in the middle of the park. KaleMegdan fortress is probably one of the best preserved and biggest early age (12/13th century) fortress and medieval times renewed fortress in Europe. It is the biggest I've seen in my wife so far, in the middle of the fortress there is a tennis court! a basketball field, volleyball field etc. etc. In very middle of KaleMegdan fortress there is a an exposition of tanks and warfare items and heavy anti-tank weapons left from I-st and II world war. There are also a boats and even submarine missles and underwater mines exposed, along with war boats. I was never seriously interested in warfare technology but seeing all this complete took up my attention. Continuing further the fortress one ends to a fortress walls and park continuation from where you see the two rivers Savva (Sava) river and Dunabe mixing beatifully together their blue and green waters, along with a sideview to whole Beograd 
city! Again amazingly beuatiful!

Sava_river_in_Belgrade,_view_from_Kalemegdan_fortress
Sava_river_in_Belgrade,_view_from_Kalemegdan_fortress

The air of course is very wet and there is humidity everywhere as there is a big river nearby. And in summer in Beograd you feel like being on the beach except there are no beaches. There is an improvised beach on the river, but as I heard from Beograd locals, beaching ont he river is much less enjoyable as going to a real sea beach. In the fortress there are two Churches as well one used to be a military church and interestingly its lusters are all made of war bullets. The otherChurch Saint Petka is historically very famous as it was temporary holding the holy relics of Saint Petka and even today in the Church there is small part of holy relics from Saint Petka. On Dunabe river there is a view of many boats and river resturants beautifully ordered on the river shore so it is perfect for people to relax from heavy stressful daily life. On the city park there is also a large children playground, where children could have a great fun and very near the fortress is situated Beograd 
National – City ZooPark!

  Beograd-city-center-national-zoo-white-lion

Beograd-city-center-national-zoo-white-lion

The Zoo is fantastic and has even more animals though situated on less space than Sofia Zoo. We went to Famous Beograd Zoo on Sunday 06.07.2014, after being for a holy liturgy in the main cathedral Church of Beograd – St. Archangel Michael (the Church building is situated opposite to Serbian Orthodox Church Holy Synod, and very nearby to a iconographic academy and the patrierchal residency.

  Saborna-Crkva-Beograd-city-center

Saborna-Crkva-Beograd-city-center

The Church service was quiet understandable as big parts of the service is in Church Slavonic and as I'm adjusted to understanding big part of the Church slavonic and understand a bit of serbian speech, I was feeling in Serbian church almost like in a service here in Bulgaria. Serving Holy Liturgy in Church in Church slavnic is a big blessing for us slavonic people as we can understand the service in Serbia, Bulgaria, Monte Negro, Croatia, Bulgaria 🙂 After the Church service we went for a coffee in a Serbian coffee nearby the iconographic academy in Beograd. One thing to note here is always in all ex-Yugoslavia, if you order coffee you get a cup of free fresh water with the coffee – a great coffee drinking habit of Serbs. In the street I've seen a car under the brand Yugo which is pretty much like the small old Fiat cars, but it used to be produced in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. After the coffee we went back home have a another coffee with a small dinner and a cake with Serbian Coca-Cola which has a little bit of a different taste than the coca-cola in BG and other countries I've been (note I usually hate Cola and I don't drink it but here I dеcided to give it a try with experimental aim 🙂 What impressed me on the Coca Cola plastic bottle was written "This Cola doesn't contain conservants or any chemical substances" – I LOL-ed (Laughted Out Loud ) to this non-sense. We all know cola is one of worst conservant of modern man so such a writtings is a big non-sense.

Pljeskavica - Serbian Traditional most popular food meal
Pljeskavica – Serbian Traditional most popular food meal

For a lunch I ate the most famous Serbian (food) meal called "Pleskavica" a very, very big meat ball – talking about food Serbian are crazy about meat. They probably are the nation with biggest meat consumption in Europe! – I heard for Serbs and Croations, a kilo and a half of meat eaten a day is something very usual!
Monastery-kaonana-putusaba-serbia-monastery-near-Beograd-70-km-monastery-from-Beograd

Monastery-kaonana-putusaba-serbia-monastery-near-Beograd-70-km-monastery-from-Beograd

Kaona Monastery Serbia Monks living cells
Kaona Monastery Serbia Monks living cells

After lunch time on Saturday, around 14:00 serbian time, we jumped in our god-fathers Opel car and travelled to Kaona Monastery where was arranged to happen baptism of 23 days new-born baby Boryana. The archimandrite Philimon (which is very young 30 years old) received a us hospitably in Kaona Monastery – a monastery nearby the Serbian village Kaona. The monastery is a true heavenly garden. It has a small monastic property – sheeps, ducks, chickens 🙂  
Crkva kaona Monastir
Crkva Kaona Monastir

There is a miraculous water spring like in most monasteries, a baptisterium, two beautiful Churches (a Church school) and lake with a boats where you can have rest sailing with a small rowing boat. My wife Svetlana became the spiritual mother of the 23 days baby Boryana, making our bond with our marriage god-parents family even stronger. We had a safe travel from Beograd to Kaona and vice versa by God's grace. By an old tradition after batism there was small gathering and we ate same biscuits, baklava and drink a little of Rakia, coffee tea etc. After that by Abbot's blessing Philimon we went to the small monastic lake and sailed on the small rawing boat, where I had the chance to oar the boat for a second life in my life (btw rowing is quite pleasurable and healthy thing to do).

Kaona monastery paradise lake
Kaona monastery tiny monastic lake

The Abbot Philemon very much in the monastic spirit of good willness and love invited us to have a dinner together with a few of the other people who was on a pilgrimage journey to the monastery.

Kaona Monastery sheeps
Kaona Monastery sheeps

Eating in a monastery is a true blessing as always. Before eating a prayer is said by the abbot and the food is blessed during the dinner. There was a person reading the sayings of the Holy Church fathers, letting the monks remember even when they eat that the spiritual food is more important and should not be forgot even when physical food is eaten.
Church for funeral services nearby Kaona monastery
Church for funeral services nearby Kaona monastery  

Kaona Monastery entrance Church side door
Kaona Monastery entrance Church side door

Paraklis (Small Baptismal Chapel Kaona Monastery)
Parakles (Small Baptismal Chapel)

Going back from the monastery on late Saturday we had the plan to go outside with Galin and enjoy a bit the night life of Beograd but, we were very tired so we went sleeping almost immediately. On the next day after the Church service, we went to the Zoo and we had 2 hours and a half of great time, and I have the opportunity to see a lot of animals I saw for a first time in my life by God's grace 🙂 Here are some pictures from the zoo-park.

Beograd-National-Zoo-Lamma
Beograd-National-Zoo-Lamma

hip0-and-a-Lion-in-Beograd-Zoo
hip0-and-a-Lion-in-Beograd-Zoo

My-wife-and-a-Camelopard-in-Beograd-Zoo
My-wife-and-a-Camelopard-in-Beograd-Zoo

hipos in Beograd Zoo
hipos in Beograd ZooPark 🙂

Grandmother Camel in Beograd Zoo
Grandmother Camel in Beograd Zoo
In the afternoon after the zoo I went to the Military museum. It is the first war museum visitation in my wife so again quite an interesting experience.

Military-museum-belgrad-voenen-muzei-Belgrad
Military-museum-belgrad-voenen-muzei-Belgrad

Among the machine-guns there was even Bulgarian. It is interesting too see that a big part of history of Serbs is in their war history, there war weapons from all ages starting from pre-medieval times, going through the mediaval, the renessance the Serbian liberation war, the Ist and II-nd world war and ending in the just recent war
in Kosovo and conflicts in Monte Negro (Cerna / Crna Gora)

.
Military Museum within fortress wall Belgrad

To end up the great time, few hours before we had to go Galin and Andrea brought and left the two kids for a birthday party and brought us for a drink of few beers in boat-restaurant anchored on the river shore of Savva river.

Rabbit drink / Zaicharsko Serbian beer
Zaicharsko Serbian beer / Rabbit drink 🙂

An interesting fact is Savva river is named after Saint Savva (who was the first Serbian Archibishop, the creator of Serbian Church and partially the creator of Serbian state), St. Savva is considered the greatest serbian saint of all times and protector saint of all Serbian.  
Saint-Archibishop-Sava-creator-of-Serbian-Orthodox-Church
Saint-Archibishop-Sava-creator-of-Serbian-Orthodox-Church

A curious fact is saint Savva's dormition happened in nowdays Tarnovo Bulgaria.
As a closure I would say I enjoyed Serbian land a lot and I recommend it to anyone who want to have a great rest time. I think it is a big blessing for Serbians to not be in the European union, and one can feel the difference even spiritually when he is out of EU. In being not yet officially part of European Union though they have put their candidature Serbia reminds me somehow to Belarus.

Serbia just like Bulgarian is a land very rich in saints and martyrs throughout the long history, they're our brothers and we have one faith. One of the ways for a growth and well being for us as Bulgarians is to keep tight connections with our Serbian brothers and sisters. Just as an interesting fact for those who like monastic tourism near Beograd there is a mountain with 17 monasteries! Serbia is also among the countries still having relatively big number of monks, as of my knowledge Serbia has about 2000 monks

Human Modern Progression a move forward to Degression

Saturday, June 16th, 2012

I've been thinking about our modern day progression and what our "progressed" society looks like in reality.
We think we have progressed, we have built machines that serves us well (computers). We plan for a bright painless easy future day by day. This bright "perfect" society future is nothing more than the dream of communism in its complete form.

But in what sense we have actually progressed ?? Everyone who really sees what happens around us notice the big changes we experience. On the surface it looks like our life has become much easier with all this technology surrounding us. The number of computers which is said to help us to leap towards this bright future increases day by day. With this however increases the need to support technology. Suddenly it happens that the old believe that computers are just a tool to make our life earier becomes a modern day slavery. Most of the developed or under development countries people are nowdays almost full time spending in front of the computer screen on the internet. We put our lifes in the mercy of man-created computers and it has become impossible that we live or exist independetly without them.

Computers are everywhere around us starting from the work Desk, at hand with a notebook, ipad, mobile phones, cars, airplanes. There is rarely to see any technology we use which works with not some kind of primitive or advanced computer embedded ,,,
In the rise of computers as we know it computer was just a tool to help us along with the other overall thought and inventions development. Now from just being a tool to help us progress Computers become the common ground on which almost everything in life works.

I'm sure many people who started learning computer technology 15-20 years ago (like me) never imagined computers will integrate so heavily in our daily activities as they eventually did.

We use computers for the sake of planning which in "spiritual language" is predicting the future or prophecise what is about to come in the short future. In reality what we do mostly even not realizingly is to try to predict and modify the future through technology.
This concept is also existing in most sci-fi movies, made in last 60 years. Mobile phones revolution give the humanity a tool through which telepathy we've seen in so many SCI-FI is reality. The mobile phone is just a platform through which (phone calls) or better said voice telepathy has become possible. In that manner of thoughts it is obvious that Video phone calls is a voice + visual telepathy. The Skype revolution and Video and voice conferences is brought was just until recently seen on the sci-fi movies where spaceship crews communicated with other spaceship crews by using a Visual conferences like skype.

It is really hard to believe that for just few years now everyone can speak with ease with everyone else on the planet in the same way just like we've seen in the movies as some foreign abstract concept!

Now suddenly most people on earth are equipped with technology with gives them the power to do everything but it is my firm believe people are not ready to wisely use this power. Therefore instead of using this higher technology wisely technology is used mostly senseless and the more technological advancement grows and becomes more accessible to the masses the more the tendency to use the technology for shit grows.

I'm sure people who have a good knowledge on programming and how computer works are already seriously aware of this enormous problem.
Another severe problem with the raise of technology is the language slang it introduces. This tech-slang is adopted quickly all around the society and suddenly as a result the human language as we know it is seriously substituted by a vague tech words mambo-jambo words. Actually the adoption of tech buzz words in modern day society language makes a great harm for the reason communication between people becomes less descriptive and therefore harder.
In short the result of this tech slang language inside our national languages is inability for people to communicate properly. This tendency is well seen if you for example try to make a comparison between old and newer movies. The newer the movie the less meaningful it is. It is true newer ones has much more as a visual adds than the predecessor but when talking about consistency the newer films are missing this point seriously.

As newer generations are born and raised up with this newer movies and "advanced" TV and computers this people doesn't even have most of the time the opportunity to see older human taped knowledge.
Even for youngesters who have somehow a wise parents enough to teach them in a religious way or just have the "luck" to have parents with old world mindset it will be extremely hard if not impossible for this kids to understand the old knowledge, as most of their same age school / university fellows will only talk about the newer things.

Besides all this, computers as they grow needs more and more support "nurturing" so day by day more and more people has to be busy with managing and supporting tech stuff. Suddenly it is no longer clear if computers serve us or we serve them, this tendency is already somehow evident but not so clearly as it will be in the short 5 to 10 years.
Therefore we slowly but surely are moving to a society which might become "enslaved by technology". Why I say here enslaved, because if we spend our time on fixing computers and technology and working with one virtual reality (which is non-reality) in essence this means we no longer have a physical freedom in the sense it was God given.

There is no doubt computers at present appears to do us a big good, but if you think a bit strategically it is obvious this good has it's price. By adopting all this technology without questioning ourselves on how this will impact our human freedom, we build a computerized jail around us. At first this jail appears to be so wide that it seems it does not interfere with our freedom, but with the introduction of newer and newer computer technology this jail becomes narrower as to the point where it could threat our physical existence freedom.

For those who could argue my thoughs I will ask two simple questions to show you how dependent we've become on technology;;;

What was the last time you switched off your mobile for a week ?

What was the last time you didn't used computers and the internet for a week time ?

Obviously rarely we can find someone that will answer positively to this question or even the thought of switching off from this so globalized society by dropping off tech stuff for a week seems scary.

This constant connectiodness that we're day-by-day heavily exposed to is scary, because it steals little-by-little our natural freedom for seclusion / pravicy / solitude.

This freedoms, were essential and especially for Christian saints and many of the people in the Holy Bible if we read closely we will find out they have used this freedom in parts of their lives especially the seclusion to hear and understand God's will for their life.
Since technology is stealing us the freedom to seclude ourselves this means it steals our basic natural freedom to communicate with God and our natural self ,,,

The consequence of this separation from God and unification with "the world" surely will lead to spiritual blindness and lack of good foundation or higher life purpose, in other words lost path in life.

This is happening all along right in front our eyes now.
Maybe the worst thing of globalization is it doesn't unite people on a soul level but rather separates them. The unification that tech boom gives to people is in the "virtual reality" but this is not a real unification as it is unification in a media which is not real.

Yes Virtual Reality is not real, that's why it is called Virtual isn't it?
I've been thinking over all this problems more and more and I'm starting to come to conclusion that people who wish to keep their essential physical freedom need to GET OUT from this tech lie, we have lived in.
For this however more people need to first realize that;;;

1. TECHNOLOGY LEADS US NOWHERE!

2. People who want to live without technology need to organize in groups (and get used to a natural living growing food, being near to a natural springing water, taking care for each other, living in a Christian commune like – like in the old days)

Actually if we read the old testament's story of Moses escaping the upcoming flood, I believe what is about to come to us as a consequence of this out of boundaries technologization is pretty much like the old testamental flood (this should happen sooner or later).

Moses was wise enough to make himself an Ark and prepare himself for the storm. Today most people are so busy that they don't see the storm coming. I'll be glad to hear from people who has the same thinking as me and want to organize in a groups and live an old humble way of life without technology.
I'm convinced people who have realized all this tech short future bad consequences on humanity, need to have a common communication media and share their knowledge on how we can find a way to live tech free in this age. I'm curious am I the only one with such thoughts or other get into this insight too. If you have come to conclusions I did please contact me in comments. Thank you.