Pamporovo

Pamporovo was established as a mountain resort in the 1930s, on the northern side of a ridge of the Rhodopes below Snezhanka Peak, among spruce forest between the town of Chepelare to the north and Smolyan to the south. Its gentle slopes and sunny winters made it a natural place for skiing, and it grew into one of the best-known resorts in the country.

Under communism the resort was renamed. From 14 March 1950 it officially bore the name of Vasil Kolarov, and the old name, Pamporovo, came back into use only after 1989. Bulgarian television began broadcasting from Snezhanka Peak in 1971, and construction of the present 156-metre tower began in 1973. It opened to the public in 1978 and became the resort's symbol.

Since the end of communism Pamporovo has been extended with new lifts, runs and residential development on its southern side towards the Smolyan Lakes. In 2010 a new border crossing to Greece opened about half an hour away, bringing attention to a resort where skiing and the sea lie unusually close together. A mountain-bike park followed in 2012, and in 2013 the resort hosted European championships in downhill and 4X racing. Larger plans to link Pamporovo with the slopes of Mechi Chal near Chepelare and with Perelik have been discussed since the 1990s.

Pamporovo itself is a resort rather than a historic settlement, but it sits in the middle of one of the most distinctive musical regions of Bulgaria. The Rhodopes are the home of the kaba gaida, a deep-voiced bagpipe, and the nearby village of Stoykite has held a national gathering of bagpipers since 2018 and has a small bagpipe museum, created in 2022. Every four years the meadows of Rozhen, a short way north-east of the resort, host the Rozhen National Folklore Fair, first held in 1898, when the border with the Ottoman Empire ran across the peak. It opens with "Bela Sam Bela Yunache", the unofficial anthem of the Rhodopes, and reaches its climax with an evening of the best-known Rhodope songs sung under the stars.

The surrounding province is religiously mixed. Smolyan Province has both Christian and Muslim communities; unlike in neighbouring Kardzhali Province, most of its Muslims are Muslim Bulgarians, known as Pomaks, who mainly live in the Rhodope Mountains.

In the resort, culture is the culture of a ski holiday: ski schools with more than a hundred instructors working in several languages, families on the nursery slopes, and folk evenings where spit-roasted lamb is served to live traditional music and dancing. The Orthodox church in the resort, was built between 1993 and 1999 with donations from a campaign popularised by Bulgarian National Television.

Pamporovo has no permanent town population to speak of; it is a resort complex that lies partly in Smolyan Municipality and partly in Chepelare Municipality. In 2020 it had about 6,100 beds in 60 places to stay, and recorded about 410,000 overnight stays by about 120,000 guests, which places it among the largest mountain resorts in Bulgaria.

Work follows the seasons. From December to almost the end of April the resort is busy with ski instructors, lift staff, hire shops, hotel and restaurant workers. In summer a smaller crowd of walkers, families and mountain bikers keeps part of the resort open. Across Smolyan Province, the economy rests on tourism, mining, timber and machine industries, and livestock raising.

A winter day starts early, with hotel minibuses carrying skiers to the lifts, and ends with the bars and restaurants of the resort centre filling after the slopes close. Off season the resort is quiet. Long-discussed plans to link Pamporovo with neighbouring ski areas, and the expansion of residential building, are the main questions about its future.

Pamporovo's restaurants serve Bulgarian and Rhodope cooking alongside the international dishes of any ski resort. Patatnik, the best-known local dish, is made of grated potatoes, onions, salt and gyosum, a very mild mint, all mixed and cooked slowly; it is traditional across the Rhodopes, from Bansko to Smolyan and Zlatograd. Smilyanski fasul is a stew of the beans of Smilyan, a village in Smolyan Municipality known for its premium beans, produced in limited quantities.

Cheverme is the dish of celebrations: a whole animal, traditionally a pig but also a lamb, slowly cooked over an open fire and turned by hand on a wooden spit for four to seven hours. Folk evenings in and around the resort serve spit-roasted lamb with traditional music and dancing.

Elsewhere the menus follow the national pattern of shopska salad under grated sirene cheese, grilled kebapche and kyufte, banitsa pastry and clay-pot gyuvech, and plenty of yoghurt, of which Bulgarians eat a great deal. Rakia, the fruit brandy, is the usual spirit. On the slopes, cafés and snack places serve lunch between runs, and the café at the top of Snezhanka Tower adds a view of three mountain ranges.