PIRIN MOUNTAINS, BULGARIA
What is the nature of a species that knowingly and without good reason exterminates another?
—George Small, author of The Blue Whale
44 Cruella de Vil has nothing on the Bulgarian Communist Party. Not only did the communist government that ruled Bulgaria from 1944 to 1989 sell the pelts of Karakachan dogs to make fur coats, but they took them away from their owners and crossbred them with St. Bernards, shepherds, and other breeds to distill their unique characteristics.
For 5,000 years, these dogs protected the sheep and goat herds of Karakachan nomads who summered near the Aegean and Black Seas and wintered in Bulgaria’s wide alpine meadows. During communist rule, when livestock was seized and Karakachan nomads forced to settle down, these faithful dogs that served their masters so well all but died out.
By 1990, when Bulgaria finally became free, Sider Sedfchev, a graduate student in Sofia, tried to find a purebred Karakachan to breed with the Karakachan pet he had grown to love. It proved to be a difficult task. He and his brother hiked Bulgaria’s mountains in search of communities that still had a pure strain of the dogs that immigrated to Bulgaria with their nomadic masters. It soon became apparent how rare the ancient breed had become. Sedfchev started Semperviva, a nonprofit working, along with the Balkani Wildlife Service, to restore the nearly extinct breed. As both groups are well aware, the rare breed of dogs play an important role in the natural, cultural, and historical heritage of Bulgaria.
Although the dog breeding project began in the backyard of Sedfchev’s grandparents’ home in Sofia, it has since moved to Pirin National Park, a World Heritage site in southwest Bulgaria with pine forests, waterfalls, 70 glacial lakes, and hundreds of endemic and rare species.
DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES
Bulgaria is the world’s second largest exporter of bottled wine, second only to France. The Brits, it seems, can’t get enough of the country’s robust red and white wines. In fact, Winston Churchill was an early fan, ordering 500 liters of the country’s melnik wine every year from the Kordopulov cellar. Even during World War II when German soldiers traipsed across Bulgaria, the British prime minister managed to sneak out two aging barrels of his favorite elixir.
According to legend, Bulgaria’s melnik wine, which was mentioned in Homer’s Iliad, is so thick it can be carried in a kerchief.
Volunteers who come in from across the globe feed and care for the dogs, whose populations have thankfully been restored to several hundred. In addition to the dog project, Semperviva is also working to insure the legacy of Karakachan horses, a small, hearty horse also used by the nomads, and Karakachan sheep, a long-haired sheep whose wool is used in Karakachan handicrafts.
Volunteers, working through Ecovolunteer, spend a week or more (some stay for several months) on this important biodiversity project. They alternate between a home in the village of Vlahi that serves as a dog and sheep breeding station and a sheepherder’s hut in the Pirin Mountains. While tracking sheep and wild horses, volunteers work on horseback. Duties include feeding dogs, bottle-feeding lambs, making cheese and yogurt from sheep’s and goat’s milk (the long-haired Kalofer goats are another local breed being revived by the group), and leading horseback riding tours of beautiful Pirin National Park.
On those trips through the alpine mountains of Bulgaria, volunteers camp out and spend evenings around the fire listening to shepherds’ stories. Spring—when puppies, lambs, and foals are born—is perhaps the busiest time, but volunteers are useful throughout the year.
This volunteer trip that includes meals and lodging (in the beautifully restored village home and in shepherd huts on mountain treks) runs 439 euros ($555) for a week with discounts for consecutive weeks.
HOW TO GET IN TOUCH
Ecovolunteer uses the Great Canadian Travel Company to book trips for American and Canadian volunteers, 158 Fort Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3C 1C9, Canada, 800-661-3830, www.ecovolunteer.org.