In the remote village of Kiselchovo, tucked away in Bulgaria’s Rhodope Mountains, a small mosque without a minaret stood quietly, preserving the memory of a little-known Muslim community. I hadn’t come to Bulgaria expecting to find traces of Islamic history, but there it was, waiting to be encountered.
When Bulgaria is mentioned, mosques and Muslims probably don’t come to mind. Often overlooked, Bulgaria is the poorest member of the EU and doesn’t see much tourism beyond the Black Sea resorts. Even Sofia, the capital city, is relatively quiet, with few tourists and largely empty monumental boulevards.
As an American based in Istanbul, I had previously only visited Bulgaria because I needed an exit stamp from Türkiye for immigration purposes (it’s the closest international land border). On those trips, I explored many delightful towns and villages around the country, especially in the rural parts, where time seems to have been standing still for decades.
Istanbul is a magical city, but gets a bit too hot and stuffy over the summer, and so I decided to head to Bulgaria for a cooler solo ‘creativity retreat’ in the mountains. My goal was to continue working on my book project, do as much forest bathing as possible, and spend some quiet time on self-reflection in a beautiful setting.
I found a guesthouse in a village called Kiselchovo in the Rhodope Mountains in the south of Bulgaria, near the Greek border, run by a delightful Bulgarian couple who spend half the year in the US and the other half in this forgotten corner of the country. To reach the village, I headed east from Sofia and then south from Plovdiv through windy mountain passes lined with dense pine forests.
During most of my stay, there were no other guests, and I could enjoy a quiet retreat with plenty of solitude. Instead of fast-paced tourism and visiting lots of places briefly, I prefer slow, intuitive travel and getting to know one area well.
I spent three weeks in the mountains, quickly developing a routine. Each morning, I armed myself with freshly brewed green and nettle tea. On weekdays, I spent daylight hours writing and working on my laptop. In the afternoon, I would rest before exploring a nearby mountain path, walking by a river, or exploring the deserted village where I was based. I especially enjoyed wandering around the abandoned homes and buildings, seeing what people had left behind. Weeds had completely taken over the paths, gardens and buildings of the village.
In the evening before sunset, I would rest by my favourite spot next to the river, where I would meditate and journal, welcoming the sunset and subsequent darkness. Before I slept, I would drink my herbal concoctions and watch the stars in the bright night sky.
The village is very remote, accessible only through a bumpy road that was once paved, but has now deteriorated into a series of potholes and rubble. At its peak, the village had 300 residents, but now there are only seven who live here full time, all elderly. Many villagers had once worked at the local Uranium mines and now live off their pensions.
This village saw a mass exodus during the communist era when the local school was closed, leaving behind a community of elders who remained, devoted to its heritage. The villagers’ connection to their land is profound; they even bury their deceased in family plots within their gardens instead of in community cemeteries.
Before arriving, several friends had told me that the Rhodope mountains are a special place, but I didn’t quite know why. As time passed, I felt more and more relaxed and in sync with nature, and then my hosts informed me of something I had not been expecting: all of the villagers were Muslim Pomaks.
I immediately started researching to learn more about the history and culture of this region and community. As it turns out, Muslims make up more than 10% of the population of Bulgaria and the Rhodopes have been home to both Pomak and Turkish Muslim communities for centuries, ever since the Ottomans had established their regional governance. Different areas and villages of the Rhodopes had managed to partially preserve their Islamic beliefs and practices.
With an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 Pomaks remaining in Bulgaria, they have often been marginalised throughout history but still form a significant part of the country’s cultural fabric. Today, Pomaks continue to live in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Greece, Albania, and Turkey. They mainly speak the Pomak language alongside Bulgarian, and are considered ethnically Bulgarian. In other regions, Muslim Bulgarians often identify as ethnic Turks; they speak Turkish at home, and many have family connections with Türkiye.
Bulgaria, an Orthodox Christian country, was under Ottoman rule for centuries, during which Islam and Turkish culture spread. The country still bears many traces of the Ottoman era of governance, though the oppressive communist regime under the Soviets managed to erase or modify many Bulgarian Muslim practices and beliefs. Some have re-embraced Islam since the fall of communism, but many remain only ‘culturally’ Muslim.
In nearly every village I visited around the towns of Smolyan and Smilyan, a mosque stood at the centre, reflecting the deep-rooted Islamic heritage of the Pomak communities. Despite religious differences, Pomaks have largely coexisted peacefully with their Orthodox Christian neighbours.
In the region I visited, most locals are Muslim, but their knowledge of Islam is limited as the Communists took control of Bulgaria in 1946 and worked hard to abolish religion from the country, especially Islam. Though I didn’t see any worshippers inside any of the mosques, some are used at least once a week for Jumu’ah prayers, and I heard the call to prayer in one village. While few Bulgarian Muslims practise their faith, most still celebrate the two Bayrams (Eids), Ramadan, and other significant Muslim holidays to preserve their way of life and culture.
In Kiselchovo where I stayed, a mosque was located close to the guest house. Since it has no minaret and looks like most other traditional houses in the area, I didn’t initially notice it. With the help of a new British friend (a part-time resident of the village) who speaks Bulgarian, I was able to go on a tour of the recently renovated mosque and learn about its history from Kokara, a local resident and the mosque’s custodian.
Kokara is 79 years old; his face was lined with wrinkles, but he is incredibly strong and agile. He wore a pair of dark brown slacks rolled at the ankles (that appear to have been mended many times and covered in dirt from his daily tasks), a blue short-sleeve button-up shirt, and a straw fedora on his head. On his feet, he wore rubber galoshes to protect him from the mud puddles scattered around the village after summer downpours.
Kokara told us that he spent hundreds of hours and a lot of his own money renovating the mosque and preparing it for future Muslim visitors. The roof had fallen in and was unusable. His grandfather was the previous the imam and muezzin of the mosque, and while Kokara doesn’t have a lot of religious knowledge, his Islamic heritage is still important to him.
A Turkish-Bulgarian doctor also financially supported the renovation of the mosque, which Kokara claims is 300 years old. Now that the mosque is clean and ready for use, he will soon lay tiles in the main entrance and complete the wudu area.
Meeting Kokara and hearing about his dedication to restoring and preserving the mosque reminded me of the Hadith, “Whoever builds a mosque for God, God will build for him a house like it in Paradise.” One of Kokara’s legacies will, inshAllah, be preserving this pristine place of worship in the remote village.
With so few elderly Pomak people left who are indigenous town residents, and several non-Muslim Bulgarian outsiders who have bought properties, Kokara doesn’t think any locals will use the mosque. Despite not yet knowing who would benefit from the serene space, Kokara wants to preserve the mosque as a memory of his grandfather, to protect his heritage and the community’s memory, and provide a place to pray for any Muslim visitors who wish to use it.
If you ever happen to find yourself in the Rhodope Mountains, perhaps you may find yourself called to visit the abandoned village of Kiselchovo and pray in its tiny mosque with no minaret – because in spite of everything, it still stands, preserving the memory of a little known community of Muslims who once lived and died in the mountains of Bulgaria.
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