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National Geographic : 1908 Nov
Contents
BULGARIA, THE PEASANT STATE 769 SCENE IN SOFIA. NOTE THE PARIS PARASOL Photo by F. J. Koch When Bulgaria became semi-independent in 1878, Sofia was a very dirty town, with streets unpaved or paved with rough cobble stones, and with but one house of any pretensions, the Turkish "konak." Today, besides a palace and a parliament building, there are a national bank, a post-office, a military academy, several vast barracks, and many other government buildings. There are parks and public gardens where bands play on summer evenings; new streets and avenues have been laid out, and some of the narrow ones of Turkish times have been widened; substantial shops and hotels mark the business quarter, and modern homes the avenues. priests active in developing their own educational institutions. It was not until the American missionaries opened a school for girls in their land that the Bulgarians began to educate their women. But that was many years ago, before Bulgaria became a quasi-inde pendent state; now the state schools af ford every advantage the Americans can offer, except the American language. The freedom of religious opinion granted throughout the little kingdom is described by Frederick Moore in "The Balkan Trail:" "The Bulgarian government attempts to administer justice to all denominations and to maintain religious equality before the law, and the government comes fairly near to this aim. The Greeks complain that Greek schools are not subsidized, but Turkish schools are maintained by the state. "It is due to the freedom of religious opinion existing in Bulgaria that the mis-
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