Bulgaria Gets its Teeth Into the Vampire Market

By Mariya Cheresheva

When most people think of vampires, they think of Romania’s Vlad “the Impaler”, better known as Count Dracula after the eponymous novel by Bram Stoker.

Although no factual links have been established between the 15th century Romanian prince and the world’s most famous fictional blood-sucker, tens of thousands of tourists flock each year to Castle Bran in Transylvania to see what they imagine was Dracula’s eerie home.

Now Bulgaria wants a slice of the action, too, and is investing serious efforts in promoting its own vampire tourism.

Late in June, Bulgaria’s Minister of Tourism, Nikolina Angelkova, promised a new campaign to popularize the archeological site of the ancient Roman town of Deultum, near the southeastern town of Sredets, while “paying special attention to the vampires”.

By “vampires”, the minister meant the skeletons of 17 youngsters, found by archaeologists in 2004–2005 and who, following an ancient pagan practice of the 4thcentury AD had their bodies spookily nailed to their coffins.

Some scientists believe the ritual was aimed at preventing the dead from rising from their graves, vampire-style.

“We all know about the international interest in such findings. With joint efforts, we can popularize what we have here,” Angelkova said on June 26.

Together with the Mayor of Sredets, Ivan Zhabov, she discussed his idea of exposing the remains of “the world’s largest vampire funeral” in a big glass sarcophagus.

At the end of last year, Zhabov presented a project costed at almost 3 million leva [around 1.5 million euros] to reconstruct the ancient town of Deultum, hoping that it might lure up to 10,000 new visitors a year to the region.

Located 30 kilometres from the Black Sea coastline, the small town with just around 9,000 inhabitants hopes to become a popular destination for cultural and historical tourism.

Sredets is not the only Bulgarian town trying to boost its ratings among tourists by attracting vampire fans.

The ancient coastal city of Sozopol grabbed international attention in 2012 when the long-standing director of Bulgaria’s national museum of history, Bozhidar Dimitrov, announced that “a vampire” had been found in excavations nearby.

Over the next days, media from all over the world poured into Sozopol to see the 700-year-old skeleton of a man stabbed through his heart with an iron spike — just like in the vampire stories.

Dimitrov, however, is not that impressed by his own finding, which he calls an “ordinary event”, although he concedes: “It received more media attention than the fall of the regime of Todor Zhivkov [Bulgaria’s late communist dictator].

He explains that the state of the excavated bodies reflects a popular pagan custom of the ancient Bulgarians, from the period before Bulgaria accepted Christianity in 864 АD.

Back then, he says, people believed the souls of evil people remained in their bodies after their death and they became vampires after nightfall. To prevent this, people stabbed the dead bodies with a sharp blade.

“Bad people have always existed and others have tried to pull out their teeth. This does not mean that vampires existed, just that people believed in their existence,” Dimitrov told BIRN.

However, he says people went crazy about Sozopol’s vampire and every day 15 to 20 buses full of foreign tourists arrive in the small town from nearby tourist resorts along the coastline to see the creepy skeleton.

To capitalize on vampire tourism potential, in 2013, Sozopol’s Mayor, Panayot Reyzi, visited the Transylvanian town of Sigishoara, believed to be Vlad the Impaler-Dracula’s birthplace. He announced plans to twin the two towns with the aim of setting up a joint “vampire trail” for tourists.

Some experts are reluctant to see Bulgaria climbing on the vampire bandwagon, however.

“I have always said I have certain reservations against such vampire topics,” Krasimira Kostova, director of the museum of history in Sredets, told Bulgarian National Radio.

“The main accent in Bulgaria should be on its immense cultural heritage as meeting point of different cultures — Thracians, Ancient Greeks, Romans,” she added.

Bozhidar Dimitrov also says that he is more afraid of the modern bloodsuckers sitting in government than in old-style vampires with fangs and red capes.

“Vampires exist, but they are in the parliament, in the government,” he laughed.

At the same time the head of the museum of national history fully supports Angelkova’s initiative to make Bulgaria’s “vampires” more popular internationally.

“We should use every opportunity to make money. The world is full of such legends which have no historical basis,” he concluded.