Balkan Bucket Bonanza

[Jon]

Great stuff, as always. However, that backdrop for the seemingly abandoned green Aleko is particularly grim, so top marks for that. You've also reminded me that the local garage has a Might Boy also, albeit sans funky canvas cover and side slats. Must ask what they're doing with it.

[Split_Pin]

Love the abandoned Aleko shot, funny as all the other apartments look occupied!

[Spottedlaurel]

Excellent. Do like the Sunny truck, obviously.

 

I have to confess my knowledge of Bulgaria is limited, so I'm spending my lunchtime having a virtual drive around on Streetview. I randomly picked a town called Yambol - I suspect it won't be somewhere I'll ever go but I think my head would explode if I did. There's stuff everywhere!

[Bucketeer]

I think half the contents of the apartment are in the back of the Aleko. It's the same row of apartments you can see in the background of the Renault Grimgo shot, I seem to remember they just finished building them only a couple of years ago.

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if the Aleko apartment was occupied, aesthetics are often not high on the list of priorities here.

[Bucketeer]

Try Veliko Tarnovo SL. That's where I am. I would imagine a Streetview tour round here would be like reading my spotted thread but with much better images and no waffle.

[Spottedlaurel]

Try Veliko Tarnovo SL. That's where I am. I would imagine a Streetview tour round here would be like reading my spotted thread but with much better images and no waffle.

 

Thanks, I'm whizzing across there now. I doubt it'll be the same without the waffle.

 

Not much Japanese stuff around? That being said, before leaving Yambol I did find this 626: https://goo.gl/maps/7oNd1XpQ7cL2

[eddyramrod]

Excellent work!  Your Strontium Firewood (as I shall now and forever think of them) is a mid-90s Chrysler LHS.  FWD, 3.5V6.

[Bucketeer]

Not much Japanese stuff around? That being said, before leaving Yambol I did find this 626: https://goo.gl/maps/7oNd1XpQ7cL2

 

Top find, although the body kit has put me right off my dinner.

 

 

EDIT - Thanks Eddy, I knew you or the Austrian Yankophile would put me straight on that.

[Bucketeer]

As mentioned previously, the Pista (Circuit) Veliko Turnovo was on the other week. Sort of street rally racing up at the new end of town.

 

 

Saturday was 'inspection at the municipality' followed by practice up at the circuit and Sunday was race day.

For the inspection all the cars lined up down the main street in the centre of town.

 

 

There weren't a huge amount of entries but some interesting stuff nonetheless.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few spots garnered on the walk up to the circuit to watch practice.

 

This is most definitely not in the race. I've seen this driving around here before but never manged to pap it.

 

 

I've always been good at getting strange looks from people without even trying but I excelled myself and beat my previous personal best taking a picture of a Volvo 460 diesel whilst 90 degrees to my right were 20 race cars.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I found a decent place to watch practice from.

 

 

 

There are also two rubbish 30-second videos that I took.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLX5HKyybEY

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx2myLFkCZE

 

I walked a different route home after watching practice.

 

 

 

 

I had consumed a decent amount of motorsport booze throughout the day and I genuinely thought I was seeing double.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Race day (Sunday) was brilliant. I was so engrossed I hardly took any pictures, which made a nice change.

Anyway, any paltry attempts I could have made at recording the racing would have been rendered redundant by the following two Youtube videos.

 

If you like motorsport then I would highly recommend watching the entirety of this 14 minute video of one of the races filmed from inside the Peugeot 106 just in shot in the picture below. It's brilliant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY1A1iAoL2I

 

 

There is also this decent video (once you get past the first minute or so) with outside footage of all the race classes from one guy in a few different track positions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmSWVfU5ilU

 

 

I've was doing stuff in the mountains last week and I'm going back up there tomorrow for a few weeks. I have this to potter about in so the next update should feature plenty much mountain village chod,

 

[garethj]

I've always been good at getting strange looks from people without even trying but I excelled myself and beat my previous personal best taking a picture of a Volvo 460 diesel whilst 90 degrees to my right were 20 race cars.

 

 

You have truly nailed Autoshite.

 

I'm loving the Trabant with barbecue grill and shotgun on the bootlid.  Some people think modern cars are fully equipped with bluetooth and wifi tethering, but having the equipment to shoot and cook your lunch is taking it to the next level.

[Junkman]

Is the racing really as shite as it looks in the vids?

I mean, apparently it could be won even by an Autoshite team.

[Bucketeer]

The two little vids I took were from practice, so not exactly flat out, but the other two vids are of race day.

It was certainly impressively fast and loud in the flesh.

[Bucketeer]

You have truly nailed Autoshite.

 

My previous 'strange looks' PB was on the Normandy coast on the day of the 70th anniversary of the D-day landings, achieved photographing a Volvo 240 Estate whilst hundreds of WW2 military vehicles paraded past directly behind me.

[Bucketeer]

I've been up in the mountains for a while now, doing some work at a remote Eco Centre/School/Retreat for under-privileged kids preparing it for summer visitors.

I've got the use of this glacially slow and squeaky Shogajero.

 

 

It's a strange thing. Apart from the ill-fitting hard top thing which is attached with self-tappers, it has Ralli Art guages . . . .

 

 

 . . . and a manual choke (surely too new for that) . . .

 

 

 . . . and a 180mph speedo. On a vehicle that struggles to get to 60.

 

 

It does alright on the tiny track up to where I've been staying though. 10mph is it's sweet spot.

Here's a poor video of me driving it part way up the 6km track from civilisation for anybody terminally bored - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tchFrnhAj6g

 

Anyway, enough of that shit for now, it's spots time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I return to BG after my forthcoming UK visit this is where I will be staying permanently, at the end of the 6km track I was pootling along in the video earlier.

 

 

Actually, I say permanently but in fact I'll be staying there until I get my new house habitable. I will be selling the old ruin I got last year and replacing it with this luxury accommodation which as a friend observed 'really is trading down'.

 

 

There is a bit of a wall there if you look hard enough. It actually has almost one and a half walls. And trees gowing out of where the floor will be. It's another km or so further up the mountain and only accessible by the badger,deer and boar path to the left of shot. It's amazing and I love it. Utterly remote and beautiful. I have more pictures and stuff I was going to post but I'm in a bit of a rush now and it's probably not the sort of stuff that should be on here anyway or is of much interest.

[hairnet]

nutty ivan who started here last week is bulg and showed him the cyrillic for veiliko and he says he knows it

 

he says he comes from near varna

 

he mentioned a place beginning with b in the mountains near there and a place called marissa?

 

blagdarya

[Junkman]

New* house* receives Bulgo-Shitefest-Unsuitability marker.

[Dave_Q]

More of the house please, will you have to cart all your building materials there by hand?

 

Manual choke was a thing on those, can also be used to raise the idle for winching or as a crude cruise control.

 

180 speedo will be a Japanese 180 kmh one with a converter thing on the speedo cable and, on fancier installations like yours, the k crossed out with a permanent marker.

[The Moog]

 

 

More of the house please, will you have to cart all your building materials there by hand?

.

He may have a new steed after shitefest!

[Bucketeer]

More of the house please, will you have to cart all your building materials there by hand?

 

Manual choke was a thing on those, can also be used to raise the idle for winching or as a crude cruise control.

 

180 speedo will be a Japanese 180 kmh one with a converter thing on the speedo cable and, on fancier installations like yours, the k crossed out with a permanent marker.

 

Right then Dave_Queue, you asked for it. More about my new dream house (and thanks for the interesting Shogajero info).

It's located about 7km from the nearest village, up in the Stara Planina (translates as 'old mountains' but they're actually quite new mountains in geological terms).

The first six kilometres are along the little track as mentioned previously.

 

 

There are several long since abandoned houses along the way. There's only one person that lives up there, about 2km back down the mountain from my place. He told me he's the Mayor (he's not) but obviously when you're the only person in the area you can call yourself whatever you want. I think I'm going to be the Chief of Police.

As you get further up, the track shows that no-one ever uses it.

 

 

Yes, that is the road.

It carries on up past the last abandoned house that's still standing.

 

 

It ends here and to carry on up to 'mi casa' you go through the gap in the foliage in the middle of this next shot.

 

 

You then continue along a little path that's only used by badgers, boar, deer and as I recently found out, BEARS.

There is the ruin of a house just up the path.

 

 

I was interested in buying it originally. . . .

 

 

. . . . . but then after exploring further up . . . . .

 

 

. . . . . I found the place that is going to be my palace.

It's just off to the right of the path, where the mountainside drops away steeply (the view of it from the path is the last picture in the previous post).

It's tricky to photograph and describe but I'll try.

These next two pictures are taken from what will be my floor looking at the back wall (to the left of shot) and the side wall (in front). The mountainside drops away sharply to the right. You can see how long it has been abandoned by the trees growing out of what used to be the floor.

 

 

 

The living space is cut out of the hillside and the back wall is terracing, with the ground level on the other side of it being at the top of the stones.

The view looking out to the front is mega, or rather will be once I've done some pruning (more of the view in a bit).

 

 

And this is from stood at the front looking back up at the back mountain-retaining wall. You get an idea of how sharply the slope drops away, I'm stood right by what will be the front of my property and the floor is level with my eye-line.

 

 

My main concern about the slope is the fact that lots of the trees above seem like they want to go sledging downhill. Meh, I'm sure it'll be fine.

 

 

I will have to hand-ball all the materials up there but that's doesn't concern me overly. I was in removals previously and if I have one skill*, it's carrying stuff. The ruin back down the path that I was originally interested in will be a great source of materials. Plenty of beams and roofing stones (or river stones as they call them here). A lot of mountain houses use these stones for the roofs and I reckon the sheer weight of them is part of the reason for some collapsage. That and the enormous trees falling on them.

Here's another abandoned house back towards the village with said stone roof.

 

 

The reason no-one lives in any of them is because the owners get old and die and younger family members don't want to live this kind of remote life. It's all about towns and cities nowadays.

They all have death/remembrance notices on them.

 

 

There was another place I was interested in, a bit of a way back towards civilisation, but it was in too good a condition for me (smiley face here).

 

 

Looking from behind it though you get a good idea of what my view will be like once I've cut some of the foliage away.

 

 

Plus I'll be able to nick borrow liberate some building materials from there too.

 

The stream is only about 500m down the hill and the water is amazing. I'll work out a way of pumping it up in the future (or find a spring somewhere higher up) but in the meantime I'm happy to go and collect when needed (obviously in bigger quantities than this 300ml bottle) and I'll be harvesting rainwater.

 

 

I've also had a practice at making a cob oven down at the eco-school I've been working on.

 

 

I've got a generator I earned in return for some work I did squirelled away too, so that can provide some leccy should I need it.

 

Anyway, that's plenty too much non-car waffle for now. I hope some of that made sense.

 

 

nutty ivan who started here last week is bulg and showed him the cyrillic for veiliko and he says he knows it

 

he says he comes from near varna

 

he mentioned a place beginning with b in the mountains near there and a place called marissa?

 

blagdarya

 

The place beginning with 'B' will be Buzludzha I'd imagine. It was mentioned a page or two ago. Tayne has also visited it. It's only a few hours walk from my new abode.

It was built as the Communist Party headquarters at the top of one of the highest peaks to look down on everyone, completed in 1981 I think, but was never actually used. It's nicknamed The UFO.  All my photos of it are on a memory card that divorced me a long time ago so here's a few pictures from the interworld.

 

Opening ceremony.

 

 

Recent times.

 

 

 

 

New* house* receives Bulgo-Shitefest-Unsuitability marker.

 

Many sozzes JM but that wasn't right at the top of my list of priorities. I know, I'm a selfish bastard.

 

 

He may have a new steed after shitefest!

 

I've got my fingers, toes and eyes crossed for a win but even if I am lucky enough to get the Samara I reckon it'll need a 3 foot suspension lift to cope with the mountain track.

 

 

Again, soz to anyone reading this post for the lack of spots or motoring content, blame Dave_Cube, he asked 

[Junkman]

Many sozzes JM but that wasn't right at the top of my list of priorities. I know, I'm a selfish bastard.

Yeah, just because of you, I now have to buy a bloody Matra Rancho. Yer bollox.

[garethj]

The entrance to Bucketeer's new place.

[Spottedlaurel]

Eye-opening stuff there Mr Bucket. I feel like I’m living in the house equivalent of Autoshite, as I’m still doing it up over eight years after we moved in, but what you’re up to with that takes things to a whole new level.

[Bucketeer]

The entrance to Bucketeer's new place.

Please don't give me ideas I don't need to be having. Bad Gareth.

Note to self - build walls, floor and a roof before a remote operated secret entrance.

 

 

Eye-opening stuff there Mr Bucket. I feel like I’m living in the house equivalent of Autoshite, as I’m still doing it up over eight years after we moved in, but what you’re up to with that takes things to a whole new level.

Thanks SL but if I am taking things to a new level, that level would be something like Sub Basement 6 - Sewers, Cobwebs and Dank Misery.

[Dave_Q]

Can I just ask, has any money changed hands to purchase your house? Or did the Mayor down the hill there just say you could have it?

 

Have you sold your last house or are you planning to keep it in the portfolio?

[Bucketeer]

The guy I bought the first house from appeared last time I was up there and said his nephew had been asking about it and would I be interested in selling it back to him. That is what sparked off my much more remote mountain hovel search.

I have a Bulgarian lawyer friend who has found the legal owners of the new plot and has struck a deal for me. That's the best way to do things as if people here know a Brit is looking to buy, you can guarantee the price will double. They think we're all rich. Little do they know, I'm the poorest person in Bulgaria.

So, the sale of the first will fund the purchase (yes, for real cash money) of the second. And I'll be slightly up on the deal.

[Dave_Q]

And I'll be slightly up on the deal.

 

Property Tycoon level 0.0001: Achieved.

[KruJoe]

This Samara has surprisingly tall and compliant suspension. It has seen some action since we've had it, and will take everything in its stride without complaint. 

I do hope it ends up with you Alex, I can't think of a more deserving winner.

[Bucketeer]

I have limited time and battery power for internet usage here at the bar 8 miles from home so thankfully for everyone this will be a text/waffle free update. Just a potted history of my last few weeks in spots: Bulgaria - UK - SF16 - Knockhill - Northern Powerhouse meet - Bulgaria.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[anonymous user]

I don't know what this is, but I like it

[Tayne]

Homemade Volga pickup I think.