Sofia: history and heritage

About Sofia: history and heritage

By the ULTIMATE Sofia Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

Sofia’s motto is “It grows but does not age”, and the city lives up to it. Beneath its yellow-paved centre lie the streets of Roman Serdica; above them stand a fourth-century rotunda, a sixteenth-century mosque, a synagogue and the gold domes of Alexander Nevsky, with Vitosha Mountain rising behind. Few European capitals show so many centuries in so few steps.

At a glance

Names through history: Serdica (Thracian and Roman), Sredets (Slavic), Triaditsa (Byzantine), Sofia (from the fourteenth century).

Peoples: Thracian Serdi, Romans, Slavs and Bulgars, Ottoman Turks, Sephardic Jews and Armenians, and today’s Bulgarians.

It grows but does not age: Sofia’s motto, and a fair description of a city built on Roman streets.

Shaped by: Rome, Byzantium, the First and Second Bulgarian Empires, the Ottoman Empire (1382–1878) and modern Bulgaria, capital since 1879.

Geography: a high plain at the foot of Vitosha, fed by mineral springs.

Sofia today

Sofia’s capital region counted 1,274,290 people in the 2021 census, according to Bulgaria’s National Statistical Institute: nearly a fifth of the country’s 6,519,789 people. Most are Bulgarians, with Roma, Turkish and other communities, and many newcomers from across Bulgaria and abroad.

Thracians and Romans

The Thracian tribe of the Serdi gave the city its first name, Serdica. The Romans took it in the first century AD, and by the fourth century it was a major city of the empire, with walls, baths and an amphitheatre. In 311 the Edict of Serdica granted toleration to Christians. Much of the Roman city has been uncovered beneath the centre: the Ancient Serdica Complex at the Serdika metro station shows its streets and houses, and the Rotunda of St George, built in the fourth century, stands in the courtyard behind the Presidency.

The city’s name

In the Middle Ages the city was known to Slavs as Sredets, a stronghold of the First and Second Bulgarian Empires. From the fourteenth century it took its present name from the Church of St Sofia, the sixth-century basilica that still stands near Alexander Nevsky. Just outside the city, the Boyana Church, with frescoes painted in 1259, was inscribed by UNESCO as World Heritage in 1979.

Ottoman Sofia

The Ottomans took Sofia in 1382, and it remained an Ottoman city for almost five hundred years. The Banya Bashi Mosque, built in 1576 and attributed to the great architect Mimar Sinan, stands beside the mineral springs that have drawn people here since Roman times. Sephardic Jews, Armenians and Greeks also made their home in the city.

Capital since 1879

After the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, Bulgaria regained its statehood, and in 1879 Sofia was chosen as the capital. The new city was laid out with boulevards and squares and paved with yellow ceramic bricks. Its landmarks followed: the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral (1882–1912), built in memory of the soldiers who died in the war; the Sofia Synagogue (1909); the Central Mineral Baths (1913), now the Sofia History Museum; and the Ivan Vazov National Theatre (1906), designed by Fellner & Helmer.

The Cyrillic alphabet

Bulgaria gave the Slavic world its alphabet. In the late ninth century, disciples of Saints Cyril and Methodius, welcomed in the Bulgarian Empire, developed the script now called Cyrillic, used today by some 250 million people. Bulgaria celebrates it every 24 May, the Day of Bulgarian Education and Culture and Slavonic Literature.

Arts and institutions

The National Art Gallery occupies the former royal palace, the National Archaeological Museum a fifteenth-century mosque, and the National Palace of Culture, NDK, opened in 1981, is the largest congress and concert centre in the Balkans. Sofia University, founded in 1888, is the country’s oldest. On Sundays, people walk from the centre straight up into Vitosha Nature Park.

Our advice: start at the Serdica complex, walk to the Rotunda, the Church of St Sofia and Alexander Nevsky, then visit the Boyana Church on the way up Vitosha. Book Boyana ahead: visits are limited to protect the frescoes.

Sources

Population: National Statistical Institute of Bulgaria, Census 2021. History: Sofia History Museum; National Archaeological Institute with Museum, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences; UNESCO World Heritage Centre (Boyana Church); Sofia Municipality tourism.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Sofia: history and heritage before you go.