After kashkaval tourist released one of its most successful articles, 6 places you would not believe are in Bulgaria, I was contacted by Czech scholar Marek Jakoubek who has been researching the unique village of Voyvodovo in northwestern Bulgaria. Marek Jakoubek is currently a professor of anthropology at the University of West Bohemia in Plzeň.
Jakoubek visits the village at least twice a year and is the author of a number of publications detailing the village’s curious history. One of his latest works is the book Voyvodovo – an unknown Czech village in Bulgaria (published in Czech and Bulgarian), which is a multi-faceted collection of seven articles and studies, complete with a fascinating personal foreword and a neat timeline of Voyvodovo’s history.
To this day, Voyvodovo boasts an architectural style more akin to that of the Czech lands and Central Europe rather than the Balkans
What makes Voyvodovo so special is that it was founded by ethnic Czech settlers in 1900 and to this day boasts an architectural style more akin to that of the Czech lands and Central Europe rather than the Balkans. Though the Czech community was resettled to Czechoslovakia by the 1950s, its architectural (and to some extent cultural) heritage is still largely intact – however, efforts to preserve this jewel must be undertaken.