The Shumen region is a very important place in the history of Bulgaria, because the city itself is famous for many medieval monuments, and in nearby Pliska, it was the capital of the first Bulgarian state. However, what inspired me for the trip was the famous relief from the 8th-9th century called the Madara Rider, entered on the Unesco List. I read about him as a teenager, but I must admit that the face-to-face meeting disappointed me a bit, because I thought that the bas-relief is...much larger.