By a tradition, spring brings to the Earth and Man Museum in Sofia what are loosely called mineral days. Minerals collectors and experts from near and far throng to the museum’s halls, because these are days dedicated specifically to museum workers. The preparations for them take time and effort; the reward – recognition and the museum’s participation in the world lists of expositions of minerals. The latest collection of stones from Northern Bulgaria is described by experts as coming from the ancient sea floor.

The museum workers are busy in the museum depository where they are cataloguing and arranging the “fruit of the Earth”. But, in their leisure time, they are people who read poetry, and that is what opened the museum doors to the poetic spirit with an exposition called Poetry of Stones. The display features pieces, mostly of precious stones that have been mentioned in classical works by Bulgarian or world authors. And this exhibition makes it clear just how old the bond is between inanimate nature and man’s innermost feelings, which have inspired many an author. From the new “precious” exposition we find out how skillfully the Bulgarian poets Yavorov, Smirnenski, Geo Milev, Elisaveta Bagryana made use of metaphors connected with gems. Pushkin, Byron, Heine dedicated verses to their favourite precious stones. It is a little-known fact that the Russian poet was a great admirer of precious stones and believed they were his good-luck charm. He had two rings with an emerald and a carnelian, and they were there, on his fingers when a portrait of him was painted a little before his death. But what happened to these two rings after the poet died – that is something you will find out only if you visit the Poetry of Stones exhibition, which is on at the Museum until the end of May.

“More than 70 works by classical authors can be seen at the exposition – starting with Persian poet Omar Khayyam and ending with the Bulgarian poetess Petya Doubarova, who died an early death,” says Zhivka Yanakieva, chief curator of the museum. “Poetry makes use of metaphors connected with but a few minerals, no more than 12-13 in number. But let us take Chinese and Japanese culture for example, where two stones are mentioned most often – in China jade and in Japan jasper. But just one stone could bring together symbols that are important to both nations. And this is something that can be seen in our exhibition. Japanese culture is based on the symbols of imperial power and might. Evgeny Olanov, translator from Old Chinese has been very helpful in arranging this exhibition with translations of poetry from 1,000 years ago. One of the most intriguing works is by Nadezhda Teffy – a Russian poetess and satirist who wrote the poem Seven Fires which is about seven precious stones - ruby, topaz, amethyst, diamond, alexandrite, emerald and sapphire. And for each of them she found something that is typical, and strung the words together like a necklace. The exhibition’s official opening is on May 12^th, the Night of Museums and will include a poetic night, with poets reciting their favourite works, presented in the exposition. Only here and now can visitors see Bulgarian women’s favourite stone - since time immemorial it has been the carnelian, though in olden times women rarely wore jewellery featuring precious stones. But Bulgarian poetry helped us in our research – we found out which stone is used most often in metaphors and similes. And to our surprise it turned out to be flint.

Diamonds are used to denote something that is beautiful, pearls are the stones used by symbolists in their verses to denote purity and magnificence. But flint is the stone that is used when describing the Balkan Range or the strength and audacity of heroes. While we were preparing for this exhibition we stumbled upon a verse by the first Bulgarian poetess Ekaterina Nenchova, a love poem in which she compares her lips to rubies.”

English version: Milena Daynova