She has been enjoying the boundless beauty of the Black Sea city of Varna since she was a child. Her name is Bella Benova. This name suits her a lot. Bella describes herself as a traveler, photographer and amateur writer - she has already written two books. Bella Benova has a doctor's degree in automation. She defended a thesis paper in France and graduated studio technologies and production. She is also popular with her travel note entitled Bulgarian Black Sea Lighthouses from Durankulak to Rezovo. Should one be born on the Black Sea coast, in order to fall in love with the lighthouses?

“I do not think so. I fell in love with the Black Sea lighthouses, because I grew up watching the light of Galata lighthouse from my balcony in Varna. The idea of the book named Following the Pulsing Light was born after I collected all my impressions from my bicycle tour to all Bulgarian Black Sea lighthouses. I made that trip back in 2007 with some friends of mine. The idea developed during the following summers, when we visited the lighthouses in Bulgaria's neighboring countries. We also hoped that this trip would continue on other continents, too.”

The lighthouses are perhaps not so popular in time of developed technologies. However, Bella contends that no matter how quickly mankind, information and present civilization develop, people still experience difficulties in rough seas. Then, modern equipment remains in the background. In that case people are trying to see a coastal light and are hoping to spot the beam coming from the lighthouse in the dead of night. Perhaps, many people do not pay attention to the look of the lighthouses. In fact they all look different. Each lighthouse has its own light characteristics, in order to look different from other light objects nearby, thus enabling seamen to know where they are in every single moment. Moreover, the lighthouses have different architecture, construction and different position in a given landscape.

Several days ago Bella Benova released her second book named Doors.

 “This book is a combination of various texts written in different years”, Bella explains. “The earliest ones date back to 1997 and the most-recent ones were written in 2012. The name of my book (Doors) symbolizes the transition to freedom and the travel across time and space. Each text has a corresponding image - an author's photography of a door covered with graffiti. The photos were made in April 2014 in the streets of the coastal town of Funchal, Madeira Island, Portugal. Here comes the other symbolic element, because this Portuguese island is one of the gates to world yachters. The graffiti on the doors were painted by artists from different countries. They were created within the frameworks of the international project Art of Open Doors in Funchal. The Doors project is full of mysticism and imagination. I hope that readers will feel it, cross the door threshold and meet me on the other side”, Bella Benova concludes.

English version: Kostadin Atanasov

Photos: private library