Pobiti Kamani, Stone Forest

The natural phenomenon "Pobiti Kamani" or "Stone Forest" could be translated from the Bulgarian as: "stones that have been beaten into the ground".

Also known as the "Stone Desert", it consists of alternating large and small groups of pillars, sometimes 10 meters high, located in the north and south of Lake Beloslav.

The stone desert is not only a well-known European tourist attraction because of its desert-like habitat, but it is one of the few places where desert-like vegetation such as cacti can be found.  The Stone Desert, together with the Tabernas Desert of Spain, is one of the two naturally formed deserts in all of Europe and the only known naturally formed desert in Eastern Europe.

Nobody knows for sure how the formations originated. Various theories and legends speculate about their formation. It is scientifically believed that the area was the bottom of a sea that retreated hundreds of thousands of years ago and that the pillars were formed by organic or mineral processes.

According to a local legend, the pillars are the petrified bodies of the giants, who asked if a young immortal man would reveal to them the name of God so that he could marry a beautiful girl who was originally destined to become the wife of the leader of the giants.

During the later Bulgarian Empire, it was believed that these pillars and stones possessed a sacred space and that some kind of energy and supernatural power was found there. The real origin is still a kind of mystery...maybe there is something supernatural about it.