For at least 28 years the ski resort on Vitosha, Aleko, has not changed. There have been winds and storms, snowfalls and meltings, and yet no one ever decided to replace the exhausted ski lifts or “make them safe”.
Now the company in charge for more than five years, Vitosha Ski, claims that by blasting the rocks it makes routes safer! I have no words to describe this as I’ve been skiing there since I was seven years old. My very first ski run was precisely on the piste Laleto, which they’re trying to expand by blasting moraines. In all those years I never felt it was necessary to make the ski routes safer. The only thing they needed to do was replace the ski lifts with new lifts with greater capacity because the existing ones are insufficient to take skiers up during weekends. During weekdays it is more than OK: Vitosha does not need new ski pistes, demand is not so big, and the fact that a company has received money to expand it should not mean that the whole of nature as well as decent people have to suffer. The nature, losing its “children”, the people, harming their memories … and hearts.
It’s total impudence to throw sand in people’s eyes with news conferences entitled “Vitosha for our children”, as Vitosha Ski AD did. It’s a disgrace to blast stones in the park claiming that, you see, they were not from the protected stone-species moraines but were volcanic rocks, so let’s blow them up! It’s an effrontery to start expanding the ski routes without changing the ski lifts. If the company really cared about users at the resort, it should have started by replacing the ancient Romanski lift with a new one, making Laleto’s two lifts safe by equipping them with plastic shelters for the wind, and that’s about it: This would have been enough.
But what did they do? They started moving the mountain around because, of course, they consider that their money is stronger than nature. Well, let’s just wait and see where will all this end up.
Now the company in charge for more than five years, Vitosha Ski, claims that by blasting the rocks it makes routes safer! I have no words to describe this as I’ve been skiing there since I was seven years old. My very first ski run was precisely on the piste Laleto, which they’re trying to expand by blasting moraines. In all those years I never felt it was necessary to make the ski routes safer. The only thing they needed to do was replace the ski lifts with new lifts with greater capacity because the existing ones are insufficient to take skiers up during weekends. During weekdays it is more than OK: Vitosha does not need new ski pistes, demand is not so big, and the fact that a company has received money to expand it should not mean that the whole of nature as well as decent people have to suffer. The nature, losing its “children”, the people, harming their memories … and hearts.
It’s total impudence to throw sand in people’s eyes with news conferences entitled “Vitosha for our children”, as Vitosha Ski AD did. It’s a disgrace to blast stones in the park claiming that, you see, they were not from the protected stone-species moraines but were volcanic rocks, so let’s blow them up! It’s an effrontery to start expanding the ski routes without changing the ski lifts. If the company really cared about users at the resort, it should have started by replacing the ancient Romanski lift with a new one, making Laleto’s two lifts safe by equipping them with plastic shelters for the wind, and that’s about it: This would have been enough.
But what did they do? They started moving the mountain around because, of course, they consider that their money is stronger than nature. Well, let’s just wait and see where will all this end up.
