American Tourist Goes Missing near Mountain 'Ghost Village' in Bulgaria

The ghost village of Chamla is located at 1850 m above sea level. Photo by evgenidinev.com

The authorities in the southern Bulgarian District of Smolyan are searching for a missing US tourist who went to visit an uninhabited local village.

The 25-year-old tourist is of African-American origin but his name has not been revealed. The police have announced, as cited by the Bulgarian National Radio, that they received the report about the disappearing of the young man from the US Embassy in Sofia.

The search for the lost tourist started on Saturday including units of the Bulgarian border police.

The last email that of the missing young man to his parents was sent 20 days ago. In it, he told them he was going to the uninhabited village of Chamla near the village of Mugla in the Rhodope Mountains.

The village of Chamla is located 5 km away from Bulgaria’s border with Greece, close to the famous Trigrad Gorge.

It used to be the highest-located inhabited place in Bulgaria (1850 m above sea level). The last inhabitants of the ghost village left or died in the 1980s.

Around 2000 the place became known as a hippie commune called “Kralstvo Champla”, i.e. the Kingdom of Chamla. The walls of the houses in the ghost village are said to be covered in drawings.

The name "Kingdom of Chamla" was given to the village in 2002 by a foundation called "Destination Bulgaria" that was hoping to turn it into a place for writers and artists.

In 2004, a Frenchman named Olivie Luc spent a year living on his own in Chamla. A Spaniard named Oscar Corea did the same thing the following year.

In 2006-2007, the Bulgarian press reported that the village and the adjacent lands were bought by a company owned by the richest Bulgarian Vasil Bozhkov in order to turn it into a base for the development of rural tourism.

The road to Champla disappears at certain spots in the rough terrain. The village has no electricity and no water and sewerage system. The best way to access the village is to use a GPS device. The coordinates of the village are 41° 37' 19.04" N, 24° 27' 14.63" E.

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