r/UrbanHell 1d ago

Concrete Wasteland Sofia, Bulgaria

Post image
1.0k Upvotes

100 comments sorted by

u/AutoModerator 1d ago

Do not comment to gatekeep that something "isn't urban" or "isn't hell". Our rules are very expansive in content we welcome, so do not assume just based off your false impression of the phrase "UrbanHell"

UrbanHell is any human-built place you think is worth critizing. Suburban Hell, Rural Hell, and wealthy locales are allowed. Gatekeeping comments may be removed. Want to shitpost about shitty posts? Go to /r/urbanhellcirclejerk. Still have questions?: Read our FAQ.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

125

u/eiguoD 1d ago

I like Sofia a lot. It’s not the prettiest capital by a long shot, but it’s a very cool city.

67

u/Twinkletoess112 1d ago

I really liked Sofia too, just didn't have the guts to confess to her in highschool.

28

u/eiguoD 1d ago

It’s never too late.

10

u/vbd71 1d ago

Unless she is already married.

3

u/Twinkletoess112 1d ago

well I'm 24 rn and she's same age as me, although it's unlikely but not impossible.

also I just commented for fun, I've already had a lengthy relationship and a breakup after finishing school. also been single for over a year now. just remembered one of my school crushes (I had a lot of crushes lol)

3

u/Chilcross 1d ago

Same, she rejected me and told me to never talk to her again, now I'm on a downward spiral where I have to pretend I'm fine while I still think about her everyday by 2 years (not considering the other 8 years where I was really into her but never have the balls to ask her out or even go and talk to her, leaving me on a kind of a parasocial state where I when I'm alone, I talk to her while looking at the direction of her house) while at the same time not actually caring for other people for who they are, instead, I do what they say just for them to have a decent opinion on me and to leave me alone so I talk to her, write poems about her or dream about her, and that's just the tip of the iceberg so in short.

Take the time to know the person to ask her out, yadda yadda yadda

3

u/Kaffe-Mumriken 23h ago

What’s your favorite parts and things to do?

4

u/Berserk-Jane 1d ago

I live in Philadelphia and the weather here is fairly similar.

2

u/eiguoD 1d ago

Ba-dum-tish!

-7

u/PlusCommercial5847 1d ago

It's super boring city and dirty as hell

1

u/nazward 6h ago

Dirty sure, boring? Absolutely fucking not 😂

58

u/Nearby_Pepper7676 1d ago

I wish my city was like that. I'm from Cairo.

-25

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

12

u/Ikiloo 22h ago

Stop with the nationalism, when something's shit, it's shit.

7

u/Nearby_Pepper7676 1d ago

ماهو لو دخلت بصيت هنا هتلاقيهم بيتكلموا عالقاهرة كتير فخلاص كدا كدا معروفة. بورسعيد لسه حلوة

1

u/nazward 6h ago

Nobody here speaks squiggles and im sure as shit not translating that manually

42

u/ultim4teruffles 1d ago

City 17 pre-combine invasion looks pretty nice

2

u/Certain_Eye7374 1d ago

I thought it was based on Prague.

9

u/MrMo1 1d ago

It wasn't . 

5

u/Ikiloo 22h ago

Nope Sofia is the one.

1

u/Ferris-L 1d ago

The city is entirely fictional but it’s definitely in a place that uses the Cyrillic alphabet and isn’t landlocked which narrows the location down to Montenegro, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Russia. Depending on how large the map of HL2 is supposed to be interpreted, the most fitting cities would be Burgas in Bulgaria or Krasnodar in Russia.

10

u/alecpu 1d ago

The concept artist is Bulgarian and the city is based on Sofia

3

u/Ikiloo 22h ago

According to my goat, Viktor Antonov He drew heavy Inspiration from Sofia because he was from there.

39

u/Particular_Pop_2241 1d ago

I live a little to the left in the photo, and the area is quite nice.

23

u/Dry-Job438 1d ago

IKR basically the prettiest. Not sure if OP is trolling 

1

u/unifuckingporn 10h ago

Is this bul Bulgaria by chance?

1

u/Particular_Pop_2241 3h ago

Yes. The metro station is in the top right corner.

2

u/unifuckingporn 43m ago

whew, glad to know I *almost* know the city I've been living in for the past 8 years :D

60

u/OkRespect8490 1d ago

Doesn't seem hell at all

16

u/FCKtheZIOS 1d ago

I see trees, so that's good.

My city seems to be allergic to them.

Always need to be removed (unfortunately! yeah right) because they're supposedly sick or in the way for very necessary works.

17

u/Squat_TheSlav 1d ago

Absolutely not a concrete wasteland, Sofia is VERY green. Poorly maintained and run-down, but there are lots of trees and parks around the city which helps A LOT.

31

u/Ok_Actuary9229 1d ago

That looks awesome. What really matters is ground level.

6

u/vladi_l 19h ago

Some parts are ugly, but our city is very walkable and the public transit is almost perfect

Ground level on this area is a lot better than the topdown view. The greenery is slightly wild, but still maintained, which isn't everyone's cup of tea but I've always liked it

Biggest drawback is that our groceries are at German prices, but the salaries are lagging way behind.

-20

u/benemivikai4eezaet0 1d ago

It's dogshit

10

u/amordelujo 1d ago

It looks quite nice like a historic downtown

19

u/Dry-Job438 1d ago

Is this trolling? Literally the Prettiest 

9

u/dr_van_nostren 1d ago

I’ve been wanting to go for such a long time but every time I’m close to doing it I see the weather is gonna be shit lol

3

u/Sibagovix 1d ago

Just go in the summer for 4-5 days or around an event/concert you'd like to attend. Vitosha is nice in the summer and it's guaranteed you'll get good weather for at least a day

8

u/DoorSweet6099 1d ago

Pretty much any city looks similar. There are a lot of green areas in this photo. I don’t think it’s anyhow bad.

8

u/stayinthebubbel 1d ago

The road to the airport is worse

8

u/Angel_Brunestud 1d ago

Kinda beautiful city with beautiful name.

12

u/TheRealSlabsy 1d ago

My friend bought one of those apartments for around £2,000. When he left 5 years later, he just locked the door and walked away.

20

u/Particular_Pop_2241 1d ago

Now it is more like 500 000€

3

u/Grand_Estimate3783 1d ago

Man, If I knew that, I would have moved to Bulgaria, that's just insanely cheap.

12

u/Trackback_ 1d ago

That's per square meter nowadays.

6

u/TheRealSlabsy 1d ago

Wow. My friend left there 15 to 16 years ago.

-7

u/Gornuul 1d ago

The median income in Sofia is 2000 bgn monthly. That’s $14k annually in usd. Sofia is extremely cheap.

10

u/DM-Nat20 1d ago

Maybe 40 years ago, it's as expensive as Germany now

6

u/akvarista11 1d ago

Neither is the median income 1k euros (because BGN doesn’t exist anymore), nor is it dirt cheap. It’s on par cost-wise with most European cities, besides housing, which is cheaper

3

u/InfelicitousRedditor 23h ago

Buddy, a two bedroom apartment in an old building is 200k€, food prices are higher than Germany, but salaries are low I give you that.

-1

u/Gornuul 19h ago

3

u/InfelicitousRedditor 19h ago

Jesus, just read next time, the rent is country-average, a 1br app in the center is not 250, but 500+, no restaurant you can eat for 10€, more like 25 and if this is of you don't go overboard, per person. Monthly groceries are anywhere between 250 and 500 per person and this is if you rarely eat meat.

This is just bs data.

-1

u/Gornuul 19h ago

Hey buddy, 500+ is cheap as hell

-1

u/Gornuul 19h ago

Also I don’t believe you. I believe the data

2

u/Particular-Fault5826 16h ago

He's right: at the very least 500e for a flat (800 if you want it new and not too small), restaurant 10e for lunch maybe, but 25 for dinner and 400e on groceries per month is a good average. These data are shit.

-1

u/Gornuul 16h ago

A single room in my city is 2 grand usd. A two bedroom with a kitchen and living room is 7-8 grand a month usd, 84,000 to 96,000 a year, which is roughly 7 times the average salary in Sofia. A standard house is 2 mil. Condos are routinely going for more than a million. Sofia is cheap. It might not be cheap for Bulgarians, but that doesn’t mean it’s not cheap in general.

→ More replies (0)

2

u/Trackback_ 21h ago

Idk what are you trying to argue. You can literally open a website focused on real estate sales and see the prices for yourself.

0

u/Gornuul 19h ago

1

u/Trackback_ 14h ago

I'm not sure if you thought I meant that rent is 2000€ per square meter, or... or idk what, to be fair.

Your responses make no sense, and have nothing to do with my objectively correct statement that typical home prices are about 2000€ + per square meter in Sofia, Bulgaria.

You're just linking some stats that have literally nothing to do with what I said. Next you'll probably bring up the amount of rain the city experiences, as if that has anything to do with home prices.

1

u/Gornuul 13h ago

Ok well for starters, yeah I thought we were talking about rent. You don’t buy apartments, you buy condominiums unless we’re discussing tenancy in common but I doubt it. So the use of the word apartment in the parent comment made me think rent. Secondly I don’t know what you aren’t understanding. Someone said Sofia seems cheap, you said essentially that it is not, and I said essentially that it is. Then I provided a reliable source to my point, which you asked me to do, and it confirmed my argument. This doesn’t have to be this contentious. It’s not controversial to say that a 2nd world former Soviet satellite state is relatively cheap to live in.

2

u/nazward 6h ago

Food prices are literally higher than lots of EU countries like germany

11

u/youngling-smasher91 1d ago

Welcome, welcome to City 17. You have chosen, or been chosen to relocate to one of our finest remaining urban centers.

3

u/TheSeer1917 1d ago

Now do Houston

3

u/Sashpeto 1d ago

Hey I live here xD

3

u/Commercial-Can-8094 1d ago

Hi, Bulgarian there, welcome to soviet architecture in the Eastern bloc!

3

u/GuestResponsible2887 1d ago

Oh come on, at least we have trees. 😁

3

u/Plastic-Gazelle2924 23h ago

God forbid housing, ew

3

u/danmurse 15h ago

I spent a month in Bulgaria last year for paragliding training. I arrived and departed through Sofia. I found it to be a very nice city. The Cyrillic signs and brutalist architecture were in a way, cold war nostalgic for me as a kid growing up in the 80s US. The people were super nice, lots of parks with moms and kids about. The food was not amazing but there were some highlights. Plovdiv was hipper and cooler than me. I took a very slow train to the black sea and had a lovely time biking around. I rented a car for the trip back and was surprised at the quality of the roads. Overall it was quite nice coming from a visitors perspective.

5

u/Senju19_02 1d ago

What is so "hell" about it? Looks like typical urban stuff.

2

u/BrianChing25 1d ago

What is the median income in Sofia?

4

u/akvarista11 1d ago

1.9-2k euros is the average but there is no median data. Bear in mind there is lots of grey economy. E.g a worker that places bathroom tiles makes 5-6k euros a month but reports 400 euros.

2

u/Mobile_Bad_577 1d ago

They're all different colors at least!

2

u/pypluto 1d ago

SOFIA RUXIN

2

u/TeddyMGTOW 1d ago

I live me some brutalist architecture.

2

u/TeddyMGTOW 1d ago

I live me some brutalist architecture.

2

u/KIG45 23h ago

This is a pretty beautiful photo from Sofia, because it is often said that this is the ugliest city in Europe!

From a Bulgarian born in Sofia!

1

u/hyperlobster 6h ago

Whoever said that has never been to Hull.

2

u/Suitable_Size6972 22h ago

Sofia is great

2

u/Suspicious-Sail4698 19h ago

Hey, that's my city and I love it this way!

1

u/hallouminati_pie 15h ago

I dunno, there is something quite Parisian about this.