Rabisha Lake-Bulgaria
The Bulgarian 'Loch Ness Monster': the Water Bull of the Rabisha Lake
Tuesday, 16. March 2010, 08:44
The world famous monster Nessie from the Loch Ness in Scotland is about to get a rather tough competitor – the Water Bull from the Rabisha Lake in Northwestern Bulgaria.
Even though the Water Bull and Nessie seem to be of very different species, the Water Bull of the Rabisha Lake is set to conquer the world going in the footsteps of the Loch Ness Monster, Emil Tsankov, Mayor of the town of Belogradchik has told Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency).
With the funding that the Belogradchik Municipality hopes to get, it plans to promote the legend about the Rabisha Lake Monster and to resurrect the local traditions related to the mysterious creature.
The Legend about the Water Bull, the Rabisha Lake Monster
There are various legends about the Rabiska Lake Monster but Mayor Tsankov has picked the most “credible” one – which dates back to the 18th century – in order to focus their project on it.
The legend has it that a fearful monster inhabits the lake. Unlike Nessie and many other lake monsters, however, this one is no dinosaur; it is a lot more human-like, and is actually more like a minotaur.
The Rabisha Lake Monster, the so called Water Bull, has the head of a bull, the body of giant, strong man, and the tale of fish.
Water Bull or Wels Catfish?
What might have given rise to such a legend (there are actually a number of local legends about the Water Bull Monster in the Rabisha Lake which have slight variations)? Assuming of course the actual Bull doesn’t hang around down there.
The Rabisha Lake is actually proven to be the home of real water monsters – gigantic wels catfish have been caught there. The largest ones reach 5 meters in length, and a weight of 350 kg!
The Belogradchik Mayor says there are also various reports of spotting these fish monsters near the surface of the Rabisha Lake – mostly in the months of April and May – even though the wels catfish usually spend most of their time on the bottom of the lake.
A record number of tourists – 350 000 – visited Belogradchik, a town ot 6 000 people, in 2009. This is a staggering increase compared to the 90 000 visitors in 2008, and even to the record number of visitors in the mid 1980s – 140 000.
The Bulgarian Nessie is supposed to boost these figures even further. It will most certainly do so because it seems to be even cooler than the Loch Ness Monster – after all, the Water Bull turned out to be the hero of a great love story.
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