San Francisco through the eyes of a man half living in Sofia

San Francisco, as a place of people's lives, almost the same old settlement as Sofia, also stands on the hills, also has an interesting history of Russian emigration and is located in a seismically dangerous zone. You can’t just compare these two cities - they are not similar, and they shouldn’t 😊 It’s much more interesting: everything seems to be the same, but in a different way. I don’t know how to explain this. Probably a lot of traveling people will understand me.

Today, San Francisco is one of the largest cities in the United States, but not a millionaire. The city was founded by the Spaniards in the 18th century, but even in the third millennium BC, Indian tribes lived here. And this despite the adverse living conditions: swamps and mists. These swamps were drained only in 1847 in order to expand the place for the center of the modern city.

San Francisco stands on a peninsula and most of its area is water: 479 sq. Km out of 600 sq. Km!

The city is in a seismic zone and therefore there are special requirements for construction. That is, all of these skyscrapers are earthquake resistant. True, there are not so many of them as it seems - the main building is a low-rise condominium.

Old buildings are being rebuilt taking into account seismic stability.

From a tourist point of view, San Francisco is very interesting. Firstly, there is a bunch of museums, including a rare (for me personally) Museum of Russian culture - an emigrant museum in the SF.

By the way, in the city center there is the Russian Hill district - this name was given after the Russian graves were accidentally discovered on one of the hills during the Gold Rush.

Secondly, there are famous attractions: an island with the Alcatraz prison, the Golden Gate Bridge, historical cable cars and a lot of things that are not known to the wide circle, but local guides will be happy to tell you for only two hundred bucks.

After the Indians, the Spaniards took possession of this place, then Mexico, and then the Americans. It was under them that the city began to be officially called San Francisco, until that moment it was Yerba Buena.

A terribly interesting period in the history of the city is the "Gold Rush", which began in 1848. Thanks to her, the population of the city grew 25 times. And there were only 1000 people.

It was during the gold rush that the Chinese came to the city and now they make up one fifth of all residents, and Chinatown in San Francisco is the largest in the country. Chinese restaurants are dark. But there are also many Japanese. And since there are no Japanese (real) restaurants in Sofia, her husband prefers them.

In general, you can’t tell everything at a time - this is so, for a small dive. I still have a lot of photos, material and impressions)

I live in Bulgaria and most often I write about it, sign up @varya-davydova

Thank you for your time and attention.
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