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On the south side of the Largo, the Hotel Balkan Sheraton casts its sombre wings around a courtyard containing Sofia's oldest church, the fourth-century Rotunda of Sveti Georgi (summer 8am-7pm, winter hours are variable due to lack of heating; donation requested). Outwardly dour, with a red brick exterior, the church within holds some incandescent frescos under the dome. Most of them, including the central image of Christ the Pantokrator and the surrounding frieze of 22 prophets, are fourteenth century, but many of the frescos below are much older. Another ring of prophets dates from the twelfth century, when Bulgaria was under Byzantine control, and some ninth-century floral designs, in the northern niche, date from the First Bulgarian Empire, when the newly Christianized state subjected unwilling aristocrats to mass baptisms in this very church. You can scramble around some remains of Roman-era Sofia in the plaza behind the church. Pedestrians scurry down into the underpass which links the Largo's southern and northern sides, and also gives access to Serdika station - the busy city-centre terminus of Sofia's brand-new metro. Hogging attention in the adjoining subterranean plaza is the weathered brick and stone of the Church of Sveta Petka Samardzhiiska , girded with concrete platforms, its tiled rooftop poking above street level. Originally built in the fourteenth century, the church gained the epithet samardzhiiska in the nineteenth century, when it was adopted by the Saddlers' Guild as their private chapel. Despite conscientious restoration, the surviving sixteenth-century frescos are now patchy and difficult to see, but you can make out portraits of several bearded and haloed figures, one of which is St John of Rila, medieval Bulgaria's leading holy man. The northern side of the Largo is dominated by a large postwar structure that houses the Council of Ministers (Bulgaria's cabinet) and the Tzum shopping mall , three stories of boutiques, cafes and banks occupying the premises of the now-defunct TsUM a state-owned department store once the pride of communist-era Sofia.
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