What is the oldest tree in Sofia?
Sofia's oldest tree is generally considered the Mulberry of Vasil Levski on Iskar Street, where legend says the national hero tied his horse over 150 years ago. Its exact age is genuinely disputed, with expert estimates ranging from around 220 years to more than 600, but every account agrees it predates every other candidate tree in the capital.
The Mulberry of Vasil Levski holds its claim to being Sofia's oldest tree by consensus rather than by settled fact. Local historians and the tree's official protection status both point to it first, but the specific age varies enormously depending on the source: some experts, working from growth-rate estimates, put it at around 220 years, while others argue for a figure well over 600, a gap wide enough to place its planting anywhere from the early 1800s to before the fall of Constantinople. The legend anchoring it to Vasil Levski, Bulgaria's most revered independence fighter, rests on his own surviving notes referencing a stay at Hadji Mano's inn, which stood near the tree, though the notes describe the inn rather than the tree specifically. No comparable candidate comes close on either end of the range: Ivan Vazov's spruce and Doctors' Garden's poplar are both reliably dated to the late 19th century, while even the most generously aged oak in the Slaveykov garden tops out around 500. So the mulberry keeps the title, on the strength of being unambiguously the oldest even when nobody agrees by how much.
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