[The following is a newsletter I wrote while travelling in 2001. It was originally sent to an e mail list on 19 June 2001. Please note: conditions in the Bulgaria may have changed significantly since then. My opinions and positions may also have changed significantly since then.]
Welcome to this edition of my newsletter about the countries I’ve visited.
I had a very quiet experience in Bulgaria, and it was primarily a time when inner thoughts were reflected by the sensual things I was experiencing in the world around me. I had far fewer interactions with other people in Bulgaria, since I only spent time with one other traveller, and it seems that fewer Bulgarians speak English.
One thing that I really enjoyed about Bulgaria was that I spent a lot of time in smaller settlements. I spent two or three days in the capitol, Sofia, but even Sofia is rather quiet. Staying in these small places was quite a break because my journey so far had been very urban: two big cities in Spain, 3 big cities in Morocco, Prague, Brasov, Bucharest…
Because I didn’t learn Bulgarian and didn’t have a lot of interaction, I didn’t get as much hard knowledge about Bulgaria as some other countries. And I didn’t get any English language publications about Bulgaria. Nevertheless, after leaving Bulgaria, I had a feeling for it, an impression that is hard to put into words.
Send me a letter with your reactions or to tell me what’s happening in your community or your life. I would really like communication from you!
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Bulgaria- Intro
a. Bulgarian Places
b. History and Politics
c. Communism
i. disclaimer
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1.a. Places Visited
Crossing the border on the train, a friend and I were witness to a curious and amusing incident: smuggling. After we crossed from Romania into Bulgaria, but before the customs point in Bulgaria, people were quickly shuffling large bundles past the door of our train cabin. Then they hurtled them out of the train. On the ground outside the train the outstretched arms of the smugglers’ partners were waiting for the contraband.
Before long I visited Veliko Tarnovo, got my first look at the new money, wrangling with the host over the cost for our private room. Veliko Tarnovo is another one of those exceptional, special places, where old cobblestone roads wind around steep hillsides in unpredictable ways, the streets are witnessed on either side by tall, Turkish style buildings. Architecturally they have small rooms which jut out horizontally away from the main building over the street, defying gravity. There’s an old fort there which dates from Veliko Tarnovo’s time as the capitol of the Bulgarian empire. And it all looks over a deep gorge in which a river winds like a snake.
Sofia is a calm capitol with little of the rough edge of Bucharest. It is quiet, with a few monuments and of course a lot of shops and housing.
Not far from Sofia is one of Bulgaria’s greatest places, Rila monastery. It takes a long time to get there by bus, and the last stretch is a turbulent, meandering way in the valley of the mountains, intermittently crossing the mountain creek. The monastery itself is a four sided housing complex enclosing an inner courtyard. The small rooms in long rows which constitute the four sides of the complex, were used to house the monks who worshipped and studied there. In front of the rooms are long hallways which overlook the square from arched handrails. Inside the square there is an old clock tower, which is the oldest part of the complex, and a Church, which is painted with descriptive pictures like those in the monasteries of Romania. Behind the monastery complex is a beautiful mountain, a sharp grey peak highlighted by snow. The day I arrived, it was late afternoon, and the moon rested near the mountain in the blue sky. A small creek runs just beside the monastery walls into the large valley creek. The air was fresh and cool.
After Rila, I went to Koprivshtitsa (what a mouthful of a name!), another beautiful village nestled in the mountains. Here I stayed in a private room with a Bulgarian family who tried to communicate with me, through words as well as offerings of homemade wine and homemade meals.
The next day their 8 year old daughter took me on a tour of the town in which I faithfully attempted to repeat her Bulgarian phrases. Koprivshtitsa was full of University students while I was there because it was a student holiday. I was amazed at how shy they were and how none of them approached me, since young people in other countries often are curious about foreigners. Finally, late at night I met some young men.
Koprivshtitsa is a quaint farming town, but is also well known for the developed architecture of some of the houses there, where cultured Bulgarians and intellectuals lived in the 19th century. It was here that the Bulgarian uprising against the Turks was started in 1876, when a famous first shot was fired at a small bridge in town.
After Koprivshtitsa, I made my way to Sozopol, a tiny town on the Black Sea, for my first look at this huge body of water. It was quiet and peaceful, and again Sozopol was a beautiful little town with old fashioned houses. I listened to the gentle lapping of light waves in solitude.
The nexy day I was on the train to Istanbul. My last experience of Bulgaria was with the people in the compartment of my train, who gave me homemade tomato juice. A young woman was chatting with me when a strange “holy man” in bizarre clothes, wielding a staff, and vaguely wild eyed, invaded our compartment to see the “American Traveller”. He talked about India and Black Magic, then attempted to perform various spiritual feats. Meanwhile the other folks in our cabin shook their heads and quietly disowned this kind of person from their culture.
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1.b. History and Politics
Like Romania, Bulgaria is a country in which its original inhabitants have mixed with waves of migrants over the centuries. The people bearing the name Bulgar entered the region in the 600s, mixing with the Slavs who lived there before them. A sizable Bulgarian kingdom existed from 681 -1018.
Bulgaria became an orthodox country in 870 when the ruler of the kingdom converted. At the height of the kingdom feats of knowledge and literature were accomplished in the capitol Preslav and the town of Ohrid. Eventually, however, conflict with the Byzantines and the independence of conquered peoples led the empire to decline and the Byzantines took over Bulgaria in 1018.
Another empire emerged after the Bulgarians’ independence from Byzantium from 1185 to 1396. This empire was weak in its latter years and during this period the Turks began to invade. The last independent Bulgarian town as captured in 1396.
Because the Turks settled in the Bulgarian plains, the Bulgarian people were forced into the mountains, where their culture was preserved until independence from the Turks. The Turks didn’t try to force the Bulgarians to convert to Islam or to eradicate the Bulgarian language. But when the Ottomans weakened in the 1700s the Bulgarians suffered from heavier taxes used to pay for unsuccessful Ottoman military conquests. Only at the very end of Turkish rule was any attempt made to culturally assimilate the Bulgarians.
A National Revival of Bulgarian culture began in the early 19th century. Books were printed in Bulgarian, schools were opened, and folklore and customs were given new life.
Revolutionary leaders had been plotting against the Turks when a revolt broke out in 1876. The Turks crushed this ruthlessly, but the uprising aroused European sympathies. Serbia declared war on Turkey, and was joined by Russia and Romania. Losing the war, the Turks were forced to surrender a large part of the Balkan peninsula to Bulgaria, and 1878 is marked as the year of Bulgarian independence.
The Western Powers feared Russia’s influence in the Balkans, however, and partially reversed this by making Southern Bulgaria an autonomous Turkish province.
In the first Balkan war, Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece wrested Macedonia from the Ottomans in 1912. However they couldn’t cooperate about sharing the new land, and the Bulgarians attacked Serbia and Greece in 1913. Bulgaria lost this conflict and hence any claim to Macedonia.
The Bulgarians fought on the side of Germany, Austria, Hungary and Turkey in World War I, but this policy was resisted within the country, leading to an armistice in 1918.
Postwar elections brought an anti war leader promising land redistribution to power, but he was deposed by a right wing coup. After the harsh suppression of an uprising by Communists and agararians, Bulgaria was ruled by various right wing forces until World War II.
In World War II, the Bulgarians again sided with Germany, but an underground resistance movement sprung up in 1942. In 1944, as the Russians were conquering Romania, Bulgaria declared itself neutral and disarmed the German troops in Bulgaria. Russia eventually entered Bulgaria and the underground movement took over Sofia. When the Communists overthrew the monarch Bulgaria became part of the Eastern European Communist diaspora.
Under Communism, Bulgaria was one of the wealthier Soviet Bloc countries; agriculture was collectivised and industrialization undertaken through heavy reinvestment and a newly urbanized workforce. But the day after the fall of the Berlin Wall, an internal Communist party coup put an end to the reign of its ruler Todor Zhivkov. The Communist Party reformed as the Bulgarian Socialist party (BSP) and agreed to allow elections.
In the next ten years a complicated struggle occurred between the BSP and the opposition group, the United Democratic Front (UDF). The result was a series of partial attempts at economic reform, corruption, high inflation, and a decline in living standards. In 1997, the Bulgarian currency was pegged to the Deutschmark, ending inflation. IMF programs have been forthcoming but it is still to be seen whether they will result in a better living situation for the Bulgarian people.
The latest political news in Bulgaria is that the former king of Bulgaria, who was just a child when he was deposed by the Communists in 1945, appears to have come back to power in elections just held in the past few days. While this does not mean a return to the monarchy (since he was elected to power), BBC political analysts say that a return to the monarchy cannot be ruled out if he is successful in solving the country’s economic problems.
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1.c. Communism
Some of the information I have suggests that Communism was a little easier for the Bulgarians than for the Romanians. The comments of two young people I met in Koprivshtitsa were very interesting, in that they discussed some of the social ramifications of the transition to Capitalism.
They said that under Communism people tended to look after each other more, that community ties were stronger. Now, after Communism, people are more concerned with looking after themselves, and so these community ties have broken down. Old people have been affected the most, as their pensions are now worth much less.
Further, under Communism food was plentiful and cheap, so it was common for people to stop in unannounced to share a meal. Now, because food is much more expensive, to drop in would be considered inconsiderate. Because of this, the sharing of meals with members of the community has declined.
The Communist system got a lot of bad press, though, from one man who invited me and a friend to his house. While I am reporting what he told me, I have no knowledge of what part of it is true.
This man was the son of the owner of a furniture factory before the Communist takeover. After the Communist takeover, the furniture factory was seized by the government, but the family was allowed to keep an apartment building that they owned.
When he became an adult, he hosted foreigners in his apartment (which was forbidden under Communism). He says that his meetings with them were not political, reflecting only his interest in life outside Bulgaria. His activities were noticed, however, by a kind of civilian informant. These civilian informants, while living normal lives, told the government about suspicious activities. Cyril quickly ran afoul of the authorites. When one of the men in his neighborhood ran away to Germany, the authorities suspected him of helping the man who escaped.
As a result of this, he was sent to a labor camp, where he was forced to work and where he was beaten daily. In addition, people in the labor camp had very little to eat. I believe he said he was in the camp for 6 months to 1 year.
After he was released from the labor camp, he was deported to a very small town where he had to remain, separate from his family. He had a book which discussed the labor camp where he says he was detained.
In addition to his own story, Cyril described other aspects of society under Communism. People were obligated to work where they were born, they couldn’t get permission to travel abroad, and they weren’t allowed to leave Bulgaria. There were border zones around the country and if someone were caught in these zones they could be shot or sent to labor camps.
In his opinion, the 8 to 10% of the population who were members of the Communist party were careerists who sought benefits for themselves. In his opinion, the party members weren’t motivated by any real belief in Communism. The Communists had the privilege of shopping from special stores, where imports from foreign countries could be bought. Other citizens couldn’t buy these imports. Further, a certain number of positions at Universities were reserved for the children of party members.
He said that people could attend church under Communism, but doing so could result in losing one’s job. As a result, only the old went to Church (because they were pensioners). Christmas and Easter weren’t holidays, but just another workday, and old churches were sometimes used by the government to store grain.
Describing the poverty Bulgarians are now experiencing, Cyril blamed much of it on the lingering effects of Communism. He said that former Communist officials sold off the government enterprises to friends, and stole money, in a web of corruption which crippled Bulgaria.
Cyril then showed us a distressing movie which depicted the execution of a priest, an artist and a teacher at the beginning of Bulgarian Communism. Later in the movie, a local Communist party official raped a woman, oversaw his own brother’s forced suicide, and raised his son in the Communist tradition. Later this official raped another woman, and his own son was sent to a labor camp for turning against his father. It was quite a dramatic and depressing film.
This man seemed a little unstable and often wrung his hands while exhaling in heavy sighs. He often muttered under his breath “The only good Communist is a dead Communist”. He reported that he and his friends found Augusto Pinochet to be heroic. (Pinochet was a Chilean dictator who overthrew a democratically elected Socialist government in what some allege was a CIA backed coup). My friend and I found it strange that although we were there for 3 or 4 hours he offered us no food.
I have no way of verifying his story to determine if it is 100% factual. It is very likely that at least part of it is in fact true. Perhaps other parts were distortions, but in any case it certainly was an interesting discussion, even if only as an indication of the opinions of one person. Cyril still feels alienated in Bulgaria, and due to his family’s poverty, hopes to emigrate to the United States.
Like I said, Bulgaria was a quiet country for me where I really looked internally. When I need to feel some peace in my life, I still imagine that I am at Rila Monastery, and the beauty, stillness, and timelessness of that place helps me relax.
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DISCLAIMER
In the previous paragraphs I tried to make a commentary about Bulgaria. A great deal of it is based on my impressions and not on hard factual information. Thus it cannot be said to be a perfect interpretation nor wholly accurate. It is hard to get exact information about my host countries in English. I apologize in advance for any inaccuracies or offensive misinterpretations.
The statments of any other authors in the newsletter are not necessarily my own.
If you disagree with what I´ve written please tell me! Send me an e mail or a letter!
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