For the first time without a visit to the south east. Finally, in a country that was on the other side of the wall and maybe it still feels a bit 'confused.
Bulgaria is a country that only recently regained its independence after centuries of foreign domination. Similarly to Poland, more contested between Germany and Russia, Bulgaria is one of those countries considered more often as a land of conquest self-expression that of civil and political rights. The beginning of the Bulgarian history can be traced back to the Thracians who lived in these lands until the first Roman occupation, continued with the arrival of the first "real" Bulgarian people in the modern sense in the seventh century who built a pair of "empires" Bulgarian alternating and then succumbed to Byzantine influences, just before that, five centuries of Ottoman-turkish, until 1878. The brief continued after the independence war in the Soviet influence, which has segregated the small nation behind the Iron Curtain for over forty years. Political freedom was found in the last twenty years, but as a leopard the Italian ruling class seems to have changed his clothes only .
Despite what the Bulgarians have cultivated their own identity and a well-defined national character, a mix of Slavic culture, Turkish influences, greek-orthodox and indigenous expressions. Simple characters used in a country after decades of communism to a life made of light but a few basic choices. The impression I got is that of a country that is still rural and gentle at heart, simple in manners, courtesy and smiles in return, in contrast to the nods of the head and body language, still not used to choices made complicated against excessive consumerism, but too forced like when you bought your pants during the communist regime.
When the lack of choices more like a compulsion leads to rejection.
During communism there were two kinds of pants for both sexes, so the choice was not difficult: one of two things. However, the first difficulty was to be able to buy pants without finding the shuttered: As the shops because of the state stores where the staff was made up of civil servants, since he was not allowed to individual economic initiative, these were subject to hours office like everyone else, and as you know under communism and all their hours worked coincided with that of the merchants here that in fact it was almost impossible to buy a pair of pants during the hours allowed. The only solution, therefore, remained out of work with an excuse, make the necessary committees and wondering if you hurry back to work to live or living to work.
no coincidence that one of the most common jokes at the time was "We pretend to work, but they pretend to pay us."
But the second difficulty, the real one was forcing himself to wear trousers and dresses that everyone had an entire nation blue or brown, or force them to wear a uniform.
so try to create an originality that was to be prohibited from: stand was a need addressed by sewing and embroidering their clothes so fueling the desire to escape from the choices of the regime. After the fall of Communism, then as now, the desire to escape seems to materialize in the real status of the West, from the machine, the TV, the house or chasing the desire for perfection reported by several giant posters of cosmetic surgery that promise perfect breasts and remember that " beauty is symmetric, finally killing the little rebellion forced survived approval.
The memory of this forced simplicity is still alive in a country that has experienced the hard transition to capitalism which, by closing all businesses now too outdated to keep pace with the times, has created great unemployment and a mass exodus of the population.
As in all former communist countries the arrival of capitalism was a disillusioned waiting development which has peaked with the entrance into the European Union and the building boom of recent years. The policy was corrupt and incompetent, the opening of borders led to a large mass exodus and the generations in between two eras, too old to start over or forget the idea of \u200b\u200bprogress in living cynical expectation.
Not so young, and as always hope and believe in the opportunity represented by the just compensation for their work, the improvement due, idealizing the idea of \u200b\u200bsuccess and of the capital represented by a perfectly competitive of an atomistic market and merit.
You can not say that this dream has been completely betrayed, not yet, for many, life has changed radically, but the attack on the mediocrity crushed up or down the broad masses of workers and the streets which life develops vertically enthusiasm has long since left room for a cynical old melancholy reflected in t ram disconnected from any distance .
enter into the thoughts of the Bulgarians do not seem easy, the look reserved and indifferent is actually a form that dissolves the first question, the hospitality encountered strong tensions between leave imagine what you have in, and that that appears outside.
One clue it's entering the houses cooled only by a little bright colors of the buildings, when the melancholy falls like a mist between the roofs are only illuminated the windows of upper floors, those who want to maintain a view on the rooms of the city visible in the light of old yellow light bulbs. Balconies lit at dusk of the evening that can tell more than many history books.
An old love to talk to your cat, like whispering secrets to an old friend from the end of the day, someone on the stove preparing the cluttered kitchen briefly to eat dinner while watching TV, and mustachioed man in the usual pants now paints the bedroom by calculating the proper number of coats of paint. Scenes of everyday life offers the passerby to turn enriched by children almost in the dark trying to fly a kite unlikely proving that you can break the cement with the greyness of life that flows inside.
The smell of dinner, the door opens, the little Bobby who runs screaming " Tati Tati! " remind me that even for a short I'm part of the landscape. Iskrena he returned from work, hard day you read him in the face, but the smile that rips the little fitted diaper seems to make sense of the day.
guests and a young family, Iskrena, a computer engineer, his wife Julia, a lawyer, and little Bobby who has already learned how to smile in front of a camera.
are part of those young Bulgarians with a sigh of relief to talk about what it was, with the sweetness of what we now have and with a smile that smacks of modesty imagine the future.
