Life in Bulgaria

Being currently frequently in Bulgaria I decided to start this weblog to share my experiences.

From 18 July until 5 August 2009 I was in Bulgaria to provide 4 seminars throughout Bulgaria: Montana, Veliko tournovo, Russe and Silistra. It was a great trip with a great team.

Especially Veliko Turnovo is a very nice place with an old fortress which has at most nights a light show (really nice!). The picture shows the view from hotel. Veliko Turnovo is built on 4 hills which are separated by a meandering river. superb site.

View from hotel room

Old houses in Veliko Turnovo

Fortres Tsaravets

From 31 August until 11 September I was again in Bulgaria. This time one week in Sofia, waiting until appointments were finally made.... and then in Silistra (7 hours drive from Sofia) & Pleven.

Some experiences of life/working in Bulgaria:

1. Pomosht (=help) has been a very useful word for me in Bulgaria.
A. The car does not start. You are in a small village where noone speaks English. So what do you do? You go to local bar and say ‘pomosht’ (=help). The lady immediately explains to the two men where your car is parked (! foreigner in town...). The men come with me (one has hardly teeth left), ask on my request the local mechanic and stay with me until 2.5 hours later the car starts again with help of another battery. They were willing to put their own battery in 'my' car (however, battery did not fit) and did not ask for money (but of course I gave them). Every now and them somebody passed by to ask what was going on. I do not see this happening in NL, staying for almost 3 hours just for moral support and trying to see what was wrong.
B. Next time the organisation rented from the same company a car (really!!). What happens: again I am there saying 'pomosht' because the battery is low. This time it seems that battery was emptied by the radio (in modern cars everything is immediately switched off but not in bulgaria...). Quite fascinating, I have rented many many cars in my life and never had a problem. But from this company both times it goes wrong... :-)
C. Next to the hotel there is a superb huge outside swimming pool, which guests can use. They open the door for you, but apparently they also close the door... so I found out one evening. After a great swim, I was locked in this great swimming pool, dressed in bikini & bathrobe... Knocking on windows and screaming 'pomosht' finally saved me...

2. While giving a workshop someone comes in. To facilitate, you want to give the person a chair so you put a bag down on the ground. Wrong!! I could feel people holding in their breath. What appears, putting your bag on the ground means that you will lose your wealth and money... So you will very often see women sitting only partially on their chair with their bag behind them on the chair.

3. Working with a translator is not always easy. The translator on the picture (right, in pink) would not translate if she did not feel like it, and was meanwhile translating things you did not say. Afterwards we had fortunately much better translators. Great to notice how people are finding translators everywhere. In another project I communicate in French & English because one person speaks good French and the other speaks English... quite interesting.

4. People are friendly and relaxed. They will first see what type of person you are (kat uit de boom kijken). Men seem to be macho, however, I have not had any unpleasant experiences. They will not wistle at you or anything. I have no problems sitting somewhere alone. In general they leave you in your peace.

5. Parking in Sofia and Varna: The cars are parked on the trottoir so the pedestrians have to zigzag their way between cars, lose tiles and the street... However, it is already changing compared to a few years ago. More and more streets have now 'paaltjes' at the trottoir to avoid cars to park there and cars have to pay now.
I think that if there would ever be a contest between countries on taking away wrongly parked cars, Bulgaria would win. The truck comes and within 2 minutes your car is gone.

6. Trees are useful for many purposes. If someone dies they will put an A4 with a picture and some details on the tree. At one municipality (sitovo) it appeared that one of the drivers of the municipality had recently died because of being electrofried... . The municipality of 7000 people has 30 people employed, and has several (!!) drivers & municipality car to drive the mayor around... + guests :-) ) Unemployment rate: official 27%, inofficial much higher.

7. Many women are very very slim, nicely dressed and walk on very high heals. I really wonder how they manage with all these huge portions of food, and all these streets with uneven pavement where they seem to walk with such ease. Also I wonder how they do manage to look so nicely as salaries are low (e.g. 250 euro a month) and prices of clothing in Sofia is same as in NL.

8. Foood. Food is very cheap and nice. For everything on the menu the amount (grams) is mentioned. They love salads. The shopska salad never bores it is amazing (tomato, cucumber, pepper (paprika) and rasped bulgarian cheese (similar to feta). Also their Ayran (kind of buttermilk) is delicious. Wines are very nice and of course they have several types of beer: kamenitsa, shumensko, zagorka....

9. Roads. There are very few highways (2 or so). So there are many road where you are allowed to go 60-90 km an hour and where of course everyone prefers to drive 120 or more. The police is checking a lot so the bulgarians warn each other by flikkering big lights. Very helpful...
I have been stopped twice by the police and both time I did not have to pay. First time (in 2005) they took my passport, wrote everything down, told me with a very serious face that I would have to pay at least 10 Euro (wow) and then suddenly I could leave... (without paying!). The other time was Thursday (driving from Sofia to Silistra, normally takes you 7 hours for ca 430 km). Luckily they were at the entrance of the village (you are passing through villages quite often where you drive 40-50 km an hour) so I just slowed down. As I just had the car I was clumsy with window, radio etc. They smiled at me, asked my papers, he shouted something about dutch people to his colleague, asked me if everything was ok (!?!) and waved me goodbye... As I reorganised a few things before taking off he came back again and asked with a worried face if I had a problem... :-) Well, I guess that I was very lucky because normally you do have to pay...

10. Toilets are always interesting to explore. At the Ministry of Finance people bring their own toilet paper as it is not available on the toilet.... At the Ministry of State Administration & Administrative Reform they have their own private toilet as they are in a previous hotel... Outside Sofia you will sometimes find a standing toilet. Knocking on a door first is a habit as many doors do not close properly.

11. Coffee & water you buy outside on the street as in general they are not available in offices. There are very tiny shops with a VERY small window (20x20 cm) at the bottom of the street, where they basically have everything: food, drinks (both alcohol and non alcohol) and which seem to be open at any time of the day. These little shops of ca 2 m2 are very full and basically I do not know how the people working in there get in or out. Their only outside view is this little window of 20x20 cm through which they only see shoes and legs. So to order you have to bend down.

12. Hotels are in general quite good. Having stayed in several hotels in Sofia now I always go to the 'Downtown' hotel. It offers good service, good food, good rooms. However in Sofia hotels are not very cheap. 100 Euro per night is normal. Outside Sofia is completely different. I am now in the 'Drustar' hotel for 45 Euro which is a VERY nice hotel, 5 star with a HUGE and luxury room (almost bigger than my appartment in NL, says maybe more about my appartment than the hotel....:-) with a great big outside pool next door which you can also use after closing time as they open up for you any time you want (after signing a small statement).

13. Monastries. There are many many (orthodox) monastries in Bulgaria. and in general they are really nice. During the Ottoman ruling, monastries and churches were sometimes built in farms or in forgotten areas. Going to church is still not very usual.

Trojan monastry

working hard ... at beach of Nessebar

marie-jose