Issue 14

When Jack Harte's Irish publishers refused to publish his second novel, Reflections in a Tar Barrel, deeming it “sacrilegious”, the writer decided to get drunk. Then he did so again – this time with some Bulgarians in one of those taverns where wine is not only plentiful but also aromatic.

Aside from the predictable hangover, the evening had an unexpected bonus: a contract to publish his novel in Bulgarian signed on one of the tavern's serviettes. Don't imagine the copyright transformed him into an overnight millionaire – it was sold for five crates of Melnik wine!

I am told that I should be getting my own doctor, a GP, if I want to be able to use the state health care system. However, I can't find out how to proceed. The Zdravna kasa give me conflicting info and I don't really have the time to go there very often.

Can you help?

Jamie Brown, Sofia

In the way home to dreary Peterborough I didn't have the usual end-of-holiday-blues. Instead, I had a much anticipated goal. We set a moving date for the start of September to coincide with the end of Luke's current project. My research portfolio grew as I enquired about visas and transport: whether to drive or freight-and-fly, acquiring wheels in Bulgaria and, of course, how to ferry my 13-year-old cat there. We also had the inevitable cull of superfluous belongings.

While taking in the cool night air wafting gently over the Balkan Mountain and surveying the specks of cloud that hide the stars from his view from time to time, US Peace Corps volunteer Joe Iole is trying to get used to the idea that only 48 hours ago a devastating forest fire was raging on the site where he and his Bulgarian colleagues had made their camp. The disaster managed to destroy a large part of the Central Balkan National Park, but without the joint efforts of Joe and his Bulgarian friends, the damage would have been a lot more.

They say, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do”, but I was in Bulgaria. What do they do in Bulgaria? They make rakiya! I'd settled in a small Bulgarian village and wanted to become a part of it, so when I was asked if I would like to make some rakiya I jumped at the chance.

It is estimated that around 50,000 foreigners live in Bulgaria now and the number is set to increase as more and more people adopt the country as their home. Virtually every village in Bulgaria has its token Brit family and some are overrun with them. British expats it seems are discontent with life in damp and drizzly Blighty. The cost of living is too high and property prices are astronomical. Life there has become competitive, stressful and threatening. They feel trapped in the rat race and it's no longer a nice place to end your days or bring up your kids.

On your way from Europe to Istanbul along the well-trodden road through Nis, Belgrade, Sofia and Plovdiv, you can easily tell when you have entered the territory of the former Ottoman Empire - toilets begin to stink in western Hungary! The Bulgarians have now been independent for nearly 130 years, but they still bear the scars of 500 years of Ottoman rule and sadness at their long enslavement. While they adjusted to foreign rule, Europe experienced the Renaissance, discovered the Americas and Australia, enlightened its monarchs and developed an industrial society.

An aristocrat, politician, publisher, entrepreneur and innovator and - by hereditary entitlement archduke of Austria - Karl Habsburg-Lothringen is a key promoter of business and media links between Austria and Bulgaria. He's currently collaborating with Bulgarian business partners on a plan to channel advertising through the Internet. His first step? He bought the majority stake in ArgentA, a major Bulgarian advertising agency.

Is Bulgaria a lucrative place for investors?

"Anybody in my place would have made a great movie with these actresses," says director Lyudmil Todorov. Well, this is Seamstresses, and the actresses are Alexandra Surchadzhieva, Violeta Markovska and Elen Koleva. All three are in their early 20s, like the film's characters - small-town girls heading to Sofia, lured by a job advertisement for... seamstresses. Predictably, the advert turns out to be a hoax.

“The predicament faced by teachers here seemed outrageous to me from my very first days in Bulgaria. Apparently, the powers that be don't consider education an asset. For a country to be able to function well, it's essential to prioritise its education system. It's the young, well-educated and qualified people who can shape a country's future,” says Arnaud Joanny, a teacher at Sofia's Alphonse de Lamartine 9th French Language School. “In France, the situation is completely different.

In the summer Bulgaria became the latest EU country to introduce tougher legislation to curb what many pundits have dubbed the ongoing “War on the Roads”. Under new regulations, drivers who speed will have to pay heavy fines (up to 300 leva, or over £100) and risk having their driving licence suspended for up to three months.

Anyone who has sat behind a steering wheel in Bulgaria will supposedly heave a sigh of relief as – at least theoretically – the new measures might indeed make Bulgarian roads less dangerous. Yet many people have expressed doubts.

Changing street names might be an odd elections tactic, at least seen from a Western standpoint, but Bulgarian politicians won't stop at anything, not even digging up grandpa's grave, to discredit a political opponent. In October, the Sofia City Council, acting on a proposal by a councillor for the ruling BSP, or Bulgarian Socialist Party, passed a resolution to re-rename one of the few pieces of green in central Sofia – the square acre surrounding the Sofia Theatre.