VAGABOND FEATURES

Being a saint, as we all know, is hard. Saint Patrick's career certainly had its ups and downs. Born in Roman Britain in the 5th Century, he was kidnapped as a teenager and sold into slavery in Ireland. He spent six years working as a herdsman before making his escape. In his writings he describes how later he had a vision in which he heard the Irish calling him, so he went back to convert them to Christianity. This was no easy task as he had to defy the authority of local chieftains and to face the power of the old druidic religion.

A HARD START

Like fish out of water – that's how Bulgarians felt in 1878 when they found themselves citizens of two new countries: the Principality of Bulgaria which included the Sofia plains and territory north of the Balkan Mountains, and Eastern Rumelia which comprised the land south of the same range.

Bulgarian humour can be tough, cynical, vulgar, sexist, anti-Semitic, anti-everybody – and all too often coprophilic. Have you heard the one about the man who went to city hall and wanted to change his name? The clerk refused: “Sorry, no name changes allowed.” But the poor guy insisted, “Look, I can't go on living with this name, I have to change it!” Finally, the clerk gave in and asked, “OK, what's your name?” “Ivan Shitsky,” answered the man. “Oh, in that case,” said the clerk, “I understand. What would you like your new name to be? “ “Petar Shitsky,” the man replied.

When Irish fans come to Sofia in June 2009 for the World Cup qualifier between Bulgaria and the Republic of Ireland, they may be reminded of a little known piece of distant sporting history. For it was against Bulgaria, in 1924, that newly independent Ireland played its first ever international football match. In 1922, after years of conflict between the British Empire and Irish rebels demanding an independent Irish republic, the Anglo-Irish peace treaty was signed. This divided the island into the independent Irish Free State and the smaller Northern Ireland.

At the carnival in Rio you'll go Ah!, that's certain, while in Venice you'll go Uhm! when you meet the mysterious ladies behind Neo-Baroque masks.

Instead of Ipanema chicks, however, at the masquerade in Bulgaria you'll be confronted by wild, prancing kukeri, or mummers, with cowbells tied to their belts and horns on their heads. However, the sexual charge of the mummers' games is stronger than in Rio or Venice – because it is much more overt.

Anarchy in the empire

How did the Eastern Question turn into the Eastern Crisis? The answer is complicated, but the seriousness of the problem was clear by 1875.

Are you a Hitler aficionado hoping to impress your fellow travellers with some authentic neo-Nazi decorations? Or are you nostalgic for the Iron Curtain era when Brezhnev and other ageing cronies ran the show from the Kremlin? Then you'll like Sofia's antique market.

On our first holiday season since moving here we were hoping to experience a Bing Crosby style "White Christmas" - something that was very rare where we lived in England. Hopefully, it would snow for us and we could also create an English Christmas for our Bulgarian friends who had invited us to their celebrations.

The easiestway toreach the West was to head east - to Bulgaria, at least according to one persistent rumour circulating among young East Germans during the Cold War. Security at Bulgaria's borders with Yugoslavia, Greece, and Turkey was lax and slipping across them was as simple as taking a stroll - or so went the urban legend. Myth or not, thousands of young Germans gave it a try.

One of the last remaining unspoilt stretches of the Bulgarian Black Sea coast was vandalised by an entrepreneur building a "hut." The story of the destruction of Yaylata, north of Kavarna, is brutal and at times surreal, but it exemplifies the complete disregard for nature, rules and common sense some Bulgarian construction entrepreneurs have espoused.

Hey, expat! You've been here a while? Prefer your chips with white cheese on? Ever found your foot tapping along to a chalga song? Concerned about the Balkanisation of your brain? It's time for you to consider!

Communist rule lasted for 45 years in Bulgaria, yet its architectural after-shocks still reverberate throughout the landscape today.

If you have been to Sofia's Chepishev Restaurant in the Boyana district, you must have seen them. No one could fail to notice over 1,500 bottles displayed behind glass, on two floors. You don't have to be an expert to appreciate the sheer number and the diversity – bottles from 1906 and 1937 stand alongside Japanese whiskies and whiskies in china decanters. The collection, the largest in Eastern Europe, belongs to Plamen Petroff, a youthful 51-year-old whisky connoisseur. It is the result of a passion that changed his life overnight.

"Whatever happened to the 'Golden Guys'?" This was the question we were all asking ourselves when the Bulgarian national team was knocked out in the qualifying rounds of the 2004 European Championship in Portugal. The memory of the Golden Guys' fourth place finish in the World Cup in the United States a decade earlier was still fresh in everyone's minds. There were also new headlines reporting the record breaking transfer fees and salaries paid out by clubs like Bayer Leverkusen and Tottenham Hotspur to those very same footballers who had dropped the ball in Portugal.

When i returned to Sofia as American ambassador in 2005 after a 20-year absence, I wasn’t sure how much change I would see. My wife Jocelyn and I had got to know the city fairly well during our assignment to the embassy in 1985-87, and although we had followed the political transformations from abroad during the intervening years, I had no idea how much remained of the Sofia that my memory had somewhat romanticised. Were the unique yellow bricks now covered with asphalt? Was there finally an underground metro?

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.

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.

What is the similarity between baklava, Volen Siderov and the mosque in the centre of Sofia? If it wasn't for the Ottoman conquest of Bulgaria at the end of the 14th Century, none of the three would exist today.

In the middle of the summer, the lead story on BBC1's Ten O'Clock News was a report on baby smuggling in Bulgaria. Presented by Sangita Myska, it used a hidden camera to expose a child trafficker operating out of the popular Black Sea resort of Varna.