VAGABOND FEATURES

I don't remember how I first felt when I came to live in this street, but it must have been a strange, depressing feeling. People would beg on the corner of Vitoshka Street and then go into the entrance opposite my apartment building. One of the women made my heart sink. I had never seen a more beautiful woman beg. It seemed to me that she sat there, on the corner, wearing a headscarf and looking down, only to be alone within herself. I never dared put any coins in her begging bowl - I felt that their tinkle would somehow hurt or embarrass her.

A cold winter morning in the village of Rosen some 25 km from Burgas. What has brought me here is a letter from a Vagabond reader who complained about the inadequacy of the Bulgarian social services (see Vagabond No. 4). Along with her Bulgarian friend Tanya and another British expat, Susanna, Catherine Almond has been looking after a Bulgarian lady who is in a difficult predicament. She is immobile and incontinent and can't do anything for herself.

You know how it is. It's Monday morning. Your sleep has been shattered by the interminable bloody yapping of a street dog somewhere in the inky blackness beyond your window. Your alarm clock won't go off for another hour yet, but you know you'll never get back to sleep, so you drag your reluctant backside from between warm sheets and go make some coffee.

You think: Sigh.

Showered, dressed, and with sufficient caffeine in your system to approach the new day with a semblance of humanity, you step out onto the gritty Sofian street to walk to the taxi rank.

In the past few years, however, the mass destruction of nature has started again. First it was the Black Sea coast, now the construction has moved to the mountains.

Soon the coast will be one endless resort all the way from Durankulak in the north to Rezovo in the south, and all the mountains will be one giant ski run. And then, oh joy, we are all going to be millionaires. There will be no trees, no beaches, no nothing - just buildings, ski runs and resorts. Exactly which tourists will be enticed by this concrete jungle is another question.

What happened to the Polish plumber?

He now stands forgotten in the EU because of the scarecrow of the new kids on the bloc, the Bulgarians and Romanians. At this delicate moment, the old EU members are receiving disturbing news. Both Bulgaria and Romania are being targeted by their non-EU neighbours in pursuit of more convenient citizenship. Applicants in Romania are mainly from Moldova, while Bulgaria is welcoming its Macedonian brethren.

If you enter Bulgaria from Turkey through the border checkpoint at Lesovo the first thing you'll be greeted by after passport control will be some tanks lurking on both sides of the new, EU-sponsored road.

Don't panic. They've never fired on anyone, thankfully, except for drills. You can even stop to inspect them if you like. No one will halt you, which will lead you to surmise that the decrepit pieces of machinery have been abandoned, save for the clusters of snakes that have made them their homes.

Winter sports facilities in Bulgaria are enjoying a lot of investment interest. About half a billion euros has been put into hotels and holiday villages in Bansko alone. The Super Borovets project is expected to attract between 150 and 200 million euros by 2009 and there is increasing interest from investors. This is all to the benefit of ski enthusiasts, because Bulgaria now boasts magnificent runs and facilities at prices that are still much more competitive than in the Alpine resorts.

Mount Vitosha

You may not particularly like Bulgarian streets because of their narrow pavements, missing flagstones and parked cars, but you will probably not notice these shortcomings on 14 February. Shops and pubs are decorated with hearts and pink balloons, women are more beautiful than usual and young people are kissing on every corner.

And then you encounter a group of Bulgarians who are obviously slightly tipsy. The mixed company loudly praises Trifon Zarezan. Several yards further you come across a baffling scene.

"Is there no carnival in Bulgaria?" you may ask yourself on 17 February while watching TV reports about the start of the carnival season in Venice, Rio de Janeiro and New Orleans. The answer to your question will come on the following day, the first Sunday before Lent. In Bulgaria it is called Sirni Zagovezni and is the last day Christians are allowed to eat meat before the 40-day period of fasting. On this day, in a gesture long-forgotten in our everyday lives, people ask forgiveness from their relatives and friends for any wrong they may have done by kissing their hand.

"Nobody comes for a shave these days!" Boris says sadly, emphasising "these days". Boris is the barber in the only barbershop in Vurshets, which we came across a few months ago, just opposite the bus station.

If Bulgarian melancholy could choose the site of its museum, it would be right here.

Vurshets is a small town with mineral springs in the northwest of the country. I have known it for a long time but, for some strange reason, I find it is the first place I have ever felt excited about. So I decide to go back and find out why.

Sport stages some standout fixtures. In football, for example, there's Brazil versus Argentina and Celtic against Rangers. In tennis there's Roger Federer versus Rafael Nadal, or, in ice hockey, the USA against Russia. And, of course, England playing Australia in any sport would be a needle fixture.

One contest that probably hasn't featured on most sporting radars is Lebanon versus Ireland in the Rugby League World Cup. It certainly hadn't on mine until I saw it listed recently.

The saying "bitter like pelin" aptly describes the opinion of a large part of the drinking community, and probably of all teetotallers, in Bulgaria. They believe that this wormwood wine is definitely not to die for.

But the strange drink - neither wine, nor sangria, nor aperitif a la Fernet - has enough fans among the rest of the population. So many, in fact, that the EU has agreed to accept it as a Bulgarian trademark denoting an aromatic wine-based drink.

Until recently, Germany was considered the "locomotive" of Bulgaria's accession to the EU. For years, it was seen as the most outspoken advocate of Bulgaria's membership. In 2006, however, an increasing number of warnings have been voiced in political circles in Berlin and especially in Munich, that neither Bulgaria nor the other candidate country, Romania, are ready to become full members of the exclusive European club.

The Bulgarian name for Christmas, Koleda, still bears traces of the holiday's pagan origin: the Roman festival Kalendae, celebrated on 25 December, the day when the new sun was born. Despite some minor differences, both Anglican and Orthodox Christmases have gradually lost their religious significance. They have been commercialised and, for many, are now just another excuse for a shopping binge.

There is something that at the same time unites and disunites the Bulgarians to a much greater extent than politics, the economy, education, other people's wealth, public transport, football, international relations, or the former king's properties. It is nothing that is written about in books or featured in films; it is not the product of religion, ideology, or even of culture. I refer to a dish that a large group of Bulgarians swear by, but the very thought of which sickens others.

While the phrase "Peace Corps" might conjure up images of sun-tanned Americans teaching English, purifying water, or planting corn with villagers, the Peace Corps has evolved since JFK's initial proposal nearly half a century ago. In addition to those assignments, volunteers now help build organisational capacity, write grant proposals, teach English, bridge technological gaps, encourage entrepreneurship and improve health care.