FORUM

“We've been burgled, had our business vandalised, our tyres slashed and been victims of various violent confrontations in just one year.”

Does this sound like experiences in a gangland suburb in London? Racial hatred in Manchester? Yet another testament to “broken” Britain? It may surprise you, then, to be told that the above account is an experience not encountered by an ethnic minority, social outcast or council estate resident, but by a British expat living in Bulgaria, experiencing intimidation, slander and violence from other expat Brits.

Passing comment on workmen as they botched things together or attempted to lift heavy loads used to be a light-hearted joke. Tongue firmly in cheek, I would turn to my companion and jibe; “How many workmen does it take to dig a hole?” The answer - eight: one to dig; three telling him how not to dig; three, with folded arms, watching him dig; and one to keep the barbeque/fire going.

Most of my fellow “Nederlanders” do not like to be called “Dutch” because it sounds too much like our word for German (Duits). We attribute our dislike for our neighbours mainly to the 1974 World Cup Final. But since then we have fought other finals and we now play war with common enemies who blow themselves up, so what do I know. In reality, we truly are just the remnants of some Germanic tribes that drifted a little too far down the old River Rhine. During the days of the Romans most of what is now known as the Netherlands was called Germania Inferior, so there you are.

My weekend UK Arts supplement would have me believe that in the cinema world, Romania is the next Brazil. Three hard hitting films on life before and after the downfall of Communism have suddenly put Eastern Europe back on the must-see movie map.

Bulgaria's carefree environment provides expats like myself with a sense of freedom and safety rarely experienced in our home country. Especially in the countryside, life here is sometimes safer for children and teens, less complicated for adults, and harks back to Britain's admirable values of 50 years ago, where everyone “looked out” for each other. However, whilst life here is so much more straightforward and relaxed, Bulgaria trails way behind the rest of Europe in terms of health and safety.

Anyone who has spent time in Bulgaria – especially on a long-distance train ride – knows that complaining is a national pastime. As your fellow passengers gripe for hours on end about the miserable state of the country, interrupting their grumbling only to answer their state-of-the-art mobile phones and to take sips from their flasks of homemade rakiya, you may wonder: do they really have it so bad?

Crowds of nervous university applicants and anxious parents who have come from near and far, huddling together in front of faculty buildings; thousands of relatives tuning in to the national radio to hear the exam question or clutching their phones to learn whether their “boy” or “girl” has passed. Soon this is going to be a thing of the past.

Odiously for many Bulgarians, this country lags behind Turkey in terms of literacy, according to one of the most influential international surveys on the quality of education, the Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA. It was conducted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.When I told a group of experts about these embarrassing results, one of them stood up and said it wasn't true. He said he was in touch with schoolchildren and they could all read and write. Besides, the United States was full of illiterates, he said.

The easiest way to drive Bulgarians crazy is to steal a piece of what they perceive as their cultural or historical heritage – even if they regard it as scrap iron.When military police arrested Germans Thomas Martin and Matheus Meier and Bulgarian army major Aleksey Petrov for smuggling a dismantled tank that had been lying half-buried along the Turkish border, Bulgarians were infuriated – especially when the media announced that this rarity was worth a million euros on the antiquities market.

Elen Koleva is young, but she's already won the National Film Centre's best female role award for her performance in Shivachki, or Seamstresses (see Vagabond No. 14). Despite her age, she has no illusions: Bulgaria won't see the likes of Hillary Clinton anytime soon, thanks to the simple fact that Bulgarian women are not treated as equal to men.