Issue 15-16

THE EU continues to expand, and on 1 January Bulgaria and Romania join with a fanfare and celebrations. The festivities are alternately fraught with exuberance (the government employs the special effects manager of German rock band Rammstein to produce a fireworks extravaganza), officialdom (President Parvanov gives a solemn speech and attends a flag blessing ceremony with Prime Minister Stanishev), and at times contradiction (fireworks light up the building that until 1989 was the central headquarters of the then ruling Communist Party).

Juggling varied demands comes easily to a dynamic individual like Sylvia Paskaleva. A doctor, a health manager and a PhD student, she also heads the Sports Rehabilitation Complex of Sofia's State Administration Ministry. As such, she's ideally placed to gauge Bulgaria's future as a destination for tourists seeking restorative treatments.

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!

Steve Williams is a man of many interests. Having held senior positions in the Foreign Office and various diplomatic postings from Argentina to Norway, he transferred from being head of the Americas Department at the FCO in London to the ambassadorial position in Sofia. During all those years, however, Mr Williams never lost his interest in sports, mountain walks and good music.

“My first impression of Bulgaria – and my memory of it ever after – was of mountains seen from the air, mountains high and deep, darkly verdant and mainly untouched by roads, although here and there a brown ribbon ran between villages or along sudden sheer cliffs.” Like Elizabeth Kostova, Paul and Helen, the heroes of The Historian first arrive in Bulgaria during Communist rule. But from then on the two visits, one fact and one fiction, diverge into very different, yet parallel tales.

Bulgaria is no exception to the increasingly globalised Christmas, when people deck the halls with green plastic garlands made in China, decorate fake Christmas trees, adorn their front doors with evergreen wreaths and overspend on presents.

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

Anyone spending even a short time in Bulgaria will notice that sometimes the locals start acting strangely. They queue to buy carp. They slaughter lambs. They jump naked into rivers in the coldest of winters. They make queer concoctions. They begin hitting the booze at noon on a workday. And they don't worry about getting fired, because their bosses are drinking along.

At first glance France and Bulgaria may seem worlds apart – the refined sophisticate meets the impoverished cousin. Yet French photographer and diplomat Eric Weiss discovered a rich culture and an enduring love affair.

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.

If you've just moved to a village in Bulgaria, some things may be a bit of a shock to your system. Houses with roofs on the verge of collapse, ancient women using homemade hoes on acres of land and mangy dogs on short chains with no water in sight are just a few examples. In the UK, buildings would be condemned, social services would be called and the Animal Protection Service would come running, yet all these things are normal here; local folk don't even bat an eye.

Choosing a restaurant in a foreign country is not always an easy job, and personal experience is often the best way to go about it. However, if you would rather not experiment, but follow the recommended path of our group of diners, note the recurring places in their individual lists - they are definitely worth a visit.

"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.

I have known Dancho since the beginning of the 1980s, when we used to have some friends in common, and met up at parties (or “stews” as they were referred to in those days). On two or three occasions we woke up after some heavy drinking on different, yet always alcohol-smeared sofas; and once, we even tried to have simultaneous intercourse with a girl known amongst the guys in our group for her inclination to do just that sort of thing every now and again.

Our calls and emails are ignored. The office numbers in Bulgaria are now unsubscribed, and his mobile has a message to say his phone is out of range. The company was Clipstone Limited, based in Varna.

We have been informed by the police that another couple in England have also had the misfortune to give him a substantial deposit for a Bulgarian apartment. The property for sale was a scam, and his web site has been taken off the Internet by the police.

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?