FORUM

One of the most disgusting peculiarities of life in Bulgaria is the ubiquitous polythene bag referred to by locals as potnik, or undershirt (because it is very thin and has two characteristic carrier strings, just like a potnik). You see these bags everywhere in Bulgaria, as vendors sell you anything from bread and banichki to ground coffee and raw meat in these cheap little bags. They are generously doled out by chemists, sock-sellers, food stalls in the market and bookshops, even though getting warm banichki or raw meat in one of them is a horribly messy business.

If you read the newspapers either in Bulgaria or abroad you will get the largely correct impression that Bulgaria in 2011 is a state where organised crime and politics have – somewhat uniquely even by Balkan standards – amalgamated themselves into a far-reaching network of corruption and nepotism. The sole purpose of this is quite simple: to steal money either from the state coffers or from ordinary taxpayers, from EU funds allocated to various projects or even from Western NGOs which donate to what they think are worthy causes.

The fear of being caught and returned home. Nightmares of policemen, sirens and submachine guns. A constant feeling of being pursued, feeling unsafe. Cold sweat down your back when someone asks to see your documents. All of that might sound far-fetched, but not if you are considered an illegal immigrant in Bulgaria. When you are running away from your country there is always the fear that your escape might be foiled. 

What should a Bulgarian do? Believe his or her eyes and common sense, or take in whatever is fed to them by omnipotent Civil Service officials, who can be maddeningly rigid in their attempts to stick to the letter of the law, while sometimes completely ignoring its spirit?

The case of Veselie, until a few years ago one of the last development-free sites on the Bulgarian southern Black Sea coast, provides an excellent, if completely absurd illustration.

"Be Good," is written on the blackboard by the Bulgarian language teacher at the Refugee Integration Centre in Sofia's Ovcha Kupel district. Several men and women of different ages bend over their notebooks to copy down what they have just been shown. They have come from Iraq, Pakistan, Syria and Nigeria and are now having their first lessons in Bulgarian grammar and spelling. Not knowing the language of the country would leave them helpless and unable to adapt.

Bulgarians are very sensitive to all kinds of monuments. Monuments are OK if they celebrate some kind of a glorious if rather imaginary past – the more distant, the better. The past is safe as there is no one alive to get offended, but monuments can also generate considerable acrimony if they relate to not-so-distant events, especially in the case where Bulgaria's sometimes odd sense of "national honour" is concerned.

More than 50 Britons gathered at a protest in front of the Bulgarian embassy in London on Saturday, 27 November. They requested the intervention of the Bulgarian government in a real estate fraud case in Bansko. In March the Britons gained entry by force to their legally owned residences in the Four Seasons complex. They changed the keys to obtain access to the apartments after Bulgarian real estate company Zekom, which owns less than half of the property, kept them away for many months.

Two complexes with 23 apartments owned by foreigners have been robbed of air conditioners, boilers and ceramic hot-plates, the Nesebar police informs. This is just one of the many cases of resort thefts that are plaguing the big Bulgarian resorts. Places like Sunny Beach turn into ghost towns during the winter, when few hotels are open. The lack of people allows thieves to operate undisturbed in apartment complexes where many owners are foreigners. In certain cases the thieves are tipped off by insiders or security staff who service the complexes.

I have seen and photographed many war monuments while living in Bulgaria. This particular one, which shows three Bulgarian Communist partizani, or guerilla fighters from the Second World War, is on the road from Kocherinovo to Rila, near the village of Stob. It would not have impressed me much had I not noticed the nickname of one of the three "heroes." Hristo Nikolov Hristov was known as Sokola or the Falcon, a nickname that reminded me of the fictional French partisan Chocolate Mousse in the 1984 comedy film Top Secret.

Expats used to buying their copies of Vagabond in Sofia will no longer be able to do so at Onda, the coffee shop chain, as its new management has decided against renewing its distribution contract with Vagabond Media. Victoria Pavlova, Onda's new general manager, told us that she would like to see "other opportunities" to "add value" to Onda's customers.