FORUM

Rozovo, which translates as either "Village of Roses" or "Pink Village," is just a few kilometres southeast of Kazanlak. The Syrians, who had been granted refugee status in Bulgaria, had paid a property agent to find rented accommodation for them. They had spent some time in the refugee camp in Harmanli.

The villagers were "stressed," according to media reports, the moment the Syrians arrived in their village. They started rallying on the following day, and they organised a petition to get the refugees expelled. Over 500 of the village's 1,000 inhabitants signed to it.

To celebrate the occasion, the embassy is launching a series of events to mark the strong connections between Britain and Bulgaria.

The celebrations will go on throughout 2014 and explore and further develop the trade and business opportunities between the two countries, as well as adding to the understanding of the common historical, cultural and heritage connections between the British and Bulgarian people.

In the 2010s, Bulgaria witnesses something it stopped seeing in the Middle Ages. Here and there, in and around cities and villages, fortresses are rising, built from scratch. High walls adorn the Trapezitsa Hill in Veliko Tarnovo, and the previously unheard-of village of Belchin near Samokov, has got its own fortress with walls and turrets, with an entire "medieval" church thrown in as a bonus.

The "proverbial" tolerance of Bulgarians, which several post-Communist governments have promoted as a selling tool for the country and as a means to pump up self-confidence in its citizens, is becoming a think of the past.

These have been perpetrated by different state regimes, leaders, nations and organisations. They have been motivated by different circumstances, but it is obvious that they were directed against us as a people.

At various times we have been targeted as scapegoats, in order to divert the attention from the errors and crisis situations produced by different regimes; or we were singled out because of envy, as often we were people with special skills, abilities and influence. But most often we were attacked simply because of the fact that we were Jewish. 


For more than two millennia the Jewish people have celebrated the holiday of Chanukah, a festival that lasts eight days. This is time for joy and family reunion during which we express our gratitude to God for the miracles the ancient Jews experienced during their revolt against the Hellenic invaders in the 2nd Century BCE. Lead by Antiochus Epiphanes, the Hellenes conquered Jerusalem and desecrated the Holy Temple.

One of the more exotic "traditions" in Bulgaria is the propensity of governments during the past 20 years to "combine" bank holidays and then declare existing holidays, typically Saturdays, working days. The official explanation is that such adjustments to the working calendar of Bulgarians will enable them to rest more "comprehensively."

Apart from the "proverbial" labori­ousness of its citizens and their cleanliness, one of the cliches most often used to describe this Balkan "Land of Roses" is its tolerance. Bulgaria saved its Jews from planned deportation during the Second World War is the historical fact often quoted to support the tolerance cliche.

Like all cliches, however, the "Bulgarian tolerance" may have stemmed from some distant past no one can remember. Anyone chancing to venture into the streets of Sofia in 2013 will see a very different picture.

Woken by the phone’s insistent ring, he rolled to the right to swing his feet to the floor, but his knee hit the hard wall making his pictures rattle. Someone had somehow contrived to move his bed 180 degrees in the night. The phone continued its urgent shriek every four seconds. Georgi A. cursed its mother and especially the mother of whoever was hanging on relentlessly at the other end. Hadn’t he installed a gentle bluesy ring tone, a soothing coaxing musical phrase? This hectoring shriek was becoming shriller.

Bulgaria as a tourism destination has a new brand logo that, in the opinion of the Ministry of the Economy and Tourism, which paid 1.65 million leva (about 800,000 euros for it), will help increase the number of visitors to the country by 25 percent in the next five years.

The Bulgarian ministry said it had employed 50 experts in seven countries to design the new logo.