NO COMPARISON?

NO COMPARISON?

Fri, 12/17/2010 - 11:26

Anyone who still thinks that Boyko Borisov, the current prime minister, was living up to his protestations of being a pro-Western rightwinger selflessly defending Bulgaria's national interests in the face of numerous internal and external enemies got cold feet when the man himself refused to be compared to Todor Zhivkov.

Mr Borisov was a personal bodyguard of Zhivkov, Bulgaria's Communist boss from 1956 to 1989. "Comparing me with Todor Zhivkov does Zhivkov an injustice," Mr Borisov told the media in Pescara, Italy, where he was playing in a football match. "Every government will achieve a huge success if it manages to accomplish a hundredth of what was done for Bulgaria, in terms of the economy, during all those (33) years," Boyko Borisov commented. "The fact that everyone remembers Todor Zhivkov 20 years after he fell from power indicates that a lot had been achieved then. For 20 years we have only been privatising what was accomplished at that time."

The source of this comment was a collage of the type popular in the early 1990s, usually involving George Bush Sr, and circulated on the Internet, including Facebook.

Boyko Borisov also commended a group of elderly amateur singers in Zabardo, in the Rhodope, who had composed a song about Mr Tsvetanov. In it, the interior minister is hailed as a strong man who "catches vicious bandits."

One of the performers in Zabardo said they would write a song about Borisov as well, but only if he visited their village.

The Bulgarian team in Pescara did win the match. Both winning goals were scored by Borisov.

Issue 51-52

Commenting on www.vagabond.bg

Vagabond Media Ltd requires you to submit a valid email to comment on www.vagabond.bg to secure that you are not a bot or a spammer. Learn more on how the company manages your personal information on our Privacy Policy. By filling the comment form you declare that you will not use www.vagabond.bg for the purpose of violating the laws of the Republic of Bulgaria. When commenting on www.vagabond.bg please observe some simple rules. You must avoid sexually explicit language and racist, vulgar, religiously intolerant or obscene comments aiming to insult Vagabond Media Ltd, other companies, countries, nationalities, confessions or authors of postings and/or other comments. Do not post spam. Write in English. Unsolicited commercial messages, obscene postings and personal attacks will be removed without notice. The comments will be moderated and may take some time to appear on www.vagabond.bg.

0 comments

Add new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

Restricted HTML

  • Allowed HTML tags: <a href hreflang> <em> <strong> <cite> <blockquote cite> <code> <ul type> <ol start type> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <h2 id> <h3 id> <h4 id> <h5 id> <h6 id>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.

Discover More

three generations monument
'DEFILING' ABANDONED PILE OF STONES
Perushtitsa, now a small and offbeat town rarely visited by tourists, is known to every Bulgarian as the sight of a massacre in the failed April 1876 Uprising against the Ottomans.

gabrovo carnival
KOSTYA KOPEYKIN'S FOUNDATION KICKS OFF
Though Dead Souls used to be on the national school curriculum, few latterday Bulgarians, and possibly even fewer English speakers, have actually read it, so here is a short synopsis.

buzludzha night.jpg
BUZLUDZHA LIGHTS UP AGAIN
The Flying Saucer, which in recent years has become one of the Top 10 world monuments for urbex, or dark tourism, was constructed in the early 1980s. It was designed to celebrate the Bulgarian Communist Party, in control of this country from 1944 to 1989.

lz airplane
FLYING LOW
In early June a small plane flew into Bulgarian airspace from the northwest and landed at what used to be a commercial airport near Vidin. Apparently, the aircraft refuelled.

airport bulgaria
IS THERE A PILOT IN THE PLANE?
In early June a small plane flew into Bulgarian airspace from the northwest and landed at what used to be a commercial airport near Vidin. Apparently, the aircraft refuelled.

bulgarian parliament doors
IRON BARS, NO IRON BARS
Lovers of freedom were quick to cry fowl. Is this what the supposedly liberal, pro-Western Changes Continued government is doing? Protecting itself from the love of the general public with iron bars?

russian embassy bulgaria
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
A recent example is the Sofia City Council's decision to rename one of the streets around where the Russian Embassy is situated to The Heroes of Ukraine, and a nearby small square to Boris Nemtsov.

Boyko Borisov under arrest
WE CATCH THEM, THEY LET THEM GO FREE
As soon as the news of the Thursday evening arrests broke out a significant chunk of the Bulgarian population went into a frenzied jubilation comparable, according to one observer, to that goal at the 1994 World Championship Bulgaria scored against Germany.