Issue 152

Eric Rubin, the outgoing US ambassador, is a man of many vocations. He effortlessly alternates between State Department duties such as enhancing security and police cooperation and going to open-air opera performances, from patronizing the arts to visiting some of Bulgaria's off-off-off-the-beaten-track locations, and from hosting business lunches and receptions to quietly contemplating the beauties of Bulgarian nature. Eric is no newcomer to what used to be the Communist bloc.

Mars products are so ubiquitous that they have become a part of our everyday lives: we snack on Snickers and Twix, we chew Orbit, we cook Uncle Ben's and feed our pets with Pedigree and Whiskas. A family-owned company, Mars dominates the world market and stepped in Bulgaria 25 years ago. The company realizes its responsibility towards the environment and the health and wellbeing of consumers, and implements policies that are clean and energy and waste-efficient.

Overgrown remains of forts and temples, mysterious rock shrines: Bulgaria's historical heritage often makes you feel like an explorer. Long forgotten and known only to die-hard history enthusiasts, they bear witness to the vibrant communities that created them millennia ago.

Asara, near the village of Angel Voyvoda in the southeast of the country, is one of these.

Much has been said and written about the beauties of Bulgarian nature and the abundance of its wildlife. Birdwatching, for example, has become a mainstream tourism activity that many travel agents organise for Western visitors. Yet little if anything has been promulgated about another remarkable if not so obvious (for obvious reasons, pun unintended) treasure that Bulgarian forests, meadows and riversides have: the abundance of fireflies.

At the heart of traditional villages with old houses or in drab Communist-era developments fighting depopulation, village churches dot the Bulgarian countryside and offer a variety of stimulating experiences. Some were built centuries ago and others are newer. Some are covered with masterpieces of church art and other were decorated by self-taught artists. Some are museums and other still serve their communities. Some offer proof of strange rituals or important events in their parishes and keep alive the memory of the times when the now empty villages bustled with life.

"Todor, you'll be sorry one day," my mother would say.

"Failure depends on you," my father would repeat.

"Mr. Emanuilov, you've failed the test," my high school math teacher would say haughtily.

"Tosho, you are totally the great evil," Kosey, one of my few friends, would say – the one who would go with me to drink drugstore vodka in homemade cherry compote with the metalheads.