Issue 23

Horsemen gallop through the thick grass. Turf flies up from their horses' hooves, their manes stream in the wind, the faces of the horsemen radiate grandeur. In the distance is a rocky plateau. Zoom in. On the sheer cliff appears a relief of… a horseman.

An off-screen voice booms: "Come to Bulgaria, home of the Madara Horseman!" It's only now you realise that you're not watching a tourism advert for Mongolia, or a trailer for a new western by Clint Eastwood.

When expats and foreigners living in Bulgaria decided to take part in Vagabond's poll of what best epitomised Bulgaria, we knew the outcome would be more than eclectic. "Mountain ranges, vast open countryside, pleasant coastline (not the built-up areas), cafés full of sexy girls, and villages that have their own unique pace of life. The mix of old and new living alongside each other – for example, modern cars sharing the road with donkey carts. The way shepherds still move their livestock across the main roads.

On a grassy field in Sofia, lit up by artificial green lights, two dozen men in full regalia ‒ helmets and shoulder and knee pads ‒ place two blocking bags about three metres, or 10 feet, apart. "The first two pairs, step up," an American voice says. Four of the guys get into the enclosed space. A quarterback hands the ball to a running back who tries ‒ and succeeds ‒ in evading a tackle from a linebacker by spinning and running. "Good, who's next?" the voice hollers above copious clapping and cheering. Two more pairs step up.

Do your phonecalls consist of one-word answers? Have you culled most modal verb niceties from conversations? Do you now randomly walk away mid conversation? Then welcome to the fold – you speak Bulgrish.

Joseph Beyrle couldn't remember the date when the Gestapo began interrogating him. He knew it was November 1944 and that he was in Berlin. He does, however, have vivid memories of the seven to 10 days when he was Himmler's guest.

When Robert Gipson, an owner of an investment company in New York, first visited Bulgaria in August 2001, he came to meet his future in-laws. Or so he thought. Little did he know that quite soon he would be making a portion of his personal wealth available to charities in Bulgaria. His wife Nellie Gencheva-Gipson had a lot – but not all – to do with it.

Effectively, it's Saddam Hussein's fault that Matt Brown ended up in Bulgaria. Fresh out of university, Matt was serving as a volunteer in the US Peace Corps in Pakistan when Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1991 prompted American military action in the Persian Gulf. Peace Corps withdrew from Pakistan and several other predominantly Muslim countries, fearing possible reprisals against Americans. Matt had married a fellow volunteer in Pakistan and after considering several possibilities for a new placement, they decided on Bulgaria.

What would you be willing to endure to get a university degree? For the thousands of Bulgarians from the country who study in Sofia, but can't afford to rent a room or a flat on their own, this is not a hypothetical question and the only answer is to get used to life in Student Town. For most of them this means living with two other people in apartment buildings that need a bulldozer rather than an overhaul.

One of Bulgaria's greatest writers, Aleko Konstantinov, went to the World's Columbian Exhibition in 1893 and returned with a travel book that has been set reading in Bulgarian schools for generations. Thanks to Aleko, or Happy Man as he was referred to, there is no Bulgarian secondary school student who does not know about the Niagara Falls and the Chicago slaughterhouses.

Bulgaria has a lot to thank tourists for. They bring money, popularity and business to the country. Although Germans and Russians have been holidaying in this picturesque country for years, the real boom began in the early 2000s, when millions of Balkan and Western tourists flocked to the country to sample wines, laze on beaches, hit the slopes or cruise the cities.

The first time I arrived in Bulgaria my luggage went missing for two days. I ended up staying in a hotel with a stain the shape of Switzerland on the floor, and the towels were the size of beer mats. As it turns out, the missing and subsequently ransacked luggage, was the fault of a major Italian airline and the hotel, well, that was just down to my poor judgement. Almost everything else has been a pleasant surprise and I've enjoyed getting the hang of the place.

Bang! And your life has changed forever. A loved one has been taken from you by the statistic that Bulgarians don't care about, the rampant killing that goes on by motorised maniacs. Imagine if you turned up at your workplace to find everyone was dead and also in every nearby workplace until the deathtoll reached 1,000. You would be shocked, horrified and angry and that is the area that annoys me most, Bulgarians don't get angry about the stupidity that passes for driving on their roads.

Apparently this is how one of our readers – a Bulgarian living in Bremen – imagines that we selected the 10 finalists for the Symbols of Bulgaria@Vagabond campaign. "What I want to criticise is a very narrow perception of Bulgaria. All 'symbols' are merely more than mentioning clichés. To find something truly unique and recognisable is not that easy, but I think you owe it to your readers... something like: 'Ey sega'. Well done on that!"

If it were another time and another land, if gods are kinder or heard your prayers, your child would be twelve now, her face taking on the reminiscence of your face, or perhaps you as you once were, but no longer. Each part of her would have been a reminder that you had given birth to this child, a hand or a face, even her slightest way in which she cocks her neck as if she is listening to some voices other than what is apparent, real.

You have sold her. You have not told anyone.
No one knows. No one must know.

When I was ready, you told me that the recipe was to dip them one by one in the bowl with wine and brandy. And I got so drunk, after licking my fingers so many times, that when I was finished, I remembered how at the end of the summer, after finishing all the jars with pickles, my grandfather would always braid the dry tops of the onions. Then he would hang the big braid from the right corner of the window to chase the flies away.