We met the building's owner and decided to take one of the shops from 1 February. I went to BTC's local office with appropriate documents on 23 January to order a business line and ADSL internet service. I was told that we would hear within four days.
Mutro-baroque? Techno Rococo? Sleek Renaissance? Are you puzzled by the architectural jargon? Then take a stroll in Boyana, one of Sofia's most up-market neighbourhoods, and see for yourself. These are the buildings sponsored by the mutri, reflecting their taste and lifestyle. These constructions are to architecture what chalga is to music. They are like the stereotypical thick-necked entrepreneur of the post-Communist era, bedecked in a silk necktie and white tennis socks. Many Bulgarians think they epitomise the vulgar chutzpah that characterises the country's nouveau riche.
NOT EXACTLY BARBARIANS
"The Bulgarians are not savages and barbarians!" Georgi Dimitrov said rhetorically in his defence speech at the Leipzig trial in 1934, when he was charged with setting the Reichstag on fire. The man who became Bulgaria's first Communist dictator 10 years later, unknowingly expressed the oldest and most deeply rooted conviction of the Bulgarians, namely that they are an exceptionally gifted and civilised people who should not be underestimated.
It's a rock high above a meandering river on the southern Black Sea coast. It's located in an area declared a nature reserve, which has managed to protect it from the unbridled construction and entrepreneurship seen elsewhere south of Sozopol.