John, an American, is biding his time with the family of his Bulgarian wife as he drinks, smokes and makes enthusiastic but not particularly successful attempts to understand that strange Balkan country called Bulgaria.
Maya, a Bulgarian, is acquainted with the ancient history and agrees to help with the investigation.
In times of crisis and catastrophies, many Bulgarian take the cause to help other by heart. They volunteer to dug out mud of flooded streets and homes, or to extinquish forest fires, and sent donation SMS-es or small sums of their counted salaries and pensions to the ones in need. Yet, Bulgaria is still lagging in terms of big-scale phylanthropy, and the WCIF, or Workshop for Civic Initiatives Foundation, has been working to improve this.
Britain has maintained diplomatic relations with Bulgaria (with interruptions, due to the First and the Second World Wars) since the beginning of the 20th Century, but until the 1960s its envoys were not named "ambassadors." After a series of agents, general consuls, political representatives, high commissioners and so on, the first "real" ambassador, Sir William Harpham, arrived in Sofia in 1962.
The ambassador had to present his credentials to the Bulgarian Government in full and formal diplomatic uniform on a day when the temperature was well below freezing point.
I had come to the French Embassy on Oborishte Street in Central Sofia armed with a little French dictionary which, I hoped, would come to rescue when I ran out of my (very) limited French vocabulary. I never had to reach for it. Xavier Lapeyre de Cabanes, the French ambassador welcomed me with some Perrier water and spoke almost perfect Bulgarian. I mean perfect, sans accent. I have a very good teacher, M.
Great interview that will anger many Bulgarians. I would just add that the building in the background of the picture (the former Communist Party House) has the old Communist coat of arms with the sickle and hammer, partially destroyed in the dawn of democracy. Go 300 metres in the direction of the National Gallery (the former King's palace) and you will see the old Bulgarian coat of arms (quite the same as the one used today), partially destroyed by the Communists. Bulgaria is a country in a deep search of identity... and in a deep search of its geopolitical orientation.