CULTURE

Born in 1954 into a Jewish family in Pleven, Greddy Assa graduated from the Art Department at Veliko Tarnovo University with a degree in mural painting. Between 2000 and 2004 he was associate dean of the National Art Academy and to this day remains one of the most highly respected professors there. His paintings are in the Holocaust Museum in Washington and in the Bundestag in Berlin, as well as in galleries in Tel Aviv, Aachen and elsewhere. He has had solo exhibits in Germany, Hungary, Austria, Sweden and Switzerland. He recently returned from a one-man show in Beijing.

If you would rather watch seaside landscapes, snow-capped mountains, lush green valleys or deep forests, look elsewhere. Jean-Marc Caracci has focused on the urban setting as a frame for his surrealist portraits of Europeans. Ignoring political definitions, he has been travelling across the continent's capitals taking pictures of the people who live in them.

THE NETHERLANDS

THE NETHERLANDS

Willem van Ee has been ambassador of The Netherlands in Bulgaria since 2005, with less than a year to go. He believes in an EU with a human face, meaning that the European project is primarily for all of us peoples and citizens. Van Ee thinks that the colourful walls on the buildings in Sofia, which are part of the Dutch-inspired Wall-to-Wall Poetry project, will stimulate people's minds and make them believe that although every country is different, we are all united by the shared European values.

Willem van Ee has been ambassador of The Netherlands in Bulgaria since 2005, with less than a year to go. He believes in an EU with a human face, meaning that the European project is primarily for all of us peoples and citizens. Van Ee thinks that the colourful walls on the buildings in Sofia, which are part of the Dutch-inspired Wall-to-Wall Poetry project, will stimulate people's minds and make them believe that although every country is different, we are all united by the shared European values.

The secretary Mimi screamed and threw down the martenitsa the second she realised it was made from locks of hair. After managing to control her shaking hands, she picked up the phone – first she called the police, then she called her boss, whose mail she had been opening and getting ready for his arrival at 10 o'clock. Her boss, the prominent construction magnate Mr G.B. Nedyalkov, became hysterical when he found out the order of her actions, but it was already too late.

"I was about to make tea," Pavel offers. On the bureau beside the window sit an electric samovar, a serving tray, tea glasses and spoons, a darkly tarnished tin, all left behind by the office's previous occupant, absent now. Behind the desk, where a row of pictures once hung, the plaster is noticeably lighter; only nails remain. "Would you like to sit down?"

You can't miss them: hulking monstrosities of bronze, stone or concrete that tower over town squares, parks and public buildings all across Bulgaria. Once part of the Communist regime's propaganda machine, these monuments to past heroes and future dreams now rank among the most potent reminders of Soviet ideology and its megalomaniacal aesthetics. Some have disappeared – the Georgi Dimitrov Mausoleum in Sofia was blown to pieces in 1999, The Alyosha in Pleven was torn down, and many busts of Lenin have disappeared, most likely sold for scrap metal.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then Lyubomir Klissurov definitely has a lot to say – but he would be unable to because he is usually under water. He took his first underwater photographs of the Black Sea in 1973. Since then, he's collected so much material that he claims to have the world's largest collection of underwater shots featuring Black Sea flora and fauna.