FUN

After working long hours and munching on supermarket salad for three evenings while slaving away on the computer until the wee hours, I decided to go out and treat myself to a dinner. Knowing that my trip was going to be very busy, I did not carry any book to read, and thus found myself desperate enough to grab whatever tourist literature was available in my Radisson hotel room, with absolutely no hope that it would be even remotely interesting, though it sometimes proves useful as a deterrent for unsolicited conversation.

When Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha established his political party in 2001 and was subsequently elected prime minister of Bulgaria, most people did not see anything strange about that.

Many said he was simply regaining his rightful place as the de facto executive power in Bulgaria, after having been sent into exile in 1946, aged nine, when he was the king of Bulgaria.

Sofia's streets are generally named after those who have played a significant role in Bulgaria's past, and they often act as a crash course in the country's history. Among the kings such as Simeon I and Ivan Asen, the clerics such as Patriarch Evtimiy and the revolutionaries like Vasil Levski, Hristo Botev and Georgi Rakovski, there are a few foreigners too.

This is the first time that I read such a clever and sharp article in Bulgaria. So thank you for that.

I've been in Bulgaria for four months now and everything I read and hear on the Bulgarian TV, radio and newspapers is mostly a panegyric of the government and its policies – when it is not a 15-minute report about the prime minister cutting a ribbon somewhere.

I would be interested in hearing your opinion. I think that some feedback (in this case from a reader of a book published by yourselves) makes sense, and it is this idea that prompted me to contact you.

I was born on 20 July 1930 in Pleven and I am a contemporary to these events. I had a friend, Edi; we went to school together. In 1943-1944 some interned Jews from Sofia lived in our house.

Living in Bulgaria 1943

It was even more difficult for me to understand. It had something to do with my British citizenship and passport. The Russian consulate in Varna said that the UK and Russia had not signed a certain agreement that would have allowed the Russian consulate to issue me a visa?! To complicate the matter further, the Russian consulate associated me with somebody they had had telephone conversations with. I had never called the Russian Consulate in Varna.

I prefer to travel on my British passport. I do not hold a valid Bulgarian passport.

I am always elated when I see the new issue of Vagabond at the Onda located across the road from the Russian church. Since my arrival in Sofia two years ago, much of what I have learned about Bulgaria has come from your well written and interesting articles. I thank you for being a part of the English language community here in Bulgaria.

Michael Branch, USA

All had gone well on the outward leg of the journey. On our return we made our way via taxi to the bus station in Sofia at approximately 7:15 pm, just in time to miss the 7 pm coach. Then there was a three-and-a-half-hour wait for the next departure at 10:30. Now at 10:30 there are three coaches that all leave at the same time, all to the same destination, all stopping at the same places and each a third full. What great planning, whoever arranges timetables must have a strange sense of humour.

Even before acquiring that miniature idol for self-worship in the shape of his own superhero action figure, the notorious Tinseltown specimen had developed spectacular delusions of superiority over the rest of the world, my native country included. In an interview for The A.V. Club, while discussing the diversity of his film projects, Downey graciously offered the following revelation: "Am I going to be stronger, wiser, and gladder at the end if I go to fucking Bulgaria to shoot this whatever?