BULGARIA INTERVIEWS

Ten years have passed since the day on which I began my studies in archaeology at Sofia University. In this decade the subject has undergone significant changes. Back then literature in foreign languages in the university library, and also in the National Library, was scarce. The students would ferret out information, burrowing in dusty catalogues in much the same way as their predecessors used to do in the time of the legendary Professor Bogdan Filov (1883– 1945). The small number of computers ran the MS DOS operating system.

No one likes spam, but many of us, for one reason or another, keep casting a curious eye on those little by-lines some people include at the end of their emails. "Faith is believing what you know ain't so" someone quotes Mark Twain to me while someone else keeps asking me do I really need to print this email. "Jesus loves you! Don't give a shit."

One of the major problems encountered by expats and visitors alike when going around in and out of Sofia is their inability to read even the simplest place names and street signs. Unless you are well-versed in the Cyrillic alphabet, you will find it impossible to pronounce relatively common names such as Бургас and Несебър, not to mention the more complicated Пазарджик and Велико Търново and, of course, that all-time favourite, Джулюница.

Bulgaria is obviously not a major player in world politics but maybe I'm quite wrong about that, if the careers of most American ambassadors in the post-Communist phase are anything to go by. Take John Beyrle, Nancy McEldowney's predecessor. After three years at Kozyak Street, the location of the new American Embassy in Sofia, Beyrle is now the American ambassador to Russia. You don't need to be involved in international politics to understand that this is one of the most important jobs an American diplomat can hold, especially at the present time.

Like his colleague Lorin Maazel, while conducting, he may exchange the baton for his violin to play a favourite piece with the orchestra, such as "Love's Greeting" by Sir Edward Elgar.

In February 2009 the professor acquired one more role, becoming the first Bulgarian since 2000 to receive the honorary award of Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) from the Queen. The reason? His lifetime contribution to the promotion of cultural relations between Britain and Bulgaria, particularly in the field of music.

There are two opposed views about the ability of wives to write biographies of their husbands. One is that they make excellent biographers because, at least in theory, they know their husbands well. The other is that they are bad – and that's because they may either eulogise or negate disproportionately.

Iliya Troyanov is a man of many faces, languages and passports. After his parents fled Communist Bulgaria and settled in Western Europe in 1971, he spent most of his childhood in Germany and Kenya. He is, in the noble tradition of Bruce Chatwin, a nomad for our times whose life's mission is to explore the meaning of adventure, identity, hybridity and home. He has travelled widely and lived in India during the ᴀve-year research for The Collector of Worlds, his imaginative tour de force on the life and times of Richard Francis Burton, the 19 Century British explorer of Africa and Asia.

Bulgarian cinema has yet to match the success of contemporary Romanian films. However, the past year has brought a ray of hope – and Yoanna Boukovska is aware of it. Her most recent role was in Small Talk, a modern adaptation of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, directed by Vlado Kralev. The action is set in Varvara. "It's one of the few remaining wild spots on the southern Black Sea coast. It has an amazing atmosphere, very nostalgic, just like in old Bulgarian films," Yoanna says. The film will hit theatres in early November.

You must have seen them if you live or happened to visit Sofia in late September – a dozen of billboards in key spots in Sofia carrying a rather unusual message. Rather than bank deposits and high-end residential properties, they advertise… men. Not the glossy and groomed Beckham variety but the unglamourous, ordinary type.

Hristo Hristov is a quiet man with an aristocratic goatee who sits in an office, writes books and appears unharmful to anybody because he looks like an oldfashioned librarian. But in fact he is a very dangerous man. During the past decade he gained access to and meticulously studied hundreds of archive volumes belonging to the Communist-era State Security, or Darzhavna sigurnost. In them he has found some horrifying documents proving beyond any reasonable doubt what now NATO and EU Bulgaria got itself involved in when the Communist Party and the Warsaw Pact were in place.

In case you wondered what Vasil Levski's gnomic witticism "Time lives inside us and we live inside time" meant, you'll be bemused to find out you weren't alone. It took Kapka Kassabova years to decipher. Along the way she found out things that you've been exposed to, but have rarely been able to understand.

She is a traveller at heart who crosses borders with her mind open to a variety of styles. Belina Kostadinova was born in Burgas and gave her first concert at the age of seven. She won the Svetoslav Obretenov Award in 1981 and the Dimitar Nenov Award for Young Virtuosos the following year. In 1983 she received an international award in Salerno, Italy. Belina graduated from the Music Academy in Sofia, where her teacher was Masha Krasteva. Later she studied under Rudolf Buchbinder in Switzerland and graduated from the Basel Music Academy in 1993.

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.

The image of Buzz Aldrin stepping out onto a lunar landscape had the Communist Bloc community clenching their teeth, whilst his fellow Americans stood agape with glee. As the celebrity astronaut made his final checks before taking one giant leap for mankind on 20 July exactly 39 years ago, he poignantly whispered to Houston: “Beautiful! Beautiful! Magnificent desolation!" These contrasting emotions are now starkly familiar to the 78 year-old ex-Moon missioner.

When Lyubomir Kyumyurdzhiev entered the tepee of the Blackfeet, or Nitsitapiksi, to become the first Bulgarian accepted as their spiritual brother, they knew it was no coincidence. In fact, they don't think anything in the world is coincidence. Everything is cause and effect. The fact that we often don't realise the causes of a given event doesn't make it a random occurrence.

"It's kind of hard to miss me," beams Greg Houston, in a masterstroke of understatement. Dark skinned and physically imposing, he stands out in a crowd, but even more so in a relatively homogenous society such as Bulgaria. Unlike what you would expect from someone responsible for overseeing the American Embassy in Bulgaria's crucial security, he wears a warming smile, which readily gives way to sincere laughs.

"An ambassador is an honest man sent abroad to lie for his country," once said the English diplomat Henry Wotton Jr (1568-1639). In the world of diplomacy, Wotton's wisdom largely holds true to this day. But there are exceptions (that only confirm the rule) - especially if you ask the Bulgarians. During the past three years they have become used to an unusually honest and straightforward American ambassador who's rarely hesitated to call a spade a spade.

At the beginning of the 1990s, when Bulgaria was far from the tourist-friendly paradise you are now being enticed to buy a second home in, Jon Bousfield came to Bulgaria for the first time. An Englishman, he arrived on a mission - to write, in cooperation with Dan Richardson, the first Bulgaria Rough Guide. Half a dozen visits and several editions later, he has become the man you have to listen to in case you wanted to explore Ivan Vazov, offal food in restaurants, patriotic fakes in Bulgarian museums and Sofia's nascent urban culture.

When he founded MTM GRUP 11 years ago, Manel Riera knew what he wanted to do: help small communities develop. At that time, the Autonomous Community of Catalunya was like Bulgaria: politicians couldn't make longterm plans and ordinary people couldn't turn their dreams into profitable businesses. Riera knew he could help. A lawyer and expert in business and public administration, he had extensive experience counselling Catalunya's administrative, construction and environmental ministers.