This May, in just a couple of days, the ordinary Internet user became aware of two disturbing events. Hackers blocked the activities of one the largest fuel pipeline companies in the US. Thousands of Bulgarian Facebook users yet again fell for the message from a friend that asked "Is this you?," and clicked on the link that followed it.
One of the topics debated in what was an exceptionally tepid election campaign was how Bulgarians abroad should be enabled to vote. Bulgarians, like the French and the Italians but unlike the Danes and the Irish, can vote in general elections regardless of their permanent place of abode.
Some media try to represent the upcoming election as a titanic battle of a major anti-Communist, pro-democracy and pro-Western establishment (Boyko Borisov's GERB) and a renegade leftist party (BSP, or Bulgarian Socialist Party) that stems from the erstwhile Bulgarian Communist Party, the one that ruled Communist Bulgaria with an iron fist in 1944-1989. In fact, if opinion polls are anything to go by, GERB and BSP are almost equal in size, with the GERB sometimes emerging ahead by a few percentage points, and vice versa. Significantly, neither GERB nor the BSP are particularly large.
The peak of the pandmeic will come just ahead of the 4 April general election.
Chief State Health Inspector Angel Kunchev
The prime minister is a man who puts down all fires in Bulgaria.
Nasko Sirakov, owner of Levski football club, on his request for state funding of new construction on the club's stadium
The world looks different when one's onboard Boyko Borisov's 4WD.
Professor Kosta Kostov is one of Bulgaria's leading pulmonologists. He has specialised in Germany, Switzerland and the UK, and has taught for many years at the Medical Faculty of St Kliment of Ohrid University in Sofia. Earlier in 2020 he was the chairman of the Expert Medical Council under the Bulgarian Council of Ministers, a short-lived agency designed to provide the government with professional advice how to tackle the Covid-19 crisis. Dr Kostov has been in all Best Doctors lists in Bulgaria.
The overwhelming majority of Bulgarians wait in earnest for the sauerkraut, or kiselo zele, to ferment, or vtasa. Given the right preparation (in a plastic container called bidonche, stored in a basement, daily circulation of brine, or pretakane) and favourable weather conditions (neither too warm, nor too cold) the year's yield of sauerkraut should be in just ahead of Christmas.
In the implementation of the Covid-19 measures you will see the total power of the state.
Health Minister Kostadin Angelov
They marked the 40th anniversary of dictator Tito's death. It's as if Berlin were to mark the anniversary of Hitler's expiry.
Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva in an attempt to explain Bulgaria's suspension of North Macedonia's bid to join the EU
Six months after the Covid-19 pandemic forced the world into lockdowns and uncertainties, a fuller picture of its effect on the world economy is beginning to emerge. Bulgaria fared not too bad, according to recent statistical data.
According to Eurostat, in the second quarter of 2020 Bulgaria's GDP fell 9.8 percent in comparison to the same period of 2019. The result is better than in most of the EU, where average GDP fell by 14.4 percent and France experienced a decrease of 19 percent.
There is a silver lining to the sharp decline in international tourism in Bulgaria in 2020. You can now see Nesebar, one of this nation's most impressive towns, without hordes of Brits and Scandinavians still hungover from the previous-evening's pub crawl at Sunny Beach resort.
Predictably, the coronavirus emergency has made all other events in what remains the EU's poorest and least free state look like insubstantial tidbits. With very few exceptions all media have focused exclusively on the alarmist press conferences of Gen Ventsislav Mutafchiyski, the military doctor who heads the emergency staff, and on the lifts Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has given to his ministers in his private jeep to inspect unfinished stretches of road.
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Covid-19 is like a cuckold. Some people are. Others will be. Yet others never realise they have been.
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Quarantine is a demo version of retirement. There is no money. And there is nothing to do.
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The Prime Minister told me: 'If I were a woman, I would knock it off with you'.
Epidemiologist Dr Atanas Mangarov, who has opposed the lockdown measures
Culture is a whim of luxury. When the world has stopped working, how can we be concerned with culture?
Vezhdi Rashidov, former GERB culture minister
You have the rare chance to be governed by us. Under President Radev, people would have been dying.
Since her arrival four years ago Nancy Schiller has become a well-known personality through Bulgaria. Seen in tiny villages in northern Bulgaria and at major archaeological sites like the Bishop's Basilica of Philippopolis, from her offices in central Sofia to locations with difficult-to-pronounce names that aspire to have US-style marching bands Nancy Schiller has skilfully managed one of the largest and most important non-governmental organisations in this country.
Since 13 March 2020 Bulgaria has been run by three generals and a sheriff. First and foremost comes General Ventsislav Mutafchiyski. A surgeon installed to manage the Military Medical Academy in Sofia, Mutafchiyski rose to prominence when he was appointed the head of the emergency National Operative Headquarters. Neither a virologist, nor a psychologist he is seen at daily news briefings where he utilises his military schooling to give out what is in essence increasingly restrictive commands to ban citizens from moving about and gathering together.
As in any crisis, there is a silver lining in the Covid-19 outbreak. The unexpected situation forced individuals and businesses to quickly adapt to the new environment of balancing between protecting public health and staying active. Wider adoption of cashless payment is one of these adaptations. In mere days both customers and sellers realized the power of e-commerce not only to make selling and buying faster, but also able to save lives with replacing a potential contamination agent with a more secure one.
"Dimitrina?" I have not heard from her for more than a month, which is unusual.
"Почина."
"Po-chi-na?" I type the word phonetically in an online translation tool. "What?"
"Почина. Me, Dimitrina sister. Bye."
I met Dimitrina on 19 October 2018. She had fallen asleep standing up against the wall of Second Hospital in Sofia, on the corner of Slivnitsa and Hristo Botev Boulevards. A woman with bright fuchsia sneakers the sort teenage girls wear and two blood-red scars on her nose.
As a result, the actions of the private and the NGO sector created the feel of community, in which individual citizens and organisations make a whole organism. Everyone in it understood that they are responsible not only for their own health and wellbeing, but also for the health and wellbeing of the others. In a couple of weeks Bulgaria became a country where companies took some financial burden off their employees and clients, firms donated money, PPE and medicines to hospitals, volunteers brought food to lonely people, and actors and musicians gave away their art.
In the age of the Internet, verbal jokes are no longer in fashion, however. Memes rule supreme.
Here is a quick selection done during a couple of days prior to this journal going to press. The main "hero" in them is, predictably, Gen Ventsislav Mutafchiyski, an army doctor and chief of the Military Medical Academy in Sofia, who was appointed to head the state of emergency headquarters.
Political science students all over the world are being taught in the early stages of their studies that the best way for an authoritarian government – any authoritarian government – to enhance its own powers is to use a crisis – any crisis – as a justification. The bigger the crisis, the bigger the opportunity. At a time of a huge crisis it becomes easier to take away citizens freedoms and rights not only with a couple of decrees, but also with the general public applauding from the sidelines.
Anarcho-liberal circles claim that the Bulgarian chief prosecutor is omnipotent and controls everything. This is not true. This is propaganda.
Chief Prosecutor Ivan Geshev
Buying 50 kg of sugar will not boost your immunity.
Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Donchev
The most polite policemen possible will patrol the hospitals.
Prime Minister Boyko Borisov
This is not the time to talk about democracy.