We now have a map on the kitchen wall to colour all the countries that Virtual Nomad has stopped in. At this stage, A (11) already knows all the countries and capitals in the world and even the older kids L (17), L’s boyfriend NA (18) and a visiting friend KD (15) have some kind of idea of where Bulgaria lies. In short, A can name the neighbouring countries and the capital while the older teens can say that it is “somewhere in Europe”.

But first, as always, food. We are proud of our very successful Bulgarian night. 

Mysterious delicious Bulgaria

The Bulgarian Night reunites eight Virtual Nomads for a long and lovely meal. As Sydney is moving towards the deepest heart of the winter, rich Bulgarian food is well received and appreciated. We indulge in six different dishes and dessert while listening to Bulgarian traditional music, especially the track that was world famous – Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares – The Mystery of Bulgarian Voices. 

I have been asked to remind who the Virtual Nomads are so from now on I will give a short introduction of who is participating. Our Bulgarian night consists of not only myself but my partner JK and most of our combined children my daughter L (17) and son A (nearly 11) and also L’s boyfriend NA (17). My stepchild FK (15) is away for the Bulgarian night. CH is the Special Adviser of the Virtual Nomad. She has visited more than 140 countries and participates in Virtual Nomad nights in between her travels. Tonight we also enjoy the company of two other seasoned Virtual Nomads who live nearby, KD and her son KD (15). 

The main dish is Guvech, a meat casserole with vegetables. It is originally a Turkish dish but popular in South Bulgaria, and the South Bulgarian recipe is the one that I follow. It is a slow cooked dish so it takes me several hours to prepare. It also needs constant love in the form of checking the temperature. I do not have a clay dish big enough so I need to use glass, but for the rest of it, I follow the recipe religiously, give it a lot of time and love. It involves chopping, preparing, mixing, and checking the temperature. The dish has diced beef and several vegetables including okra, eggplant, potato, tomato, broccoli and capsicum, but also fresh spices such as mint and parsley. As a vegetarian, I do not eat it myself but it is very well received – a perfect winter dish for a cold night in Sydney, accompanied by some Bulgarian salads. 

The most common Bulgarian salad is Shopska salad, which comes up in any search for traditional Bulgarian food. “It has all the best vegetables,” says L (17), who finds it delicious. It is a fresh salad with positive vibes. It has tomatoes, cucumbers, red and green capsicums, spring onions, olives, chopped parsley, olive oil, vinegar and some feta cheese on top. Some sources claim that the name ‘Shopska’ was first mentioned in a Bulgarian cookbook in 1940 and it is said to come from the Sopski or Shopluk region in Western Bulgaria. Some other sources say that it was developed by Bulgantourist as a response to Greek salad. Supposedly it should have the colours of the Bulgarian flag and was heavily promoted by Peter Doychev, who was the leader of Bulgarian Tourism. The origin has been disputed by Serbia as Shopluk is a region that is divided by Bulgaria, Serbia and North Macedonia. In 2014, it was the most recognisable Bulgarian dish in Bulgaria and is considered Bulgaria’s national dish.

With guvech and Shopska, we also eat banitsa, which is a typical Bulgarian breakfast food. It is super simple to make with filo pastry. Basically it is feta cheese, butter, some yoghurt and eggs. Filo in layers and filling between each layer. My banitsa has a slightly unorthodox shape, but it did not take away any of its culinary charm. It is an incredibly easy and quick recipe, but simultaneously very tasty. The whole banitsa vanished in the course of the dinner, even taking into account that one of the Virtual Nomads present, KD is gluten free. So seven Virtual Nomads hid the big banitsa in their tummies in record time. 

Another side dish is feta-filled peppers, or capsicums as we call them. As dictated by the recipe, I have deliberately chosen small capsicums both red and yellow. While heating them in the oven, I am a bit worried that they might turn out very dry, so I pour on generous amounts of olive oil, which the capsicums seem to like. They are a splendid side dish and, together with stuffed vine leaves, add wonderful favour to the dinner.

The final part of the menu is the Snezhanka salad. It contains cucumber (with most of the water having been squeezed away), garlic, fresh dill, salt and yogurt. It is very refreshing.

As a dessert, we have baklava that is mostly eaten by L (17) and A (10). It mysteriously disappears, which must be that old Bulgarian magic. 

Mysterious Thracians and one of the oldest states in Europe 

Bulgaria has been at the crossroads of several cultures for a long time. It was inhabited by the Varna people who then gave way to the mystic Thracians. They were skilful warriors, loved wine and music and had a deep impact on European cultural development. Most of the Greek and Roman gods and mythology are believed to be influenced by Thracian beliefs and rituals. King Teres 1 united the land but had to give it up to the Macedonians. Thracians survived many conquests from Persians and Macedonians to Greeks, Romans, Slavs and Byzantines. After different events (many of them not nice and friendly) Thracia became part of the Roman Empire. A famous Thracian was called Spartacus – a gladiator and a slave leader who rebelled against Roman rule. 

The name Bulgaria comes from a Turkish tribe, the Bulgars, who invaded the region in the 7^th century. This makes Bulgaria one of the oldest states in Europe. The first King of Bulgaria was a guy called Khan Asparuh (681-701). There were several wars and the country was united through Christianity (under Boris I 852-889). A fun fact is that the Cyrillic alphabet was born in Bulgaria during its peak in power. Then came Ottoman rule of the region that lasted for over 500 years (1396 – 1906).  Independence was declared in 1908 but the unrest was far from over. An alliance with Germany in both world wars caused problems with the neighbours. In 1946, Bulgaria became part of the Soviet-led Eastern block of states and a socialist state. Repression was widespread under Georgi Dimitrov (1946-1949) and Todor Zhivkov (1954-1989). His slightly odd daughter, Lyudmila Zhivkova, strongly supported Bulgarian art and heritage as the head of culture in the country, embracing weird, esoteric beliefs and projects. In 1989, Bulgaria adopted parliamentary democracy but it took a long time to generate economic growth or improve the living standards of ordinary Bulgarians. Reports by Freedom House and other organisations have reported a decrease in civil and political freedoms since 2009, and a deterioration of democratic governance. 

Bulgaria does not have the greatest track record with minorities. It has the highest proportion of Romani people in Europe, with an estimated 4-6% of the population. These are some of the poorest and least educated people, not only in Bulgaria, but in Europe. The Romani face discrimination, poverty and racism and, in 2016, only 23% of the Romani population in Bulgaria was employed, with 60% living in poverty. While the Romani live throughout Bulgaria, the biggest populations are in Faculteta in Sofia and Stolipinovo in Plovdiv.  

Another other minority community that has been living in Bulgaria for centuries is the ethnic Turks. Bulgaria has a large population of native Muslims and, due the falling birth rate of Christian Bulgarians in the 1980s, the state was worried about the growth rates of the Muslim population. In 1986, the ‘Revival process’ introduced assimilation techniques including changing Turkish names into Christian names. In May 1989, the country saw peaceful demonstrations by the Turkish minority, which were quickly repressed by police forces. By October 1989 around 350,000 Bulgarian Turks were forced to leave Bulgaria. 

Reading Bulgaria: the Samodivi and all the real people that are fictional 

I have a great Bulgarian friend, LV, who lives in Canada and I absolutely trust to provide Bulgarian recommendations. As occurs with other friends for previous entries, it is very hard for her to decide what to recommend, so she elects not to. But, as I have previously, I find my way around by finding people, almost without asking, who have heard or learned about Virtual Nomad and are eager to help. I find out that contemporary Bulgarian literature has two superstars; Georgi Gospodinov and Kapka Kassabova. I’m informed that Under the Yoke: A Romance of Bulgarian Liberty by Ivan Vazov is a Bulgarian classic and a must read at Bulgarian schools, but I can’t get a hold of a translation so I decide to read one book by each of the other two.  

My first Bulgarian book for Virtual Nomad is by the Bulgarian sensation, Georgi Gospodinov. His book, Time Shelter (2020, translated in 2022), received rave reviews and was called an instant classic / masterpiece. The translation won the International Booker Prize in 2023 – the first Bulgarian to do so. It sounds very promising. 

The central plot is about a psychiatrist, Gaustine, who treats people with Alzheimer’s and dementia. He creates a clinic with floors dedicated to different decades for patients to live their past. The detailed floors include artefacts and even daily news from the assigned decades. A man living in 1973 is obsessed with John Lennon, and comes in every day to read the news. When he arrives in 1979 (on the 70s floor), he has a premonition that the singer will be shot and wants to warn the FBI and the police about it. There are many more stories like that, of people lost in time and space. But then healthy people start to come to the clinic, wanting to escape, and finally entire nations start to think what are the best decades for them. 

“According to Gaustine, for us the past is the past, and even if we step into it, we know that the exit to the present is open, we can come back with ease. For those who have lost their memories, this door has slammed shut once and for all. For them, the present is a foreign country, while the past is their homeland.”

More than about memory, it is a book about nostalgia. What once was or what could have been but never was. It is about creating a past that is based on what we once lived or invented in our minds. The start of the book is promising: “All real persons in this novel are fictional, only the fictional are real”. The fear that our memory and present will abandon us, and every name of a high school class member that you can’t remember, will take you closer to losing your own core and essence. 

“Memory holds you, freezes you within the fixed outlines of a single, solitary person whom you cannot leave. Oblivion comes to liberate you. Features lose their sharpness and definitiveness, vagueness blurs the shape. If I don’t clearly remember who exactly I am, I could be anyone, even myself, even myself as a child.”

It is by all means a brilliant, poignant, clever and thoroughly researched book. It has moments of absolute brilliance. It is very dense, and made to be admired. It has many nuances and is meticulous in its subtle political analysis of Europe of 2020 and the continent’s past. It is spot on in some things, creative in others and very heavy in most of its content. It is an absolutely admirable book, worthy of awards and fanfare. I applaud it but find it hard to love. It is a cerebral, cynical and intelligent book that in the end did not move me emotionally. 

My next book is the other highly regarded Bulgarian contemporary author, Kapka Kassabova. I decide to read her book Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe (2017). It is super interesting and I end up loving it more than Georgi’s Time Shelter. In fact, I end up loving it a lot. It is a captivating, fascinating and a really well written travel book. Kapka is an author who left Bulgaria in her teens to live in New Zealand and Scotland, first with her scientist family and then as an author. In this book she returns to the border region between Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey – the region of her childhood summers where dark and mystical things took place. The dark things refer to the stories of people trying to cross the borders for a better life. Firstly Eastern Europeans (mostly from Eastern Germany as it was rumoured to be an easier crossing point than the Berlin Wall) during the Cold War, many of whom lost their lives in the depths of the forest by the Greek border. The past haunts those who were asked to shoot people on sight. Today the refugees are mainly Syrians escaping the horrors of war, while trying to find a better future. The mystical refers to the history older than the soviet terror – the Thracian beliefs and old tombs, spirits and inexplicable phenomena. 

Kapka travels through the region in the three countries and talks to different people with amazing life stories – border guards, smugglers, refugees, ethnic Turks, forest rangers – all kinds of people with stories to tell. She travels through villages, ruins and mystic forests. I find myself tracking the places she mentions on a map. I have no way of knowing what is true and what is a fictionalised truth but I found myself completely immersed in the book and reading every sentence, sometimes twice. The writing is superb and the storytelling is outstanding. I have seen reviews that criticise some parts of the book as non-authentic but no one seems to ever be a prophet in their own land. Sometimes reviews are unfair, particularly when they state something like “this is not my experience of the region and I for sure know so much better.” My understanding is that the author has combined elements from different people to create some of the characters in the book in order to protect the original source. It is not a documentary and should not be read like that. Maybe I am just the right audience for it as I absolutely loved it.  

My last Bulgarian book is Mystical Emona by Ronesa Aveela – a pseudonym for two authors. I am tempted to read it due to the description that it stems from the Thracian and Bulgarian mythology – the stories of the Samodivi (nymphs), dragons and other legends that I have already learned a bit about from Kapka’s book. The magical realm of ancient Bulgaria is such an interesting dimension that I want to stay there just a little bit longer. 

While I am reading, I realise that I might not be the best audience for it. For the engaged audience it would probably be perfect. First of all, it is very long and long books are hard to keep together. Secondly, it is a romance story with mystical and fantasy elements which is not my genre. For me, while the mythological elements are interesting as an introduction to Bulgarian folklore, the romance itself feels a bit silly. A man called Stefan loses his wife and then returns to his homeland, Bulgaria, to the enigmatic Emona region where people still believe in and live with the mystical elements of old folktales. He is in fact (and this is revealed early in its 410 pages) a reincarnation of a nymph’s lover. Then the immortal Samodivi woman travels through time and space to reunite with him, but there are obstacles on the way – not least from his (woodenly written) nemesis, Nikola, who is a childhood friend but also possibly something more sinister. For me, and I hope not to offend anyone who is a fan of the story or the genre itself, the plot is poorly written, corny and ridiculous at times. It would have benefitted from a tough editing hand. Who can read – without chuckling – sentences such as “ Kalyna walked towards him, her beauty radiating in the fading light. Lipstick the color of raspberries enhanced her full lips. A white silk dress, accessorized by a golden belt, highlighted her perfect body. He stared in silence, his own unspeakable desire reflected in her sparkling green eyes.”

What the long book offers is knowledge about Bulgarian folklore and what pushes me through the gruelling 410 pages is the new vocabulary and Thracian beliefs that I then google and learn about. Maybe the authors wanted to write a book about that and then invented a silly story of haunting dreams and a passive Stefan, lusting after the dead wife and then the nymph. The beliefs and rituals are fascinating and the authors know a lot about them, so I research some of the things mentioned in the book regarding old Bulgarian beliefs, such as: 

• Red eggs have magical powers that can protect people from illness. 
• Fire dancing is called nestinarstvo (walking on fire – rejuvenates the soul and body)
• Grapes are holy food and blackberries are evil food. 
• Om Prokopi Pchelar, golden honey day, you leave sacred bread in hives before sunrise and the honey on bread makes the bees make more honey.
• Traditional healers are called Znahars – they can see what causes the pain and then find the right herbs for everything. It’s important to emphasize that they are not witches nor shamans but traditional healers.
• Fairies and nymphs are called Samodivi and they inhabit forests. The fairies of the water are called Rusalki. The Samodivi are daughters of the mighty Goddess Bendis. 
• Midsummer is called Eniovden, during which the healers collect seventy-seven and a half herbs. The summer solstice was associated with spirits crossing from one realm to the next and healers had an important role in the sacred rituals of protection.
• Witches – someone who practices the dark arts and terrible spells to bring destruction and suffering – are called veshtitsa.

Two and a half movies, and an old documentary 

An awarded Bulgarian movie (and the only Bulgarian movie ever shortlisted for an Oscar, not that it means anything) is The World is Big and salvation lurks around the corner by Stephan Komandarev (2008). It is a melancholic movie taking place in two timelines – early 1980s socialist Bulgaria (around the time of USSR leader Leonid Brezhnev’s death) and twenty years later. It is a co-production between Bulgaria, Germany and Hungary and tells the story of Sashko who illegally immigrates to Germany (having initially been detained in a refugee camp in Italy) with his parents in order to escape the communist repression. His grandfather, who travels to Germany to reconnect with Sashko, has lost his memory due to a serious accident. Based on the autobiographical book by Ilija Trojanow, the story is told in flashbacks that connect the two stories – the struggles of Sashko’s family to reach Germany and beyond and who will carry the weight of the deceit and the iron fist of the regime. Both storylines underline the experiences of the powerless, the alienated and the discriminated. There is a poignant moment in the movie when a well-spoken immigrant speaks to an Italian detention centre police officer on behalf of the detained. “We are escaping a dictatorship and just want a better life. We are not criminals” he says. The movie is also about the game backgammon – the game that builds the connection between the grandfather and his grandson.

Eastern Plays (2009) by Kamen Kalev is one of the few Bulgarian movies selected to be screened at Cannes. It is a tough movie, both the film itself and its backstory. Situated in post-Cold War Bulgaria, it examines the growing intolerance and racism, the ideological and social hangover after the collapse of the soviet system, and the drifting emptiness of young people when ‘freedom’ did not bring the amazing tomorrow they eagerly awaited. The main actor, Christo Christov, plays himself in the movie (a recovering drug addict) and the apartment used in the film was his actual apartment. He does not come across initially as a likable character. It hurts to say so as the actor died of an overdose before filming was complete. The story itself centers around two brothers – Christo and his younger brother Georgi, who is increasingly attracted to neo-Nazi ideology. Through Georgi’s violent involvement with the skinhead gangs, Christo comes across a beautiful Turkish girl who challenges his bleak and lightless vision of life. 

It is a debut from the director and it shows. It is both raw and honest, and messy and incomplete at the same time. The storyline is sometimes painfully messy, as if the movie cannot really decide what it wants to be. The characters, even if the story is based on the real persona of Christo (and he was a childhood friend of Kamen who inspired the story), are in the end, less important than the Bulgaria that Kamen wants to portray. People feel lost and betrayed by a corrupt government, with the gap between generations widening. Everyone struggles to find ways to escape the mundane existence of unfulfilled promises and find meaning in addictions, ideologies, mass media consumption, emotional dependence, and so on. 

Blind Vaysha is an eight minute animated short film that, yes, was nominated for an Oscar. It is about Vaysha whose left eye only sees the past while her right eye only sees the future. She is unable to see the present. The story is by Georgi Gospodinov, the writer of two of the books I have read for this Virtual Nomad stop (and the skeleton of the plotline is mentioned in his book, Time Shelter). Directed by Theodore Ushev, it is visually interesting and with great music. It’s an interesting story that becomes a bit preachy towards the end of its short duration, as an informed viewer already knows what it is about. 

Welcome Nowhere is a 2012 documentary about a large Romani community living in a ghetto of boxcars in Sofia under inhuman conditions. The houses of the community were demolished in 2001 to make way for a large supermarket, forcing them to live in boxcars without sanitation or running water. Ten years later, they were still there. The documentary is about a specific community (which then received government housing, albeit too late for some) but also about the attitudes towards Roma people in Bulgaria (and the rest of Europe). It is such an interesting documentary that it prompts us to look at the current situation. There are 12 million Romani people in Europe. While Bulgaria may have the densest Romani population, there are Romani in several European countries still facing open bigotry and discrimination. According to recent European Parliament statistics (2022), 80% of Romani people in Europe live below the poverty line. In 2019, Krasimir Karakachanov, Deputy Prime Minister for Public Order and Security, Minister of Defence and President of the IMRO-Bulgarian National movement party, proposed a Roma Integration Strategy. The Strategy includes, for example, policies to control the number of births for Romani women and free abortions for Romani women. Another proposal of the strategy was to re-establish “labour-education schools” which existed during the communist regime and were basically prisons for minors. The National Strategy 2021 – 2030 for Equality, Inclusion and Participation of the Roma fortunately looks quite different.

Mystery of Bulgarian voices and the end of the World

In 1987, the album Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares introduced Bulgarian female choral music to the world. The album received widespread international acclaim and several contemporary music artists, such as Paul Simon and David Byrne, collaborated and promoted it. The different Bulgarian regions have distinct vocal practices. A common traditional singing technique is closing the vocal folds while keeping the throat open, which then produces a particular sound.  

To finish the Bulgarian stop on a high note, I will mention Baba Vanga, the late psychic Bulgarian who allegedly predicted the events of September 11^th 2001, and other things. Vanga also predicted that the world will end in 5079 but the apocalypse will start in 2025 (although, according to some reports, she said that this would happen in 2023).  

Thank you JK for your generous proof reading

Next stop: Burkina Faso