Thursday 6 September 2012

Mauritz in Bulgaria - First impressions


I'm fairly well travelled, I've been around my own country as far north as Dundee in Scotland, I've been to Helsinki in Finland several times, I lived on the Costa del sol in the south of Spain as a child and now I'm at the fourth corner of Europe; Varna, Bulgaria, the eastern city on the Black Sea.

I had some preconceptions of this place from a friend I'd talked to years before who'd been several times: hordes of rabid dogs lined the streets tearing off limbs of the weary traveller and infecting them with insidious diseases and also that one pound sterling converted to a billion Bulgaria leva and a  poor Brit here could live like Julius Ceasar. I had a preconception of my own, that all of eastern Europe from Estonia to Bulgaria, was severely racist and that I, as a mixed race young man risked being lynched in the streets. I had this impression from word of mouth, news reports and general scaremongering.

A final source of misinformation was my dear Bulgarian girlfriend, the reason for my trip in the first place. My lady informed me that infastructure here isn't what it's like in "western countries" I could fall down a drain due to poor street lighting, It's highly likely I'd be mugged after nightfall and it's simply so boring here that she didn't know what I could possibly do while she worked.

Above is a mixture of lies and slander let's cross things off the list...
It's true there are a lot of stray dogs in Bulgaria but they really aren't that big of a deal, they're mostly pretty docile a few times they've been a bit more rowdy but then you just give them a wide berth and you're fine, I've heard they are a force to be reckoned with if they are in a group and it's night and you happen to be alone in a park but WHO DOES THAT?

I have less than no idea about currency conversion, I literally have negative knowledge on the subject, I don't just have a lack of understanding of it I have a misunderstanding of how it works, that said 40 pounds is about 97 Bulgarian leva but it's not like Japan or Korea where a hundred of the currency is enough to buy a can of coke, one lev will buy you a fairly big bag of crisp, a 500ml beer or some fruit, with ten to twenty leva you can buy a really nice meal in a nice restaurant including drinks so it's fair to say one can get by for a fairly long time with not that much money or one could live like a king for a shorter time.

Racism. Racism is never a nice thing to experience, being the mix of races that I am I can both fit in in almost every country and be accepted and on the other hand be shunned as not truly black and not truly white. I've experienced racism in some form in most countries I've been to including my home country, how it's phrased or the mentality behind racism is a different in different countries but discrimination especially overt or aggressive is in many ways the worst.(although the subtle, different, treatment becuase of your race or because you're not from the home nation in some countries can be pretty depressing too)

Thankfully I've not experienced any racism towards myself in Bulgaria at all, despite being the talkative, inquisitive man that I am, talking to all kinds of strangers in a friendly manner and exploring different parts of the city alone in the day or night. What I have experienced is very strong racism in plain sight against the Romani people the third largest demographic of Bulgaria, hatingly referred to as gypsies.

"Gypsies" are hated so much in this country and blamed, rightly or not, for many of Bulgaria's problems, "they're not educated" , "they're all thieves and rapists", "they reproduce like rabbits, begining at thirteen or fourteen and then selling the offspring into prostitution or sold to black market organ harvesters" , "they never pay their bills" .. and thus live in squalor. I don't think, in the two and half weeks I've been here I've heard a single positive thing about this race of people. I've seen a few of them on the streets but I haven't had much experience of them. It is the mortal fear of Bulgarians that in a few decades the Romani people will outnumber "good, strong and hardworking Bulgarians." Romani people are such a target for oppression here that they are apparently politicians favourite scapegoat for any problem allowing politicians, as usual, to divert political discourse away from the real problems of the nation. Because of my lack of personal experience I can't say what Roma's are really like perhaps in a few weeks I'll be able to give a better opinion.

A thing to note concerning race and racism in Bulgaria, at least in Varna is that it's not a particularly multi-racial place, the three largest groups in Bulgaria are of course the Bulgarians then the Turks who there is some historic angst against it's fair to say due to being subjugated by the Ottoman empire for five centuries and then there are the aforementioned Romani people, traditionally a nomadic race of people found all over Europe. Other than these 3 large groups and minute amounts of people from surrounding eastern European countries there really aren't many other races to be found here which seems to mean that Bulgarians don't have prejudices against others which is interesting because in many countries racism is created by the lack of knowledge of other races.

Addressing the final mistruth, infrastructure, perhaps public spending here isn't what it is in the "great" nations of the United Kingdom or Germany but I've not been crushed by falling building materials or falled down into a pit of lava just yet, sure road quality and pavement quality isn't amazing all the time, there are many potholes, some sides of the road are not paved or are worn away, public transport is patchy but it's functional enough to provide a decent quality of life.

CHARGE! ONWARDS YOUNG STALLION let's get to the fun stuff, the people, the weather, the food and of course the beer. 
Bulgarian people in my experience are very friendly, saying hello to strangers ("Zdrasti") in the streets, wishing shop staff a good evening ("priatna vecher") and thanking people ("blahgodaria") and apoligising for bumping into people in crowds or in other situations ("izvinete") have all gone exceedingly well, it embarrasses my girlfriend as it sometimes embarrasses my friends in Germany or the UK but we're all human and I've come all this way I think it's the least I can do while not being able to speak the language properly. I've been aqainted with a bunch of young guys playing basketball who were all friendly and thinking about it I really haven't had any negative experiences with people at all.

The weather -_- is way too hot for me!
I can't cope with 30-35c it's not as humid as it was in Japan, thank the heavens! but I still feel as lethargic and drained as I did in that country but it's thankfully cooled down to a more sensible 25-30 with more of a breeze from the sea but these kind of temperatures at the end of August what madness! I am the 
closest I've been to the equator in a long time though.

The food... my girlfriend is a vegetarian so that limits things traditional cuisine wise becuase Bulgaria's traditional food is apparently all about the layers of meat upon meat with a fish side dish and meat sauce to go with it. There are however many traditional salads and pastries that do not contain meat though the quantity of yogurt, milk, iconic "white cheese" and eggs in those and in all of Bulgarian food does make me wonder about the lives of the domestic animals.
Let me digress for a moment into a rant about cheese in this country, cheese that is white and is the traditional cheese of this area of the world is called "sirene" all other cheese that exists in the world such as yellow cheeses from so many other countries or blue cheese or cream cheese is not quite considered cheese here I'm not sure if it's becuase there isn't a real word for other types of cheeses in Bulgarian but it filters down into the whole mentality of cheese here only cheese that is white is cheese, all other cheese isn't cheese /end of rant

BEER :D ! One of my favourite topics to talk about in life and one of my favourite things in life is beer. I can and have talked about beer for many hours of my life perhaps even days at this point, it's birthed many a freindship or good conversation in my life so much so that I refer to "the international language of beer" quite a bit on my travels around the world, no matter where I go, no matter the country, people, especially men - though in some wonderful countries women -  in any country appreciate beer, they might drink the most awful watery, tasteless pondwater in existence but at least you can suffer together and have a good chat.

Beer in Bulgaria is pretty boring for a beer snob like me, I've tried all of the popularly available beer and it's mosly boring lagers with not much taste, most of them are owned by the massive global beer conglomerates Carlsberg and Inbev etc though I have heard that there are some microbreweries in Sofia (the capital city) so all hope is not lost and I'd bet there are microbreweries elsewhere in the country too. One very nice plus side to beer here however is that you can get Staropramen one of the premier Czech pilsners for the equivalent of less than 50 pence a bottle I've been drinking so much of this lovely beer that it's become average (poor me) and I'm "forced" to branch out to the worse boring lagers to make things interesting although the Bulgarian "Shumensko premium malt" beer is something a bit different from the average which can diversify things a bit.

And those are my first impressions of Bulgaria, I haven't been too active on the photography front just yet but I'll get on that in a future post. I'm planning a journey all across Bulgaria over the next two weeks which should provide many more interesting and in-depth impressions of the country in which I now reside.

Have a good day
("Priaten den") 

P.S 
I was at a birthday party last night and experienced the biggest culture shock of my life, forget the extreme cultural differences of Japan and forget tiny naked male sauna's in Finland this shock was to a simple birthday tradition which is generally the exact opposite of the UK, 
We went for drinks at a cocktail bar and slowly as people left one by one until it was us and the birthday girl the birthday girl got up and went to pay for the whole evening which was a fair bit of money, it is normal in Bulgarian culture for the host to pay for everything and there is more emphasis on the guests to give
presents. Wheras in my experience in the UK, generally the best friends of the birthday person will pay for drinks or the meal. What's it like in your country or what's your experience about birthdays?